The moderators are good
The paid posters are a much bigger forum problem
In today’s market - I highly doubt there are many (if any) paid posters out there. The economics just don’t support it.
What you have are a bunch of WANNABE paid posters hanging around thinking they can move up to paid poster status by creating some worthless content or creating a “persona” on a forum.
The model just doesn’t support books paying big money to forums for leads these days - with a half dozen super well known books and a dozen or so others that I’d trust with my money - no need to pay much for players these days. In turn - forums have enough trouble paying the hosting bill and a couple of mods a few bucks.
Of course some of these posters have no other prospects in life - so hanging around a forum posting all day posting inflammatory comments or outright stupidity just comes naturally. Same guys calling in day after day to radio talk shows unaware radio talk is a dying industry as well.