In my past life I've worked on the Google Maps identity story when Google Hotpot launched (allowing you to set a maps nickname, while still having friends on Google Maps). I feel that identity on the web is a harder problem than most people realize.
My personal opinion is that you have to strike the right balance between
+ establishing trust in the production of content (you want other people to trust what you post, build an identity). Producing anonymous/pseudonymous content is fine, but how can I, as a consumer of that content (reader of reviews) can make sure I can trust it?
+ offerring users the protection they want from entities bothered by the content you produce. This can range from the extreme cases of freedom of speech, minorities, sensitive issues (medical, sexual orientation) to the more trivial examples of bad reviews for restaurants where the owners might track you down.
+ incentivizing the production of high quality content and discussions (see the quality of YouTube comments for a case of user generated content gone wrong :-) ).
+ making it easy for users to deal with this identity complexity. Understanding that even though you are logged in with your GMail account you are posting as a Nickname, understanding what others can or cannot infer about you.
It's a complicated problem full of tradeoffs any way you want to go.
+ Go with real-name all the time and you upset the people that are not comfortable exposing their real name.
+ Go with pseudonymity and you lose the benefits brought by having an identity on the web.
+ Go with a compromise and you have to deal with complicated user experience problems.
My personal opinion is that you have to strike the right balance between
+ establishing trust in the production of content (you want other people to trust what you post, build an identity). Producing anonymous/pseudonymous content is fine, but how can I, as a consumer of that content (reader of reviews) can make sure I can trust it?
+ offerring users the protection they want from entities bothered by the content you produce. This can range from the extreme cases of freedom of speech, minorities, sensitive issues (medical, sexual orientation) to the more trivial examples of bad reviews for restaurants where the owners might track you down.
+ incentivizing the production of high quality content and discussions (see the quality of YouTube comments for a case of user generated content gone wrong :-) ).
+ making it easy for users to deal with this identity complexity. Understanding that even though you are logged in with your GMail account you are posting as a Nickname, understanding what others can or cannot infer about you.
It's a complicated problem full of tradeoffs any way you want to go. + Go with real-name all the time and you upset the people that are not comfortable exposing their real name. + Go with pseudonymity and you lose the benefits brought by having an identity on the web. + Go with a compromise and you have to deal with complicated user experience problems.