I really doubt this. The mask of anonymity completely removes accountability on forums. Pseudonomity is a better approach, along with moderation, and ultimately, a community committed to civil discourse. But the quality of commentary on any forum is a fragile balance, as the evolution of HN has demonstrated.
Accountable to whom? What accountability? Why was this necessary? Accountability wasn't necessary, as most forums were never big enough to really matter. Facebook, Reddit, Twitter are now forces of nature, especially in politics and matters of public opinion.
> Pseudonomity
This has varying degrees of anonymity - you need to further express what you mean by this, because on its own you could support anonymity through pseudonyms.
> and ultimately, a community committed to civil discourse. But the quality of commentary on any forum is a fragile balance, as the evolution of HN has demonstrated.
Yep, something much easier to do on the old forums of yesteryear - they were much smaller, much easier to moderate, and much easier to remediate if they were unfairly moderated.
Accountable to the community represented by the forum itself. Participants in a forum need to have some kind of skin in the game, even if it's based on their pseudonymous identity, which brings us to ...
> Pseudonomity > This has varying degrees of anonymity
By this I mean a consistent identity that has a history, credibility deriving from a track record of adhering to the community standards. It doesn't have to reference your legal identity, but things like the HN "throwaway" drive-by accounts are a problem, IMO, except in rare cases where the individual would take a great personal risk by speaking out even as their pseudonymous identity. But in that case, the bar of evidence for assertions should be very high.
Most forums were based around a hobby or a particular subject, and communities formed around that. Sure, you'd have arguments, or someone stepping out of line, easily solved by a moderator. Sometimes moderators got to powerful and people left and joined another or did something else.
Most of my forum days were based on PC building or video games. Most of them had a bunch of boards with varying topics - and possibly a politics one. You could always separate it out easily because it wasn't visible by default.
Social media today everything is visible by default without anonymity. There is no effective way to filter content - only people, or profiles.