[EpicDavi]

To be fair, hash-tags are used to categorize and group content on social media. HN does not implement this functionality. Essentially, the '#' serves no purpose on HN. Therefore, it is easy to see why people get bothered by it.

[7Z7]

It was in quotes. It was clearly meant to characterise a certain type of commenter, rather than serve a categorical function.

[EpicDavi]

Are you serious? Look at vayarajesh's original comment.

It 'clearly' states this: It makes me fall in love with Apple more. #Respect

No quotes. He/She was using it seriously.

[raverbashing]

Actually, it was first used without any support from twitter, then transformed into a tag-like functionality

Same with retweets.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hashtag#Origin_and_Use