I guess I just wish you guys would break down what you feel is unsubstantive "and/or flamebait". I feel like A LOT of assumptions about a fairly articulate comment are needed to make that conclusion. A quick re-reading I think that you made assumptions about who the spouse is, assumptions about Africa, or maybe misreading the black hole part when the context is Africa. Super meta vicariously offended someone expecting other people to be vicariously offended, while foundation directors and recipients in African countries aren't offended at all?
The real question being: was the comment inaccurate? Can we just discuss that? I know how Foundations and Donor Advised Funds make their decisions, people that aspire to support open source dont have the discretion.
Everytime I ask for clarity I just get immediately shadowbanned like "this guy questioned our authority thats the last straw"
The idea of that comment being accurate or not doesn't even arise. Is anyone going to do a statistically significant survey of "large backers for open source donations"? Even if you did, you wouldn't get access to their conversations with their spouses, nor will anyone give you accurate information about what they want to "pretend to be". So there's no question of such a comment being a serious contribution to discussion. What it does fit—begging your pardon—is the genre of internet bullshit: someone making up a grand, provocative generalization because they're good at making up grand, provocative generalizations, that being the craft that a certain sort of internet commenter works on perfecting. If you post in that genre to HN, we're going to moderate you, because there's no thoughtful conversation to be had there—one can only pile on or fight back. It's a move in a game that doesn't lead to more interesting moves. That's what I mean by unsubstantive in this context. As for flamebait, you could start by not making casually insulting dismissals like "drop money into a blackhole in Africa". Saying that signals that you're trolling. Maybe you didn't mean to? Ok, but that actually doesn't matter, because an internet comment consists of how people read it and the effects that it has.
Let's look at it the other way. Let's say your intention is to contribute to thoughtful conversation and that you indeed know a lot about "how foundations make their decisions". I'm quite willing to believe that. In that case, though, you should make your contribution in a 180-degree different way. You need to explain what you know in terms that aren't grandiose and provocative, but rather, scrupulously accurate. You need to explain how you know it. You need to tie it to the topic at hand in a way that explains why it's relevant. And you need to somehow include the limits of what you know, to leave some oxygen for anyone who might know different things than you do. All that is not hard to do, but it requires a different genre of comment: more information, less grandstanding.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html