This is very interesting! So if anonymitiy isn't correlated with abuse, then what is? I believe the answer is community standing. Anonymous and low-ranking users know they will suffer the consequences for foul language therefore they moderate themselves. Users with thousands of edits to their name, knows they will get away with it.
About ten years ago when I edited Wikipedia, there was one particularily nasty user who accused everyone who didn't agree with exactly everything he wrote. I belive this person was mentally ill, but he spent a lot of time on Wikipedia and wrote a lot of content.
Several people brought complaints about him and his toxic behaviour, but he always had the backing of Jimmy Wales (the leader of the project), who would make excuses for him. If the community intervened against this person by for example temporarily banning him, Wales would intervene and undo the ban.
So this person kept being nasty because there were no repercussion. Eventually I believe he got tired of the Wikipedia project and left on his own violiton.
About ten years ago when I edited Wikipedia, there was one particularily nasty user who accused everyone who didn't agree with exactly everything he wrote. I belive this person was mentally ill, but he spent a lot of time on Wikipedia and wrote a lot of content.
Several people brought complaints about him and his toxic behaviour, but he always had the backing of Jimmy Wales (the leader of the project), who would make excuses for him. If the community intervened against this person by for example temporarily banning him, Wales would intervene and undo the ban.
So this person kept being nasty because there were no repercussion. Eventually I believe he got tired of the Wikipedia project and left on his own violiton.