I've been thinking about the arrogance displayed by a few members recently - and the subsequent in-fighting that it inevitably causes - and I just thought I'd throw this out there as an idea..
Another forum I frequent actually requires people to post a brief introduction about themselves - their first name and last initial, their age, their education, etc. before they're even allowed to post on the forums.
They also require that some form of their name be used as their 'handle' so they can be quickly identified (mine would have to be rbirch or ryanb - initials are not good enough). Pseudonym's are not allowed (no offense Pseudonym!) The idea behind this is that people who create random handles and say nothing about themselves in their profile (I.E. - they were born in 1910 and are now 99 years old) seem to have more of a tendancy to be argumentative and a general pain in the butt. When people have their real names out there, it seems to somewhat deter the whole "everyone's a tough guy on the internet" attitude. If you don't post your intro, the admins delete your posts, no questions asked (after a couple reminders to post the intro first). Some people complain that they want to remain anonymous on the internet and that a first name, last initial is too much info. The reponse is basically, "that's fine, go and post somewhere else then."
Would it be worthwhile to do something like that here?
Now I fully understand that this forum already has ~2500 members, and asking the majority of them to change their handles may not even be possible - let alone the royal pain in the arse it would be!
But I just wanted to throw it out there anyway and see what others thought of the idea..