From time to time there will be a handful of questions posted by several brand new accounts that copy and paste questions verbatim from years ago. If you look at each of these asker's activity there will be several such questions from widely different categories and ages, but all are copy and paste. Is this just Yahoo AI trying to generate more traffic on the site? What's the deal?
Lucas C
Favorite Answer
I usually don't respond to a question if I don't know the answer, but I wanted to chime in and say that I too have noticed this with increasing frequency. Twice in the past 24 hours I've come across questions that were carbon copies of questions asked months or years ago. I can't imagine what the purpose would be, as there doesn't seem to be any attempt to solicit page views or money. I'll be watching this question, though, to see what ideas anybody else has.
Anonymous
Yahoo Contact Number @ 1^800^218^8813
==========For Help==========
@ 1^800^218^8813
C
I don't think that most are bots. They're several individuals, some seem to be able to write scripts, so I suppose they count, but others are a bit more "handcrafted" and may even respond if goaded.
I think I've figured it out as this goes in cycles. I'm pretty sure that they copy questions to build up credibility with the programmes that run this site. Once they've built up enough a new type of question cycle starts. Usually they look like "I can't decide between these two things. Which ones do you think I should buy?" followed by hyperlinks. If you hover over the hyperlink you'll see that they have referral codes in them. When you follow the code to the site (usually amazon) it leaves a cookie on your computer. If you purchase anything before the cookie expires/gets deleted they earn a commission.
You may wonder why they don't go straight for implanting the links, but I've inadvertently discovered that the less history you have the lower the threshold is for triggering an algorithm that "ghosts" your activity when you post a hyperlink. Ghosting means that you can see your questions and answers while logged in but no one else can. It was developed as a spam filter which wouldn't alert the spammers so that they'd create new accounts. If you get ghosted on yahoo it's very hard to find a person who can reinstate you as this site is mainly automated.
Stella
I think it's just garden variety trolls trying to be funny.