These are bots. Too many comments here trying to justify that they are not - too many vested interests on HN. I spoke to an SEO guy 2+ years ago who was buildi

These are bots. Too many comments here trying to justify that they are not - too many vested interests on HN. I spoke to an SEO guy 2+ years ago who was building them. He didn't know why at the time, but he knew having 1000s of identities with social graphs, a posting history etc. would have some value at some point. He was already using a mix of full automation and Turk - and thinking about what a natural activity pattern would like and how you could randomise it without creating a pattern yourself. Ultimately the sites that are letting this happen will be worse off for not doing all they can to stop it. Unfortunately most of these companies are measured by metrics that encourage it.