Of course talking to people whose names you do not know is not always the best senario. People hid behind this fact on some social media sites and forums like this, at least I have mine out there for better or worse.
Of course it makes one famous.
Well talking to people whose names you do not know is probably not the best thing to do if you are on some dating site or they plan to meet up with you in some dark alley in Surrey for the first time and you have never met them before. If the anonymous person is just being abusive and threatening and is not bringing anything to the table to discuss then I agree that talking to those people is not a good thing to do. However, not sure how your concerns apply if the individual, anonymous or not, is talking about the issues and is not being abusive to the point of being kicked off a forum - especially if the individual has knowledge on the topic to contribute.
Personally, I think Morton just uses that as an excuse not to engage the other person because she is afraid of coming up against someone that will call her on what she has been saying. Her Facebook page and her blog are generally big love-ins where she has the power to remove any post she feels is not worthy; whereas, on fishing forums and news media sites she has no power to edit or remove posts. When she is on here she is a member like anyone else, even the anonymous individuals, and there is no way she can control what is said. Additionally, she is more comfortable on sites where there is ample support for her. She is more than willing to feed the propaganda to her followers from her blog or FB page and have them take the bullet on the sites she can't control. She can keep her hands cleaner that way. That is why she uses that excuse.
When Morton was last here on this board nobody to my knowledge was being abusive to her. However, there were questions raised by some of us as well as some rebuttal to what she posted. Instead, she took off and left it up to her followers to answer for her. If her theories are so correct she should have no problem discussing them on places like this. Right now, Morton is preaching to the converted and staunch supporters which really is not very productive. The population base she is unable to crack are the educated ones (including practical experience)that actually know something about Pacific Salmon, pathogens, diseases, habitat, etc....as well as something about aquaculture.