What would be the point of that?

What he's describing is something that also happened (with far greater, more rage-inducing frequency) on tech forums before SO existed.

I believe it is a joke.

Oops. Thanks. I had a fear I was just missing a joke, but I have seen bots used on forums for no immediately obvious/spammy reason and I've also seen people genuinely imagine strange motives for relatively explicable things.

This is probably one of the reasons jokes are very much discouraged on HN. They pollute the conversation and add confusion. I too didn't notice that it was meant to be a joke.

It's a joke. I thought it was obvious, I'd have laughed if someone else had made it and I didn't think it's polluting anything, not tucked away in this side-thread-ish.