I havent heard that in ages. What was it about your name on the board? Makes me laugh now but i remember being absolutely scared to death.
I think that the practice is effective at teaching children that there are liars in the world and the good ol' boy system tends to supersede integrity. It also reinforces that intimidation can lead to short term success.
Get in the Wayback machine and recall that those "taking names" often protected their friends or if your name was written down you could coerce the name taker into removing your name. Practice for adulthood I guess.
While doing the right thing just because it is the right thing is the best way, doing the right thing because you fear discovery if you do the wrong thing, at least keeps you from doing those things you should not be doing. Not perfect, but it can work.
What ATS is talking about is if you can't change the inner man, at least change the outer man's behavior.