By creating sockpuppet accounts, you can fake more activity in discussions. This encourages real users to participate. Repeat until there are enough real users to sustain a community without sockpuppets.

Reddit did this, as they said in this interview. Others confirm the approach.

      • ksynwa
        3·
        4 years ago

        Some user there confessed to making sock puppet accounts to fuel discussion. But I think it was in a specific subcommunity rather than a sitewide undertaking.