This topic has been discussed about 500 times before. Though, nobody threatened to boycott Ax over it :-)

I feel similarly to Dave Croft (I think) in believing that a community where everyone has everything out on the table is a healthier community. However, that just isn't reality, especially not on the internet. As Colin H. said, it's not really about profiles or no profiles. It's about behavior. If someone has inappropriate behavior, it doesn't matter if they have a profile or not. However, people are more likely to push the limits of acceptable behavior if they are acting under anonymity, and that is what Dave Croft is pointing to.

I've thought about this over the years and I have some ideas on how to help improve the situation, but it will never be perfect. What could help are better moderation tools, abuse reporting tools, an improved registration system and perhaps the idea I brought up a long time ago regarding "verified accounts" where a user could opt to verify their identity with the moderators (but not necessarily publicly) and that would give them an icon next to their name showing that they believe in acting in the best interest of the community. Then you could know who the more serious posters are. Of course, this would place some trust in the hands of the Ax moderation for those who still wanted to be verified but still remain anonymous. But we've done a good job at keeping private data private (like email addresses or user identities) in the past when people asked us.

Some of you know that I have plans for redeveloping Ax and branching off from it into a much larger project (multiple websites related to fighting). I've been talking to a developer for the past year and I'm discussing options with a potential investor for the project. Some of the above ideas are included in the plans. Hopefully, those plans will happen and the Ax community can grow into something better than it is today.