Just sharing observations it may help, it may not…

what I’m seeing is new or sleeper accounts that have been idle for over a decade with low (<99) karma getting into comment circles. Over the last couple of weeks i’ll see several top comments on articles with back and forth between other similar accounts… it’s got to the point that I check a user habitually before I even bother reading… and I have never hidden so many comments before getting to something substantive in the comments…

Like many here, I don’t wish to limit new users, but this does seem from my armchair perspective to be a pattern to be on the look out for.