Internetiquette – Anonymous Commenting

What is the appeal of anonymous commenting on a blog?

I’ve only had two on this main blog, but the only time I’ve ever received an anonymous comment on the LiveJournal version of the blog was in an instance when the person leaving the comment did want their name attached to what they had to say, because it was just passive-aggressive silliness.

On this blog, all comments have to be approved, unless you’ve had a previously approved comment, and I haven’t approved the two anonymous comments I’ve received. I actually deleted them entirely yesterday, after a long period of letting them just sit there. This might seem non-kosher, I don’t know… but the more I thought about it, the less interested I was in allowing a comment that can’t be responded to and didn’t seem to have much importance to the person commenting.

I have a plugin that allows threaded commenting on this blog, and when you comment, I reply directly to you, in a way that is emailed back to you and you’re aware of. One of the biggest problems I have with almost any blog is the fact that I can’t easily be updated on follow ups to my comments, so it’s important for me that people aren’t expected to subscribe to my comments to be aware when I reply to theirs.

Maybe it’s the fact that I think comments are supposed to be part of a conversation, and anonymity takes away my ability to respond or continue the conversation, or maybe it’s my own personal views on a person who doesn’t have the balls to put a name behind criticism (I don’t think I’ve ever had an anonymous comment that wasn’t passive aggressive criticism), but I think I plan to continue my recent policy of just deleting anonymous comments.

What do you think about anonymous commenting? I know that a lot of people don’t allow it at all, but you can still end up with fake information along the lines of “Anonymous” with email “anonymous@anonymous.com,” which was the case with my two received comments. What do you do with anonymous comments on your blog?
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Internetiquette is an ongoing series of writing that contain my thoughts on internet etiquette and how to reduce your jerk footprint on the web.