* naive idealists who believe that truth and reason matter more than immediate public perception
This is subtly different than "people who don't care about real life reputation" in that they sincerely hope that despite any short term damage to reputation, in the long run others (or at least some subset) will come respect their honesty and rationality.
I'm probably naive and idealist, but at least on HN, I think this is a significant group. Although, am I reading correctly that you are considering HN to be "without anonymity"? In the current "persistent pseudonymous" system, what do you think constitutes a "fake account"?
> Although, am I reading correctly that you are considering HN to be "without anonymity"?
No. Sorry if unclear. I categorise HN accounts as pseudonymous with optional real life names.
> In the current "persistent pseudonymous" system, what do you think constitutes a "fake account"?
What would annoy me is real sockpuppet accounts, controlling more than one account and using it to
* upvote ones own comments and postings
* astroturf
* using it as a strawman to defame opponents (i.e. by running a sock puppet account that seemingly supports some cases while posting bad arguments for that case etc.)
* etc
Personally I have nothing against using multiple accounts as long as there is a reason (i.e. someone has an account with full name and another that they use when they want to post or comment something that they do not want to reflect back on their real life persona, family and workplace.)
I have hypothesised that the reason is that without anonymity only
* (trolls with) fake accounts
* politically correct people and people who think they are pc
* and people who don't care about real life reputation anyway
post in any kind of controversial debate.
Normal knowledgeable people doesn't want to lose the dream job because of something they commented on 5 years ago.