The real name is not for any notion of 'security'. It's a psychological thing, to remind users to be civil to each other.
Oh, but wouln't flowers also work? Real names also remind some people in some situations that they cannot talk about certain things openly, and it could be argued to make it less civil in that case. Personally, I post under my real name a lot, and real name or handle has nothing to do with how civil I am, at least that's my (biased?) impression. Some of the worst things I said on Facebook actually :P Or on slashdot, where I have been using my real name for years. What is considered civil or not is up to each community; but the fact that you cannot post certain (perfectly legitimate, if not important) things to a public forum under your real name applies to any and all communities. Some communities may not want that stuff, but the others don't even have the option of using this for that reason, I think.
Believe it or not this actually exists on our very own HN (and discussions here do get 'wild' once in a while). And if it works for HN I don't see why it shouldn't work in other places.
Well okay, it depends on the thresholds I guess. If those are configurable, even better.
Actually, this would be very useful to users in conjunction with notifications. There have been many times when I have posted on a particular thread and then forgotten all about it, and so I miss it when somebody responds to me. This has happened annoyingly often.
Yes, that I totally understand; but doesn't "tagging" someone imply something other than a direct reply? But sure, I guess it could be useful, for example: "I want to travel to X, any suggestions", tagging a few users you remember to have mentioned to have been to X before.. if you used that as a use case, not just "increase user engagement" I would have reacted very differently I think. But maybe also allow users to block certain other users from tagging them if they overdo it.
Why (just curious)? A hosted version is to make it easy for your regular Joe Forum-master. I suspect not many of them would want to learn to manage a VPS.
Well as I said, I only speak for myself... of course there are more people who would like to have a forum than there are people willing to set up a server, so it's not really a criticism of your idea, just one of the reasons why I personally wouldn't be super hot for it. Take all of that in that spirit and good luck, okay?
Oh, but wouln't flowers also work? Real names also remind some people in some situations that they cannot talk about certain things openly, and it could be argued to make it less civil in that case. Personally, I post under my real name a lot, and real name or handle has nothing to do with how civil I am, at least that's my (biased?) impression. Some of the worst things I said on Facebook actually :P Or on slashdot, where I have been using my real name for years. What is considered civil or not is up to each community; but the fact that you cannot post certain (perfectly legitimate, if not important) things to a public forum under your real name applies to any and all communities. Some communities may not want that stuff, but the others don't even have the option of using this for that reason, I think.
Believe it or not this actually exists on our very own HN (and discussions here do get 'wild' once in a while). And if it works for HN I don't see why it shouldn't work in other places.
Well okay, it depends on the thresholds I guess. If those are configurable, even better.
Actually, this would be very useful to users in conjunction with notifications. There have been many times when I have posted on a particular thread and then forgotten all about it, and so I miss it when somebody responds to me. This has happened annoyingly often.
Yes, that I totally understand; but doesn't "tagging" someone imply something other than a direct reply? But sure, I guess it could be useful, for example: "I want to travel to X, any suggestions", tagging a few users you remember to have mentioned to have been to X before.. if you used that as a use case, not just "increase user engagement" I would have reacted very differently I think. But maybe also allow users to block certain other users from tagging them if they overdo it.
Why (just curious)? A hosted version is to make it easy for your regular Joe Forum-master. I suspect not many of them would want to learn to manage a VPS.
Well as I said, I only speak for myself... of course there are more people who would like to have a forum than there are people willing to set up a server, so it's not really a criticism of your idea, just one of the reasons why I personally wouldn't be super hot for it. Take all of that in that spirit and good luck, okay?