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("Implement a real name policy")

Seriously? Why does anyone think this is a good idea? Can't we just stomp this one out for good?

I really miss noms de guerre. It saddens me that we moved away from handles and pseudoanonymity being a default.

Says the guy using his real name.

I think Hacker News' name policy is just about right. Its public enough that we don't have things going on like 4chan, but its not public to the point people are afraid to comment their opinions.

> Hacker News' name policy..

Did I miss something? I can't find any username policy in HN's guidelines.

Well, it has usernames. That's a policy in and of itself!

The policy, then, is completely implicit: you can have any valid username which may or may not reflect your own name.

Oh, and you can't change them after the fact. As far as I know. That would be a nice feature...

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