I wasn't asked. But Steve and I had a bunch of usernames we'd log into for the first few weeks to submit cool links. I must have had about 10 that I'd cycle through (such is the life of the non-programming cofounder in the first month of a social news site).

The day when neither of us had to submit anything was a great one - it happened during that summer and gave us hope that the damn thing might actually work.

Are you saying that's a bad thing? Getting traction is extremely challenging. Most startups reliant on UGC do this, in the past we've done it with Amazon MT too.

I don't think it's something to look at negatively when you take into consideration the judgmental nature of a consumer. Most consumers don't know or care how new a product is, if it looks inactive they won't use it. Faux-ing a small amount of activity at the start gives you a chance to set a tone and direction for user-generated content, and helps overcome the initial bias of a new site.