But there's at least one more dimension to this that seems completely orthogonal, and that's identity. If you want your opinion to be appreciated, then I think that you should be willing to identify yourself. With so much information competing for my attention, I'm much more willing to pay attention to people that give me a way to track back to some background on them, whether they are famous or not. So unless you're worried about your opinion triggering a nighttime visit from the secret police, don't hide your identity. Mine's here: http://blog.neontology.com/about.