Which do you prefer and why?
IDs at least instill some sense of order. Otherwise discussions tend to descend into 'samefag' self-promotion matches..
e.g.
6 "You suck"
7 ">>6 You tell him, this guys a genius!!!"
IT helps decipher genuine community support and someone trying to make themselves look good. It's also hilarious when users forget about the ID and reply to their own post 5 times.. :D
Sure, people can still use proxies- but it's too much effort.
IDs or promote the users to use names and trips.
Alternatively, IDs provide an alternative solution to one of the main purposes of names/trips (the need for cross-post identification), and thus either:
I have no hard evidence to back this up, but on 4chan, which doesn't implement an ID system, I see a lot more "tripfags" than on boards that do. Even then, the name-users on these other sites are almost always using the system in an acceptable manner (talking about the topic instead of themselves). This probably has more to do with demographic than the ID system, but it's still something to consider.
There was a thread similar to this on world4ch /lounge/ a while back, but a lot of them were militantly against the idea of an ID, even after it was explained in detail of how it works. Considering the proximity of world4ch to 4chan though, that's not really surprising.
Funny thing though, is that there was an ID system in place there back in 2007 and they didn't even notice it unless someone mentioned it.
On the subject for the most part, I agree with >>2
Promoting name use helps add the community feel to an imageboard.
A forced id is just a method of vague identification.
>name
>"community feel"
Why don't you just use phpBB while you're at it.
I think that IDs should be used in certain boards, and not in others. Namely, if you have a board dedicated to discussing a single topic (semi)seriously, you should implement IDs. On this kind of board, the benefits of total anonymity are outweighed by the need to continue an argument peacefully.
On the other hand, if you have a more lighthearted board, where everyone just jokes around together or whatnot, it's better not to have IDs (or even names, for that matter). Not being able to tell who said what, even within a thread, makes things much more humorous.