"Suit Asks for Names of Online Commenters" - Media Decoder Blog - NYTimes.com

Newspapers invited this problem by failing to require commentors to post comments in their real names. Allowing anonymous postings with fictitious names/pseudonymns struck me as dumb when it started and it has gotten more and more stupid over the years. Newspapers ought to do the right thing and bar such comments. Those believing they need confidentiality should be given a route to do so; but these would be rare exceptions to the rule of ... if you want to say something, say who you are when you do. Period.