Source: First hand experience going down in flames for issues like being a woman on a predominantly male forum. I did not choose to be a woman for the purpose of pissing off men. I did not join HN for the purpose of pissing off men. There was a learning curve involved in figuring out how to write in a way that was not hollow and was also not just a magnet for drama. I seem to be the highest ranked woman here. My ability to tolerate some heat is probably a factor.
I am never sure whether to be amused or disgusted that a culture that so values market disruption has such a cow about socially "disruptive" behavior. The two things are pretty strongly related and neither one is inherently rooted in a desire to piss people off. They both typically grow out of someone thinking they have a better idea.
I've made a ton of submissions in the past 8 months and experimented with various combinations of stories/titles that the HN audience might like, without always being successful. (Probably one out of every 4-5 submissions turned into an angry mob haha)
To speak specifically to your point about the titles, an essential element of Indie Hackers is that I require companies to share revenue numbers, because it really adds context to their stories (although it is certainly clickbaity, too). The mods actually okay'd me adding revenue numbers to submission titles[1], but I've mostly avoided it with recent submissions.
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13074125