I am not involved in this, or any other promotion. Moreover, I don’t see how my tendency to lurk and not comment is relevant here, but if you really want to know, the description of the woman in the article reminded me of someone I personally knew, which may be the reason it touched me enough to reply today.

I just feel that there’s no reason to be combative in regard to the featured article even if you abhor any and all types of promotion, given that there’s so many much worse offenders around.

This kind of pot-stirring is against HN rules; it is quite unpleasant to be on the receiving end of such accusations in public. Email your suspicions to the mods, and let them nuke the accounts that are abusive; but let's not sour the flavor of HN for everyone else reading this. The "is that guy secretly a shill" game gets stale *fast*.