David Pogue, guru of all things technological at the New York Times, wrote a great post on the issue of codes of conduct in the blogosphere, including those who leave anonymous, not entirely courteous, comments.

The quality of the discussion at nytimes.com/pogue is very, very high, as a number of readers have noted with delight. I think the biggest reason is that on this blog, readers don't feel anonymous. Your comment is posted under a nickname, but you're nonetheless aware that we know who you are; after all, you've signed up for free nytimes.com registration. Plenty of Pogue's Post readers even use their real names as their nicknames.

And why not? If you're proud of your thoughts, why would you be afraid to be associated with them?

Yes, I know, there are exceptions; certain blog topics have good reasons for offering anonymity (spouse-abuse forums, HIV sites and so on). I'm not suggesting that *all* blogs eliminate anonymity.

Nor am I suggesting censorship. As Tim O'Reilly put it: "I'm not suggesting that every blog will want to delete such comments, but I am suggesting that blogs that do want to keep the level of dialog at a higher level not be censured for doing so."

Read the rest right here.