Reddit is filled with shameless habitual liars who claim to be airline pilots in one thread then plumbers in another. The incentive structure of reddit, the internet point skinner box, incentivizes shameless lying and ""creative writing"".
There are many, many bot posts. More so re-posting other highly-upvoted comments from related threads, or re-posting previously posted pictures/videos/links, but bots are certainly farming karma.
It's hard to be sure. Just as in the (possibly apocryphal) quote from a Yosemite Park Ranger, "There is considerable overlap between the intelligence of the smartest bears and the dumbest tourists" there's considerable overlap between the best text generation bots and the dumbest Redditors.
Those with "karma" systems are particularly susceptible, including HN. But I think Reddit is even worse in this regard than HN because there are many times more users (usernames are less likely to be recognized across threads), and reddit makes it into more of a game with various kinds of flare and other 'rewarding' baubles.
Reddit is filled with shameless habitual liars who claim to be airline pilots in one thread then plumbers in another. The incentive structure of reddit, the internet point skinner box, incentivizes shameless lying and ""creative writing"".