What it http://hackaday.io/project/695 might look like if I'd written it

gaming-the-had-projects-front-page.pl

#!/usr/bin/perl
use warnings;
use strict;
use 5.010;

use WWW::Mechanize;

sub get_description {
	my $count = shift;
	my $padded_count = sprintf("%05d", $count);

	# Set up the description.
	return qq{ HaD Projects frontpage is a mix of "most popular", "new" and "Recently Updated" posts. Frontpage placement translates into views / follows / skulls / other meaningless ego measurements. Well, if I can't be new or popular, there's a loophole: just make a tweak to the project details, and I'm "recently updated" again!

What if I just spent all day playing Nethack and so there aren't any real updates to make? No problem. I;ll just game the system with Perl's WWW::Mechanize to increase a counter every thirty seconds. So far, this page has been updated $padded_count times.

An unscrupulous user might use this to artificially drive traffic up on their Kickstarter-listed project. Not me, though, nope, no sirree! Having this project promote itself is just a bit of fun.
...Although if you wanted to submit more alarms to my alarm clock while you're here, well, that's certainly your call...
http://hackaday.io/project/598-Wake-Me!---Crowdsourced-Alarm-Clock };
}

my $agent = WWW::Mechanize->new();

# Log in
$agent->get("http://hackaday.io/signin?returnUrl=%2F");

# This form doesn't have a name, but there's only one on the page, so...
$agent->field("email", 'kennedy.greg@gmail.com');
$agent->field("password", '*****************************');
$agent->click();

# And the initial counter.
my $count = 0;

# Ready to start our dastardly deeds.
for(;;) {
	$count++;
	print "Setting the new count to $count... ";

	# Go to the project edit page.
	$agent->get("http://hackaday.io/project/695/edit");

	# Update the description.
	$agent->form_number(0);
	$agent->field("description", get_description($count));

	# Re-publish
	$agent->click();

	say "done!";

	# Sleep 30 seconds.
	sleep(30);
}