Regarding the question in the title, no.

The problem with anonymous flamers isn't the flamer, obnoxious posts is easy to ignore. They're personal attacks, and I can see no motive/reward for someone posting them than to provoke people to come to the defense of the insulted individual, thereby disrupting conversation.

Individual idiots are not a problem. The extreme nastiness happens when we let them change and control our collective "mood," and this has happened. I have pulled back quite a bit from Mudcat because of it. We quit listening to the words in a post and react to the fact that it's "anon." Where otherwise, we would ask "what did you mean," we knee-jerk flame anonymous posters. When I signed on in May, I don't recall this happening, but I may have just missed it. It seems people see anyone who doesn't sign their name as the enemy. For my part, I will read and try to understand the words they write.

I do think that some mandatory name, (they could type in "XYZ" for all I care) even for cookieless anons would be a good idea, so we know who to refer to, instead of "well, the second anon said..."