[Mystalic]

You often have to seed a social site in order for it to be compelling for people to consume. Once they're hooked, then they start submitting.

As long as the quality is good, I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing.

[Ergomane]

I've built a number of social sites for broadcasting companies and this is indeed common practice.

No-one's attracted to a forum filled with void. All you need is a few carefully constructed, interesting personas as a nucleus to kickstart, then gradually remove them once the community has formed around them and becomes self-sustaining.