If you suspect astroturfing, the best course of action is to email the mods. They're very open about this particular topic.

That being said, this is a forum for VC and startup talk among other things, so it would be pretty surprising if there wasn't some astroturfing at play. Self-promotion comes with the territory. The mods are doing their best but to some extent it's in the game.

Finally, there's no irony about this no longer being on the front page. When I first clicked into this thread, I was surprised it was FP still, because it had twice as many comments as votes and that usually trips the flamewar detector. I think folks are generally unaware of the systems that make HN tick, and that can make the experience pretty confusing.