Alternatively, they have had multiple past submissions on personal projects that have done well on HN, often (but not always) interact, and have English as a second or third language.

https://alinpanaitiu.com/

That doesn’t justify promoting their own websites in almost every comment. I interact with many people who don’t have English as their first language and none of them sound like an ad. Bot or not, linking to yourself every time you interact is spammer behaviour.