To get as many posts as possible to farm activity points with little work and possibly earn some merits, rank up and join the signature campaign. Is there another reason?
Well that would be their ultimate plan, in theory, but in practice, how many of those accounts, that have started from scratch, have managed to rankup and enter a signature campaign? I'm pretty certain that there is an account farmer, or perhaps multiple ones, that simply attempt to grow accounts for this purpose, how long do they need to do this for to understand that it's not working?
What's happening in that thread is the same as what's happening in the pushup one, or the Buy Buy Buy or Sell Sell Sell, as lovesmayfamilis pointed out.
Let's look at a random example:
People who would struggle to earn merits elsewhere manage to get them in those threads by saying they've done lots of push-ups and it's changed their lives, or by over-quoting in the other two threads, responding with generic messages. If those messages have bullish content or some other type (which they quickly learn), they earn merits.
What the hell is going on there? I generally avoid huge megatopics, and I'm now frustrated. How does someone gain merit by ruminating on what has been said multiple times already? The same applies to the challenge as well, but I'm more "open" to it as it's theoretically a way to contribute to the community. Still though, many posts worth meriting do not gain the necessary attention, while another dude in broken English claims he has done 20 pushups due to Bitcoin and his life has now changed for the better. I haven't noticed what's going on in either of the two threads provided as an example, but since two highly reputable members mentioned it, it must be a pattern.