The old boards had an option to have a friends list, but I could never tell what good it did. I had a couple people on it if I remember correctly, and I never saw any notifications about it.
That’s because it didn’t do a damn thing.
What good would that do? To his followers who are not aware of the existence of the SDMB, it would just seem to be a petty and random potshot by a prominent public figure, lowering their esteem of him, and it could have the side effect of bringing a torrent of unwanted trolls onto this board. I don’t see anything good that can come out of your idea, except for satisfying your own self-doubt.
Personally, the fact that the tweet came out when he said it would come out is good enough proof for me. If you’re still adamant for actual proof, there’s a way to do it without dragging the SDMB into the spotlight:
- Send a private message to neiltyson through SDMB, letting him know of your Twitter handle
- In this private message, also ask him to send a DM from his authenticated Twitter handle to your Twitter handle, saying “Hi wolfpup!” or whatever
Chances are though, he’ll probably just get annoyed and ignore you.
To Pseudonym: we had a troll here awhile back who used the above President’s name for his handle. He’s now banned.
We also had a poster here who called himself Satan. I had no doubts he was the real deal.
I’m not demanding that he do this, I’m just saying what it would take to overcome my strong skepticism. And don’t you think the real NDT is smart enough to just make some offhand comment at the end of a tweet that might seem cryptic to his followers, but would be meaningful to us doubters here and clear things up once and for all? No reason he needs to mention the SDMB directly. As for trolls, it comes with the territory – the admins here have always been interested in optimizing our Google ranking – i.e.- the more publicity the better.
What “Twitter handle”? I’ve never used Twitter. Never will, either. But this is the kind of thing mods can do: prove that you are who you claim to be, or be banned. This board has always had a cultural aversion to deceit.
As for being “annoyed”, our new join – whoever he may be – was concerned enough about trying to establish his bona fides that he came down to the Pit to do so.
Anyway, I don’t run this place. If this poster is a fake, there’s nothing I can personally do about it and it’s really not directly any of my business.
Yes, that’s what I meant. It was sort of a joke, since this isn’t twitter. On the other hand, I did go over and follow. 
At this point I find it very unlikely that he isn’t who he claims to be. It’s not like he has a predictable schedule tweet schedule that any rando could forecast. Which is pretty cool!
How does Occam’s razor interact with:
- NeilTyson tells us that his next Tweet will be at a certain time, to the minute, as proof of his identity.
- NDT’s next Tweet is at that time.
What alternative explanation do you offer?
Nobody actually cares about your “strong skepticism “. So there ya go.
Meh, this has exploded into one of those pointless internet bickering contests. I’m not that invested in it. But on this point, I can ask some questions in return. Do you think NDT does his own tweets (as well as posting on random message boards, because he has so much spare time)? How many people could have known about the upcoming tweet, including the staff and volunteers at the Hayden and the nearly 1000 staff at the American Museum of Natural History under which the Hayden operates and where NDT is a research associate? Could some bored intern working somewhere in this milieu, either directly or incidentally involved in clerical things like tweeting, think it would be fun to come to a random message board and impersonate NDT?
My skepticism could be totally misplaced. I don’t know NDT, I don’t know how he behaves. But in terms of Occam’s Razor, how many celebrities of this stature have we had randomly appearing on this board, for no apparent reason? So far, I believe the number of such confirmed appearances is approximately zero. What compelling reason is there to believe that this is different? There are many UFO sightings I can’t explain, either, but I don’t conclude that it must be aliens.
I know one thing for sure. IF our new join is a fake, he or she must surely be enjoying this.
I say you’re just biased by all those long conversations you had with Richard Feynman when he suddenly joined your local BBS – or at least, he swore it was really him. 
Chill, dudes. I could be wrong.
No. Say it ain’t so.
I speak to Richard regularly through my Ouiji board
It basically runs into the “Don’t be a jerk” thing. It’s ok (and maybe even preferred) to be skeptical to an extent, but things went beyond skeptical to rude.
What would the process be otherwise? NDT composes a tweet and runs it through an assistant before posting? He trusts someone to Tweet in his name? He has time to spitball tweets? Or, just does it himself?
I wanna Pit his stache, but… 
Word. We’ve lost more than one potentially valuable poster through due diligence being expressed in a manner that the newbies took as skepticism.
He knows damn well if he hangs out in the Pit he’ll get piled on about Pluto again.
Username/post pairing checks out.
OTTOMH JM Straczynski briefly joined to comment under his own name, as did comedy songwriter Mitch Benn. It happens.
We have a few non-celebrities who post under their own name, including First MI Last.
When I ask a pretty straightforward question, and you spend several paragraphs trying to Socratic Method your way out of answering it, and close by telling me to chill, that’s pretty cool.
Sure, it could be an intern who posts the Tweets. But this seems pretty unlikely. NDT is famous, but he’s nerd-famous. We’re not talking Taylor Swift here, with a whole publicity team dedicated to protecting his image 24/7. There’s no advantage in his adding a layer between his brain and Twitter.
And the idea that NDT announces to museum staff, “Hey, everyone, watch at 5:57, I’m going to make a little throwaway Tweet about light pollution, get ready!” is pretty funny.