Today I was duped into responding to a spam post made by a bot. The post was a copy of a previous legitimate question. That got me wondering about what the purpose of spamming a forum like this one would be. If it tricks members into replying, it would only serve to increase traffic to the site. Is it, perhaps, just to waste our time? Another purpose would be to promote some product, service or scam, but this post didn't do that.
I think the intention is to come back later and add a signature, containing links to a web site. The purpose of the spamming is to give the linked-to site greater prominence in search engine results. It's obvious what is going on if they put the links in straight away, so a little subtefuge is needed...
Actually, the culprit may be a human being, rather than a bot. With things like 'captcha' in place to make it difficult to automate the process of signing up to forums, there is actually a market for hiring people to do this stuff.
Yes, it has. Lately, I've been spending as much time and effort being aware of the efforts of other players try to cheat at tournaments as I have on the fundamentals. Things like hiding chips, changing their bets, collaborating with spectators, etc. This stuff has probably always gone on, but it seems to be worse lately. It also seems a lot worse in baccarat tourneys.
