My site, Scribophile, requires that people sign up with a "pen name", which has to sound like a real name. You don't have to use your actual real name, just something that sounds like it could be a real name.
The idea wasn't to prevent trolling or bad comments--I spent enough time banning trolls and cleaning the forums every day to know that it wouldn't have helped anyway--but to add an air of credibility and, dare I say it, professionalism to the environment.
I've found that people interact more intimately when they're talking to "Bob Smith" instead of "cyberwulf555". People can picture themselves talking to a "Bob", but they can't picture a generic alphanumeric handle as well. It makes people more confident in building lasting relationships. In that respect, the policy has been a complete success.
I haven't found that latter part to be true in communities I've participated in, but it does really depend on the people and topics. In many technical communities, there's a tendency for people who use their real names to go in the opposite direction, and use versions that sound like handles! Initials are a popular way of handle-ifying a name (pg, RMS). You can recover that they refer to real names, but in terms of social norms, few people here address 'pg' as 'Paul'. Another one is to use an 8-char version of your name, akin to a username that might've once been assigned on a Unix system, like someone named Richard Stallman going by 'rstallma'.
(For my part, I use two depending on the situation. This one is the pseudonymous version, and I have another handle that is related to my real name for situations where that seems warranted.)
I joined your site a short while ago and was quite surprised at your "pen name" policy, but surprised in a positive way. I also think that anything that helps take away some of the anonymity of interacting on online forums will lead to an overall increase in posting quality and less flaming/trolling.
Which is interesting, because Google/Facebook also seem to be requiring a "Pen name", really ... until they start checking IDs for a serious proportion of users, and not just the ones which seem odd to them.
The idea wasn't to prevent trolling or bad comments--I spent enough time banning trolls and cleaning the forums every day to know that it wouldn't have helped anyway--but to add an air of credibility and, dare I say it, professionalism to the environment.
I've found that people interact more intimately when they're talking to "Bob Smith" instead of "cyberwulf555". People can picture themselves talking to a "Bob", but they can't picture a generic alphanumeric handle as well. It makes people more confident in building lasting relationships. In that respect, the policy has been a complete success.