The post was made here specifically because HN has a reputation for being exclusive and to show, as we have in our conference(s), that with a little work you can build a successful inclusive community.
I respect your opinion and your right to stick up for HN to prevent it from being gamed. There was no compensation made of any type to encourage Wendy to write this piece.
As far as it all being fake, that's absurd; she's created a new blog specifically about all the cheese they bought with her gift certificate, the first entry being about Madison Ruby. There are much better stories one could tell if they were indeed lying (maybe one about not skipping out on half the conference).
I am happy to promote via honest positive review an event that was literally life changing for both me and my partner. I does seem like I got a lot of freebees. I did. In that I was lucky. But I was also lucky to have the experience of MR as a place to confront some of my issues with tech. If you had actually focused at all on the content of my post you'd know that I identified elements of the conference that were problematic and difficult for me to access. I did this because I want to event to be better about these things in the future.
I understand where your skepticism comes from. I am skeptic too (you would also know this if you read more of my posts). But please don't assume that my articulated account of a positive experience is bought. It wasn't (at least not with anything more than valuable experiences and cheese).
My post was not an infomercial. I never want to use my personal blog for paid promotional work. I never titled the post anything other that "My Madison Ruby Story" (the other title was lifted from a 3rd party tweet) and NO edits have been made to the actual post since I published it yesterday at noon. The SEO-optimization was a coincidence. One I may now point to as an example of my acumen for content strategy. So thanks.