[xg15]

I think the deeper problem is: How would legitimate new person with no reputation and no contacts be able to get a foothold at all if there are masses of bots pretending to be exactly such a person?

A system which looks more at the content that is posted (probably using AI) and tries to decide whether it is spam feels fairer to me than effectively pulling up the ladder on new users.

[ajkjk]

I mean.. Get someone to vouch for you.

If people are distinguishable from bots then you should be able to easily distinguish yourself. If they're not, then you need personal vouching to establish who the people are anyway.