Is sockpuppeting unethical, and why?

[Arch0wl]

Will reply later tonight, but I want to touch on a few things before I do:

You said "I read the Onion because I think it's funny and don't expect it to be sincere, because that's not its goal." That's my point. The Onion isn't deceptive because you have a mutual understanding that the medium (satire) isn't sincere. But for the Onion to be funny, it has to be deceptive in some way, e.g. someone who is much dumber than you could sincerely believe it.

This is because satire, as a medium, carries no expectation of sincerity. Fiction, also, carries no expectation of sincerity. Both of these forms of communications are understood to be devoid of claims about reality. By enabling reviews with pseudonyms, you're opting-in to this insincerity; this isn't "well, everyone does it so it's okay" -- this is "it was screwed before anyone did anything, and you can only make it better by using a different medium entirely (real names)."

And if you have an understanding that a medium is bullshit, then there isn't anything deceptive about you using it that way; there isn't anything deceptive about someone speaking in sarcasm because we have an understanding that sarcasm is saying things you don't mean intentionally. The problem here isn't that people do this, it's that people still expect pseudonyms to carry legitimate weight on par with or even approximating real reviewers.