The audience of hackernews has grown and old users are trying to maintain the culture of the site. The value of this site comes from its community. Let's not turn it into reddit. I personally welcome this type of policing.
mmaunder: 2007. satellite2: 11 months ago. dexwiz: 2015. alonsonic: 2016. burnished: 8 months ago. nostrademons: 2007.
Anyway, I don't think such tone-policing is all that off-culture for HN, nor do I mind it all that much. PG explicitly said back around 2008 that posts which keep the discourse civil and intellectually honest are welcome even if they don't directly add content. I just thought that there's a certain irony about "old users trying to maintain the culture of this site" when the users in question are less than a year old and are responding to someone who's been here for 14 years.