Actually, answering “yes” to that question would have been extremely confusing given how the question is worded! Which makes the snarky request for a binary response even less reasonable.
I take your point but it might not have been snarky - for example, HN has a lot of non-native English speakers and different languages handle affirmation-of-negation very differently.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yes!_We_Have_No_Bananas