To generate a hypothesis about the effects of anonymity on user participation in online communities, comments on Youtube were analysed for effects of the change from allowing pseudonyms to Google+ with its real name policy. Small differences were detected, leading to the hypothesis that the option to remain anonymous leads to a less active environment for getting feedback, with less polite and less rude comments on the expense of neutral ones.
@cite_5: Online communities depend upon the commitment and voluntary participation of their members. Community design — site navigation, community structure and features, and organizational policies — is critical in this regard. Community design affects how people can interact, the information they receive about one another and the community, and how they can participate in community activities. We argue that the constraints and opportunities inherent in online community design influence how people become attached to the community and whether they are willing to expend effort on its behalf. We examine two theories of group attachment and link these theories with design decisions for online communities. Common identity theory makes predictions about the causes and consequences of people's attachment to the group as a whole. Common bond theory makes predictions about the causes and consequences of people's attachment to individual group members. We review causes of common identity and common bond, and show how they ...
There is also a lot of literature describing factors influencing participation. Anonymity is there seldom a main focus, but it gets mentioned. An example for that is a main thread in the literature: The being used by as described in @cite_5 . The theory sees two types of connection between the members of a community - Identity and Bond - influenced by different factors, , and for Identity and , and for Bond. Some of them can be linked to anonymity, SIDE theory does that explicitly with , as described in the introduction.