But there is no such anonymity for the user known here as "pg."
I used to frequent a forum for tabletop wargaming here in Western Australia that was used for discussing the hobby, setting up games etc. Anonymity really isn't an issue there because everyone knows pretty much everyone else.
While it's not quite on the scale of HN, in the 4 or 5 years that it's been running with over a thousand users, it hasn't had a single trolling incident (except bots).... simply because of the lack of anonymity.
I personally agree with one of the comments in the article which suggests a hybrid system
seems like a quick feature-add could fix this: blog comments should just have a tick box that either displays or hides anonymous commentors. some people care what the trolls say, most people don't. so it should be optional.
What a great idea, optional verification and for those people that want to disable non-verified comments, it can remove the incidents of trolling.
I disagree. I thought about this when we were starting HN, and I deliberately opted for anonymity, though with profiles if people wanted to post stuff in them. When all people know about you is what you say, they judge you based on what you say, instead of who you are.