This will be a stub post until I have all my data and editorial points lined up (and this will be an entry in Filigree’s Rule, too). The summary:
If you are a young writer, please don’t engage in elaborate sockpuppet catfishing schemes to get reviews for your novel. At some point it’s going to backfire, and at the very least you will look stupid. At worst, you may endanger not only your writing career, but any future career as well.
If you are any writer, do not respond to one or two-star reviews. Don’t get into flamewars with reviewers. Don’t create sockpuppet accounts to troll your negative reviewers. See above.
If you are best-selling, seasoned novelist, do not do ANY OF THE ABOVE. Or fergawdssake, don’t boast about it at a major writing festival. Or build it into the platform of your identity. Your writing has been good enough to carry the day, why waste your time and energy being Don Quixote and inventing enemies to puff up your self-esteem? Even if you are not dumb enough to out yourself, once people figure out what’s happening, it cheapens your real hard work and genuine achievements.
Just think, you could have been writing.
Author’s note added 1-18-16: I’ve decided I do not want to further reward the two idiots I was going use as examples. No free publicity for them. The information has been added to the Filigree’s Rule list, and this post stays just like it is.