alexandraerin

I don't know neo_prodigy, also known as Dennis Upkins. I don't know his fandom history. I don't have a horse in any pissing contests that may involve him. It's only because it's shown up in my friendslist that I know about this. This isn't a defense of a person or of a book, it's just my analysis of a situation.

(Though a horse would be a fantastic ringer in a pissing contest, you have to admit.)

There's an image going around that purports to show him posting a review of his own book on Amazon under a sockpuppet with a feminine name and a proclaimed identity as a queer woman, with his real identity being revealed by Amazon's "Real Name™" certification badge... the idea we're supposed to come away with is that he posted this review not realizing how Amazon's identity verification worked and not realizing he was exposing himself to the world.

I heard about this from a friend who was posting in support of neo-prodigy, who has made a post claiming it's a frame-job. I will be honest: my first thought was to warn her that the Real Name™ system doesn't work that way, but then I started thinking about how it does work and I have to say that however unlikely it might seem that a troll would manage to get an account with a name verified to match an author they don't like, it's even less likely that someone could accidentally out themselves as a sockpuppet in this manner.

The supposed sockfail makes a great "LOL, how can someone be so stupid?" image, but in this case, that question is worth asking... how could someone manage to get in that situation by accident?

First, it's not like there's a checkbox on the review form that he might have clicked by accident, thinking that this "Real Name™" thing would just make his fake identity look more real. To get an Amazon Real Name™, you have to go in to where you choose/change your Pen Name and click on a link to use your real name instead. Someone who's trying to use a fake name would probably not do that.

If they wanted to check it out to see if they could use it to add a layer of verisimilitude to their fake name, they'd see right away that they can't: their only options are to choose variations of their actual billing name from their credit cards, and then they have to confirm at the bottom that the name they chose is their real name. It would take an impressive level of stupidity for me to go in there and think that certifying "Alexander Lastname" as my actual legal name would compel Amazon to let people think that "Alexandra Erin" is my legal name.

But let's grant that someone might miss the point of that exercise. Then they go back to post their review. The reviews are a key feature of Amazon's site. They want them to be good. You can't just post a review, you have to preview it and approve it first, which means that if you have accidentally put your real name in as your Real Name™, it will be jumping out at you from the top of the screen when you hit preview. It's hard for a human being to miss the unexpected inclusion of their name on a page, especially when it's a different color and up top and there's nothing on the screen but the review.

I can't imagine somebody doing "high-stakes sock puppetry" without scouring the screen for any clues to their real identity, and our sock puppeteer would have to miss it twice, unless we believe they'd hit submit and then close the tab like they're fleeing the scene of a crime. I can't imagine the Scott Adamses of the world posting proclamations of their own genius and then not sitting back to admire their handiwork a little, so I can't really imagine neo-prodigy not noticing his name staring at him in between chuckling about "the perfect crime"...

And as soon as he saw his name, all he would have to do is delete the review himself before anybody else sees it.

Seriously... anyone who believes this is legit, I invite you to do some investigating of your own. Go into Amazon. See what the Real Name™ interface is like. Make a test review on a random book; you don't have to submit it, just stopping at the preview should be enough. Can you honestly see someone who's trying to hide their identity doing all this and not realizing they're putting their actual name on the post?

That's the part that cinches it for me. I could believe someone would have turned on Real Name™ at some point in the past and then not think about it when they go to post a review today, but they would have had to have missed their name staring at them out of the text at least twice, and then they would have had to stand pat on it even after it was pointed out all over the internet.

None of this is proof one way or the other. No other explanation aside from the obvious (that it was just him and he got caught) seems very likely, but the obvious explanation seems unlikely, too. The idea that someone found a way around the Real Name™ system seems like the least unfathomable one.

(Sidenote: While the review was up, did anybody click on the reviewer's name to link to their profile? Because that could be revealing, but there don't seem to be any caps of that. If it had been him, there would have been links to other reviews he's made... but since there doesn't seem to be a "See All My Reviews" link alongside the name in the cap of the review itself, it seems likely that the profile had never been used for reviews before. Which makes the idea that the Real Name™ was something set up way back and then forgotten about seem unlikely.)

Edit To Add:

I've just in fact learned how easy it is to get a fake "Real Name™" on Amazon... I'm leery about publicizing the method because I'd hate to see it proliferating, but if it comes up elsewhere I'll add it to this post. Edit #2: Make that two methods. It's really surprisingly easy... it helps to remember here that a credit card is not actually a form of identification, and Amazon's "Real Name™" program is more or less a cosmetic assurance... it's not like people are licensed and bonded under it.