Conversely, the best online community I know is our village website, where real names are required - on the basis that you're less likely to be rude to someone who you might meet in the street tomorrow. It's notable that the biggest aggro we have is generally from people who live outside the village and therefore aren't invested in making relationships work.
And yes, I do realise it's all a bit Royston Vasey - "a local website for local people"...
I grew up on anonymous message boards in small communities, largely the ones surrounding video game music and chiptunes/"micromusic." There was some nasty behavior exhibited and I always figured it was the anonymous pseudonyms. Then I joined Facebook and saw the same thing playing out with real names and, usually, real faces as avatars.
In America, we have a social network called NextDoor that uses aggressive methods to keep outsiders from being able to post in your hyper-local community/neighborhood. Your village's site is the same concept, only maybe without the postcard-mailed address verification step.
It's a great concept. Just neighbors helping each other out, right? I thought that, besides the required real names, most members having profile pictures of their real faces, and many of them having their exact addresses listed on their profile page (oh, Bob lives 8 houses down from me!), would put a halt to the vitriol I saw on Facebook. It hasn't.
It must be something about looking at a picture on a screen instead of a human who's reacting, visibly, in real-time to our hateful words, that lets us do what we do online.
I'm working with the editor of our local newspaper to put together something for our community, and would be interested in hearing more about your village website. Could I get a link?
And yes, I do realise it's all a bit Royston Vasey - "a local website for local people"...