I was really intrigued by yesterday's discussion of doxxing on the web.  I felt really conflicted over what happened to the people's whose lives were ruined by having their online persona "outed".  People's online anonymity is important to them.  As someone who frequents Reddit I see a lot of people who will create temporary, throw-away accounts before posting something sensitive.  These throw-away accounts are usually created when a fellow Redditor poses a question to the Reddit community.  People want to answer but they don't want anyone to be able to trace the answer back to them.  There's a need to share experiences with people online but preserving anonymity is crucial.  I think the same could be applied to interviews.  People might want to share their experiences or opinions but are scared that their identities might be revealed.  I think that if a researcher approached the same Redditors and asked them to do an interview there would be hesitation.  An in-person interview feels less anonymous than replying to questions in an online forum even though the researcher probably has a much stricter confidentiality  agreement.