Buddy, understanding basher motivations is not as easy as one would expect. There can be many, many reasons. Here are a few beyond the one you suggested.

Sometimes these are folks who have little going on in their lives, and they seek affirmation of their own existence by provoking responses in chat rooms, and often without even understanding much about the subject at hand. These can be shut-ins and/or emotionally crippled people.

Most often, I think, they are paid to provoke postings by others. Afterall, most of these on-line message boards make their money by the number of clicks or page views they receive - the more replies bashers can generate, the more money the Web host earns - they don't believe what they write, they only want replies, any kind of replies.

In regards to the above observation, these can often be the same person using different aliases posting "pro" and/or "con" just to keep "converstions" going.

Sometimes, these are disgruntled current or former shareholders who are incapable of moving on, and they try to inflict damage instead of accepting responsibility for their own actions. Again, these are not healthy personalities.

Competitors, too, will sometimes want to damage a stock in hopes of giving themselves a higher and better profile among their current and/or potential investors. Or, there is a hostile employee at one company wanting to do damage to a competing company. ...makes one wonder why only LBSR in SE Arizona has a basher "following" while other explorers in the area don't.

Oh, and now I'm reminded of a certain high profile "analyst?", one I never trusted anyway, who makes buy and sell recommendations in his public writings, while using on-line aliases sometimes recommending the opposite. How do I know this? He has been the only person to consistently misspell the name of a certain mine both in his public writings and with his clandestine on-line aliases. ...sneaky sob who sells his faith, while at the same time ripping off the public. ...explains to me why he has suddenly disappeared a couple of times and under mysterious circumstances.

...another like that. As a stock broker, he used to write a widely circulated "newsletter" that was pages long (single spaced), and nothing more than unattributed bits and pieces from other writers, lifted from message boards and "free" newsletters written by others. I think this guy is in prison again for shady dealings in stocks.

Anyway, you can never really know what kind of person is behind postings on the Internet, nor what their motivations may be.