They say never to read the comments. But I do. Every day. I read every comment—the good, the bad, the so ugly it needs to be deleted—because it’s my job. I’m a community management consultant. And, believe it or not, my favorite commenters are anonymous.

#### Annemarie Dooling ##### About Annemarie Dooling is a community strategist who has worked with sites like Salon.com, Yahoo and The Huffington Post. Follow her on Twitter at [@travelinganna](https://twitter.com/TravelingAnna).

On Monday, the editors of Jezebelsent an impassioned public plea to Gawker executives for help dealing with a disturbing troll that their commenting platform, Kinja, can't handle. As WIRED's Laura Hudson wrote, because Kinja lacks in moderation abilities, both editors and community feel unsafe. These anonymous attacks need immediate addressing, but the solution of making every commenter use their real name is not ideal. Instead of verifying names, we should verify people's knowledge.

Anonymity Is the Wrong Enemy

With the onset of trolls, maligned comments sections, and unmoderated communities, a quick-fix solution came to light: allow responses only from non-anonymous readers with their legal names appearing alongside their accounts.

The quickest way for most news organizations to achieve this thus far is by implementing Facebook comments; your username and avatar appear with your comments as they would on Facebook. The social network itself requires a first and last name, email address, gender and birthday when you register for an account, although there is little policing were you to use a falsified name. In fact, imposter accounts are a real problem for Facebook.

The thought process behind non-anonymity is simple, in that anyone who has their identity attached to their comments will be more careful about what they say in a digital forum because it can be traced back to their family and career. But to believe that a system of name verification would deter uncivil discourse, we'd have to believe that all off-color comments are the results of malicious intent, that is, comments specifically for the purpose of aggravation, to cause harm or instill fear. Purposefully hurtful comments would be embarrassing or harmful to attach to your name, the opinions you want to hide from your family and job. But, the truth is that many vitriolic comments come from readers who are proud to associate these views with their identity.

Men's rights activists, thought to live primarily in the shadows of reddit under fake identities, use their names to refute feminism, proudly display photos of themselves and have even created a live conference; read Jessica Roy's account of their Detroit meet-up for just two minutes to understand their connection and passion to their movement and you'll see that there's little shame involved. On PornHub, amateur videos are shared back and forth between members, with no regard for states of undress and vulnerability. Climate deniers, gun advocates and white supremacists proudly display their points of view, and within open communities with little editorial involvement, conversations grow perilous quickly.

Even Google recently pulled back on their forced real-name policy on G+. To enable real names for all commenters, you leave your civil readers open to cyber-bullying on multiple outlets, and real-life danger and you've mistakenly created a dangerous and antagonizing forum. And even still, the names give us no immediate indication of that community member's background, qualifications or truthfulness. What information has that name really given us, and if useful, can we find that information without putting our readers in danger?

The Case for Verifying Knowledge

The better thing to do is to verify what someone knows, not the name someone goes by.

Our fear of anonymity is an extension of our fear of the unknown. Without a recognizable name, these commenters could be anyone! But if we could associate an internet history, even a brief one, to that handle, the human connection becomes instantly apparent. A great example of this is Disqus and its universal login, which creates a history of comments (and flags) across all sites.

Likewise, /r/science, at reddit, stumbling over the spread of misinformation, decided to handle knowledge verification on their own. While anyone can comment, the group elevates scientists and researchers who can create a more thoughtful discussion from behind a pseudonym. To be eligible, a member must have a degree in one of the fields related to subreddit discussion, including astronomy, biology and the social sciences, and message the moderators with “a photo of your diploma or course registration, a business card, a verifiable email address,” or other proof of your relationship to the subject matter. All proof of verification is deleted immediately and never made public.

Similarly, I engage almost daily with a group of science enthusiasts on Salon.com who look forward to a weekly open thread on climate change, an often distraught subject on forums. Though I cannot verify the names of these community members, their understanding of climate issues is apparent through the numerous emails, shared links, and friendships they have formed on the site. As a group they alert moderators when there is an attack, they suggest editorial topics, and share links with other friends in the field. They consider it a personal mission to stop conversations on climate change from derailing into political debate, and so, spend hours and days, in some cases, returning to the same discussion thread, flagging and responding, and keeping the conversation moving.

When I'm managing communities, particularly ones around controversial news like my former work at The Huffington Post or current work with Salon.com, I'm eager to hear from commenters motivated by a deep interest in the subject matter. These readers feel a personal ownership to the work they are reading, draw in others, and move them to action. They teach new members how to integrate and share the rules. They email about typos, and become acquainted with columnists. The most involved community members defend writers from casual, careless attacks. They spend their time crafting perfect responses, and often save these responses off-site, feeling immense pride at their contributions.

And they do all of this from behind pseudonyms they have created to fit their new social family.

As more publications decide to take on engaged audiences, there will be a greater need for a wider set of standards, and procedures that allow us to better know and utilize the knowledge of our readers. Understanding the mastery of these core readers helps us create more relevant content by providing on-the-ground sources, more interaction and reaping greater loyalty from an occupied audience.