I take the opposite view; this is the return of reputation. The internet ends the anonymity of urban living. Are you a chronic liar, a drunken slut, a responsible employee or a good parent? Soon the world will know so act accordingly.
More like "does someone think you're a chronic liar or a drunken slut" or "have you got on the wrong side of someone"?
Better hope you can please everyone or this reputation of yours is ruined.
This entire concept seems creepy, judgmental and open to abuse.
A story from the spooky future...
Father: "I told you to do your homework before flying on your jetpack with your space friends! You're grounded! Go to your room."
Child stomps up stairs. Soon, the soft sound of typing "...and he routinely abuses his children, both sexually and psychologically. And he's a drunk."
Right now children can effortlessly destroy the lives of parents, family members or teachers... by spreading exactly those kinds of lies.
Unless... of course people claim ownership of their accusations. In which case the laws against libel come into play again.
If anything reputation would be more important, somebody has to put their reputation on the line to criticize someone else.
I'm extremely unlikely to hire a person who I can't find online somewhere, unless I know them personally. I don't trust anonymous, and in this world, without that online identity, that's what you are.
An example: most of us would agree that there's nothing wrong with being gay, but most gay people wouldn't put it on a resume, knowing that there's still 1 out of 10 people who will have a problem with it. There's also nothing to gain, in a job search, by being public about heterosexuality. So sexual preference is (like politics and religion) just an area that many people choose to keep professionally private. One's political views could be beneficial-- most people would agree with my posts where I call Bush a fucking moron-- but generally people prefer to hold these cards close to their chests and be judged on their professional merits alone.
Privacy is necessary not only for the few who have objectively bad (drunken slut, chronic liar) things to hide but also for the much greater pool of us who have things that they might be proud of (political activism, religious views) but wouldn't want to inject into their professional lives.
Also, as with small towns in the past, there's the problem of reliability. Old-style small communities may have done a good job of policing some "indiscretions", but many have witch-burnings on their hands too... and we know those accusations weren't based in any reality whatsoever.
For some more enlightened bosses, this is an extremely valuable trait (I'm thinking the Feynman & Bohr story at Los Alamos). But for most bosses, this is a pretty large negative. Maybe they're insecure or think you should know your place. Or perhaps more mildly, they might think you have a chip on your shoulder.
I am pretty sure openly signalling certain traits HNers would consider good - like intellectual independence and curiosity - are a net negative socially and job-wise, especially after reading Schmidt's Disciplined Minds.