Yes, I can understand, there is some misjudgment possible while judging if the poster's are hired by the ANN creator or its just a trap of other competitors to get the thread dumped. But mostly if it is done frequently on a thread with number of newbie bot accounts, I don't think anyone is targeting that thread to be dumped, as this services seems to be paid and no one would be willing to risk it for free IMO.
And ya, you have also made the slippery slope more slopey by mentioning the above idea.
Absolutely agree with you. It's usually for bumping, but I am aware of the fact that this could be used maliciously. I can't recall a situation in which this has happened yet, but if this becomes common knowledge, and we remove threads just like that it could very well become a problem in the future. And ya, you have also made the slippery slope more slopey by mentioning the above idea.
How do you bring it out to be actually bumping the threads based on providing their services or are purposely doing it just for the sake of such threads being removed due to competition? What measures are taken when people are found who do it purposely? Are these guys banned or just warned to stop what they're doing?
I think its just an possible abuse but as welsh said he has not seen it happen often, so I don't think there is any such case until anyways.