Throughout the recent Government of the Student Body election season, we worked hard to provide readers with information on the candidates. Readers themselves worked hard, too, voicing their opinions by sending us a myriad of letters to the editor and posting a wide variety of comments on our Web site.

Most of the discussion has been productive — or civil, at the very least.

But one group of Web site comments in particular caught our eye.

During the campaign, several individuals who posted online adopted the names of historical characters, such as Samuel Adams and Smedley Darlington Butler.

Yes, unbeknownst to many of us, too, Mr. Butler actually was a real person. You can find him on Wikipedia.

What really raised our eyebrows, though, was not Mr. Butler’s biography, but comments he made to a GSB senator that revealed Mr. Butler as an insider.

That’s when we started to dig. What we discovered, based on the e-mail addresses tied to the accounts, was that two of the historical pseudonyms posting on our site were actually sitting GSB senators Dan Finnegan and Erik Hofstad.

Things got even more interesting when the Roling–Dobbels campaign was accused of breaking the election rules because of an e-mail sent out by IRHA President Jason Boggess.

Hofstad went so far as to applaud the election violation in an offhand remark: “But seeing how [Roling–Dobbels] are the side of righteousness and valor, Mr. Boggess simply performed his ISU patriotic duty,” he wrote.

Finnegan raised questions about bias in the election system: “Any other finding by the election commission is a misapplication of the election code and a gross demonstration of favoritism on the part of the supposedly unbiased election commission and commissioner,” he wrote.

To be fair, both say they were being satirical and just playing the role of the characters they had adopted.

But when you’re elected to represent us and you have the bully pulpit of public office, then you give up your ability to make snide, anonymous comments that subvert the system in which you serve.

If senators truly believe that a student government body is biased or fundamentally flawed, that’s a discussion worth having. And, as senators, their opinions on such a matter certainly hold weight.

But bring the issue up through the appropriate channels instead of taking on the name of a historical figure and bitching anonymously to other pretend historical figures.

Doing so is undermining to your position, to GSB as a whole and to the students you represent.

The lessons here — for all of us — are threefold:

First, don’t be pulled in by the siren song of Internet anonymity. Someone, somewhere, with enough time, effort and subpoena power, can tie your actions online back to you — whether the case involves file-sharing, e-mail threats or comments left on a Web site. Don’t do things or say things online that you wouldn’t do or say in real life.

Second, if there’s a reason you don’t want to put your name on your argument, that’s probably a good sign you shouldn’t say it in the first place. If your position precludes you from speaking out on a subject, then bite your tongue. If you wouldn’t want your words to appear next to your mug shot on CNN’s hourly broadcast, then don’t whisper them, write them, e-mail them, tweet them, blog them or post them on an online comment board. As many U.S. senators have found out, words don’t often stay secret for long.

And, third, if you have a valid point, be courageous enough to put your name on it. Public debate has historically been done through face-to-face discussion at town hall meetings — no hiding your identity there. The Web has greatly increased our ability to communicate, and in many ways has been a boon.

But anonymous pseudonyms trading insults don’t contribute to a public form. It’s more like an AOL chat room, circa 1995.

There’s an Internet adage known as “Godwin’s Rule of Nazi Analogies” that states that as an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1.

It’s the ubiquitous logical fallacy of reducto ad Hitlerum — playing the Nazi card.

Anonymity gives online debaters the ability to toss verbal Molotov cocktails without personally suffering any of the consequences in credibility and reputation. The result is an electronic version of trench warfare, in which neither side gains ground, and in the ensuing downward spiral, the biggest casualty of all is the death of what could otherwise have been rational public discourse.

Diverse opinions are the heart and soul of democracy, and if you have one worth stating, then be proud, stand tall and say your name.

There’s a reason every article, column, editorial, page and section of this paper comes tagged with the names of the individuals responsible for their creation. Yes, it helps us give credit where it’s due, but it also makes us more careful about what we write, and it allows our readers to hold us accountable for the content we publish. If you take issue with anything in this paper, our inbox is only a few clicks away.

We’ve got opinions, and we say them loud and clear. Our names are below, for all our readers to see.

If you comment online, it’s only fair to give your readers the same courtesy.