Is the alias thing getting out of hand?

Why is this even allowed? Its not always funny. Its major use is to anonymously attack someone, or to be hostile. Its shit at every level.

Nice balanced and considered opinion there.

It's allowed because I believe in privacy and not having censorship. It's allowed because I think it's really important to allow people to express opinions without having this be associated to what I'll call their real identity. These may be views such as political preference, sexual orientation, etc. I believe that it is a fundamental principle of democratic societies that privacy is permitted and kept intact, and that means the ability to express political opinions without being judged by it or it being held against you. This manifests itself online within a forum that forces registration as providing a mechanism and service for people to register and voice those opinions without it being exposed who their alias is.

So that's why it's allowed.

But I've shown in the past and enshrined in the rules that those who use aliases to just be jerks will discover that they cannot hide behind those aliases. Fundamentally no-one is anonymous on the internet and so I an of course figure out your real identity should I feel a need to (reported posts, incidents, etc). It's just that I won't do that for anything political, sexual, etc which is none of my business and part of my core beliefs.

I've also said that if I do ban someone, then they risk having all of their aliases deleted or merged into their primary account. So there is in fact a risk that should you have posted political stuff and find yourself being banned, should you then try and use your aliases to circumvent the ban I would merge them all and this would link your real identity to your political posts. So there is a edge case in there that has risk, but I doubt that it will happen to anyone (it hasn't to date).

Anyhow, alias are allowed for very good reasons and the ability to have aliases won't be removed. It's fundamental, it's considered and it will always be a capability of a site that I run.