It didn't come across as bragging to me; it provided useful context for the question. For a naive reader like me, it demonstrated to me that someone much more experienced in this area than me was confused by it. For a reader capable of answering their question, it provided a baseline of their knowledge, which is useful for determining what level of detail to go into when answering.

I'm not sure admitting my complete confusion is bragging. I apologize if it came across like that.

There wasn't a single comment on this post, despite it getting lots of upvotes. I assumed I was missing something, but I felt like my "WTF" needed some context.

It's ok to brag on Hacker News.

Their brag helped me to understand what ca I learn.