It's a reasonable question you asked but I've noticed a tendency to get downvoted for asking similar questions.

There is domain name frontrunning for sure:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domain_name_front_running

My speculation is that downvotes come from these cases:

a) Somebody that is well known on HN posts something and you are just supposed to know that they are well known.

b) General trusting and good nature of hackers and lack of cynicism (on the part of the people who downvote that is not all hackers).

But it is definitely a reasonable thing to ask to be clarified and instead of downvoting people should really just explain why they feel the site should be trusted.