What about having an option to have real authenticated users, where users who want to engage in authentic conversations, collaborations and community, or in other words, which is what old reddit was anyway, can be truly authenticated?

Somehow an account gets authenticated against the person behind it, without exposing information to the site and other redditors. I don't know how this can be done, but surely there must be a way, without human interaction.

Then a user can have the option to block responses from un-authenticated users, if desired so. Something like a more die-hard "dont show below x threshold" option.

I know this is not an answer to the problem, but it is an interesting thing to look into for people who want to weed out unwanted stuff which potentially includes harassers, etc.

Also this gives new opportunities for new stuff to be done, for example, a place to do pledges, or voting within reddit. Going off topic now, but if you want to continue please read below.

I know this is a long shot but, looking at the Armenian Genocide issue, it looked like there was a lack of "visibility" of important people putting their weight behind the issue. I had an idea of how we could have a system where academics, or "vip" people (borrowing from r/IAMA) could sign on recognizing the event, and how this could be a valid proof of people whose opinion matters being behind a cause. Note that this is not simply a change.org idea, but something more. And anyway this whole thing seems to be a neat idea for people who would like to be authenticated to have a more "mature" community.