I remember back in 2012 or so someone made a really clever karma-farming bot on Reddit. Here’s how I (foggily) remember it working:

- It subscribed to subreddits like /r/pics and /r/funny that largely consisted of posting links (not text posts)

- When it calculated that a post was rocketing toward the front page, it would look at all the past times the URL had been submitted.

- If none of those had made it to the front page, it would find the most upvoted top-level comment, copy the text verbatim, and make the same comment on the post that would end up on the front page.

For the longest time, everyone just thought that this account was some super-interesting, super-funny person who always had the perfect joke or perfect comment for any given situation. Sure it was a bit odd that they never replied to anyone, but that also just felt like part of their mystique.

Then someone got the receipts and outed the account as a bot and the show was all over. I wouldn’t be shocked to see someone on HN do the same thing, but I also think HN isn’t big enough for a grift like that to pass by unnoticed.