[nmstoker]

I presume you were not trying to be ironic with this request (given how you chose the easy option of inconveniencing others rather than Google/Wikipedia)

Anyway, here's a good introduction: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technical_debt

[nocman]

Or, maybe they thought someone on HN would be able to explain it better than the Wikipedia article. It did not seem like an unreasonable request to me at all.