I'm used to it! Just about everything I do on line is linked to my teaching career anyway, There's no way I could teach without ID verification. Not in this age where educational institutions make even parental paranoia look like it's sane.
NB - It is possible (as I'm sure you know) to have secure ID verification so people can act without everyone knowing their full identity.
If you're talking about KYC/AML like needed for financial institutions, that is not possible.
If you just want to verify that an account is a unique person it is possible to try, but the result will always exclude a lot of people or allow abuse by others, most likely both.
Is the KYC/ AML just not possible on steem? I was speaking to a guy the other day who works for Corda who was saying that it is, and they're working on it.
In terms of the 'unique account thing' I understand it would exclude a lot of people, I'm just thinking through the most effective way of preventing the kind of trolling abuse themarkymark is currently being subjected to, for example. I just think that sort of thing is much less likely with a degree of verification. Someone's probably much less likely to do that sort of thing if they didn't have total anonymity.
I don't like the way anonymity empowers trolls. It's not exactly freedom is it - when some wealthy anonymous account holder can flag or troll me into oblivion if I say something to upset them?
Of course I also understand it's a matter of degree, maybe this is something we just have to put up with, as if these arguments are applied to dissident political voices and nation states as the oppressors, it's another level, there I can see why anonymity is useful.
No, it's not possible, as there is no single instance running steem. Steemit Inc. isn't steem - they could theoretically require any verification they want to use their site, on the blockchain level that doesn't matter though.
Trolls will troll and downvotes will be given, but nothing of that affects your freedom to use the functionalities the chain offers.