Thus, I don't feel welcome to participate in such discussion.
Someone can tell me if this is rose colored glasses or not, but I do feel that "Old HN' downvotes correlated far more directly with "does not contribute to discussion" whereas now it feels a lot more like a reddit style "support/oppose" voting contest.
What bothers me more, and has gotten me "in trouble" on a few occasions for speaking up in defense of hearing out, is that posters more fringe than myself, but who are still making a solid post and useful contribution, are often silenced/flagged into oblivion. It's not even a matter of feeling welcome or not, most people I find who post here regularly are _very_ polite/welcoming, but to watch silent attempts at forming an echo chamber gives me pause.
The most recent thing I changed my opinion on thanks to HN though was smoking - a guy came with studies in his comments, and convinced me there is actually a net monetary benefit govt healthcare systems have from smokers i.e. smokers die younger and the treatment method is shorter than other diseases. Those are the good moments on HN :)
So politics and religion are two things I definitely stay away from on HN.
Details: I feel like there's an undercurrent of heavy handed moderation here. Replies get detached, deleted, and no one would know unless you really looked.
PS:I'm not saying these forums aren't vulnerable to abuse. They're and should be moderated (I guess), but make the moderation visible and obvious, is what I'd say.
My worry is if and when I step over to the wrong side of the (imaginary) line that the mods have drawn in the sand, my replies or posts here would be doomed, pushed out of existence and visibility.
Mods also do appear snappish here based on the few replies that I've read.
All of this seems anecdotal. The question did say "feel". I'm not going to bother collecting evidence because don't think this topic would get that much attention (it should though)
I wouldn't come here instead if it was too welcoming - getting to the end-result of high-quality discussion involves being harsh or exclusive in some way, and false-positive/debatable-positive moderation happens. I'd personally like to see a little less technophilia (or more philosophy/critical commentary), but you can't say WYS!=WYG with a name like Hacker News.
But as another comment said, I don't think HN is a meant to feel like a welcome community by design. It feels more like a semi-anonymous public forum.
I think overall the active HNers a great.
1. You frequently make very bold claims about quantitative trading. Some of these comments were contextually appropriate, but others came across as tone-deaf. Most of these comments seem very hand-wavy, and you have provided very little in-depth explanation of how such a system actually works in terms of profitable categories of strategies (even in abstraction), robustness of strategies in "black swan" events, etc. Some of the claims even seem contradictory (e.g., amount of maintenance required, amount needed to invest at scale, etc.). Note that there are many people on HN who have an interest in using their brains and tech skills to beat the market, and there have been some amazing threads on those topics. That said, those threads tend to be very frank about risk, scaling, potential role of luck, etc. This type of frank discussion is largely missing from your posts. As such, I think your posts as a new person are not held in particularly high regard from people who have been here a while and have seen very high quality threads on quantitative trading.
2. You quote Warren Buffet frequently seemingly in a way that supports quantitative trading. Warren Buffet is a value investor, and quantitative trading is the antithesis of what he does. Many people here have intimate familiarity with Buffet's writings, so associating Buffet with QT probably comes across as odd to quite a few regulars. Again, there have been many good threads on Buffet, and maybe you have something substantive to add, but many the hand-wavy comments you have made so far just seem flippant (at best) or just wrong.
3. You got into a flame war with logicallee. He is our resident troll. I haven't looked at his history, but most of the dead comments I see are from him. I am surprised he still has an account. Apologies for that, but I hope you can appreciate the context -- my guess is that he is on a short leash.
4. You seem to get very defensive when people do not take your hand-wavy comments at face value. As a new person, I hope that you can appreciate the skepticism that the community has towards people who make bold claims without backing it up or having an established track record.
5. You insult people quite a bit. The "sheep mentality" comment here. The suggestion that someone just "get laid". The comment about the "forever lonely" person due to their choice not to have kids. This is certainly against the spirit of the rules here at HN if not against the actual rules. I hope you appreciate that these types of blithe comments are not a particularly effective way to endear yourself to a new community.
SUMMARY
HN is a place that historically appreciates thoroughly reasoned explanations of potentially complex topics. You have written some stuff that has a lot of interest on HN, but you have provided very little detailed reasoning for your claims, and your claims fly in the face of the experiences (direct and observed) of many HNers. As a new person, if you would like to warm yourself up to the crowd, then invite questions when someone challenges you and answer them with well-reasoned detailed answers. You don't have to give away your trading strategy, but you should be able to talk about it in abstraction such that your argument is believable. A detailed example of a strategy that you developed, used, and now no longer use would be a very easy way to do this.
As for potentially being bullied, please report these cases to the mods. They strike me as being quite effective at handling abusive commenters.