Simon Alexander Collier
  • Home
  • About Me
  • Books
  • Historical Timeline
  • Historical Figures
  • Japanese Terms
  • Blog: Of Simon and Samurai
  • Contact Me
  • Links

Death to All Sock Puppets!

10/12/2012

0 コメント

 
Picture
There have been a few recent stories about the use by certain authors of “sock puppets” – online identities created for the purpose of deception. This deceit usually involves writing glowing reviews of your own work from fictitious “readers”, but in some cases also involves the anonymous trashing of the work of rivals. Paying for reviews, while not strictly sock puppetry, often also gets rolled in as part of the same problem.

There is no evidence that these furry creatures have over-run the online environment, and as far as is known most Amazon reviews are by unpaid genuine readers. But to the extent that it weakens confidence in the online reviewing process it damages all writers and hence in my opinion a good dose of myxomatosis is warranted. In fact, one group of writers has begun just such an eradication campaign, stating that they “unreservedly condemn this behaviour, and commit never to use such tactics.” Please consider me equally committed.

There does seem to me a hierarchy within sock puppetry: paying for reviews is cheating; writing them yourself is worse; slagging off a rival from behind a pseudonym is the most deplorable of all. The easy test with this, as with most forms of behavior, is “would you be comfortable telling your friends and family you had done it?” I think not, and if you feel the need to keep it secret then it can’t be acceptable. Everything else is sophistry. 

One of the best-selling self-published authors, John Locke, now admits to having purchased reviews early on in his career, but this admission has come only once he had acquired the protection of a best-seller reputation. I bet he wasn’t bragging about it down the pub in the days when he was happy to sell in double figures for the week. (He’s also a writer who claims he no longer reads books – too busy writing it seems – so perhaps no great weight should be attached to his opinions.)

No one is saying writers have to be paragons of virtue. Thank goodness. But in the week when Lance Armstrong’s contempt for his own sport and its fans was finally exposed, it should be possible for writers to respect the trade they themselves have gotten into.

0 コメント



返信を残す

    Author

    Simon Alexander Collier is a former British diplomat and the author of "Milligan and the Samurai Rebels", a humorous, historical novel set in the Japan of the 1860s. 
    Born in 1970 in Oxford, England, Simon now lives in Tokyo, Japan. He is married with two children. 

    Archives

    1月 2016
    8月 2013
    7月 2013
    6月 2013
    5月 2013
    4 月 2013
    3月 2013
    2月 2013
    1月 2013
    12月 2012
    11月 2012
    10月 2012
    9月 2012
    8月 2012
    7月 2012
    6月 2012
    5月 2012

    Categories

    すべて

    RSSフィード

のシステムを使用 カスタマイズできるテンプレートで世界唯一のウェブサイトを作成できます。