[Cyclefrance]

Take the point, but the law of returns suggests that, unless you have a forum running into thousands of active participants, the gain in return for effort is going to be far too low to make these forays by the spam merchants anywhere near being cost-effective.

The odd ones I have stumbled on have tended to be fairly amateur attempts - often one-liners that have doubtful association with the thread content. It would take the perpetrator a lot of time to build up credibility that might hide his/her ultimate goal.

I think most of us would be wise to anyone who suddenly started spouting the merits of this or that supplier and/or certain brands of goods - a series of newcomers suddenly communicating about how great a particular product was would also put most of us on to amber alert if not red - maybe I am being overly naive, or else I'm over-naturally suspicious. If I get caught out I'll let you know.