It’s ok, thank you. All worked out and understood, now.
Yes - this was what was (and is) happening, in the threads I was asking about.
It seems rather unfortunate that when that happens, the thread stays listed on the front page and is therefore quite often “re-bumped” by another bot even after the initial bot-bump has been removed by a moderator.
My respectful suggestion for avoiding that (relatively common) problem is in my post above, but thanks again for your reply above.