Whats with the downvotes? That guys username is and my comment are both references to a TV show.

That may be part of the problem.

Silly jokes don't go down well on HN, as they're distractions from the conversation. It's considered "Reddit-like" behaviour, and discouraged through downvotes.

Are you saying humour isn't allowed on HN?

Humour is allowed, and so is downvoting. In practice, the humour has to be to be really good to avoid being mercilessly downvoted. Meta-humour based on usernames and TV shows usually doesn't cut it. Many of us view this as a good thing.

Decade old UK tv series on BBC two? I imagine most have never heard of it.

I was thinking more of an even older show:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nn2FB1P_Mn8

It's very common that someone hasn't heard of everything. It's why down votes without explanation are bad, like on StackOverflow.

It was in reference to That Mitchell and Webb Look:

https://youtu.be/AIxz6BDmTNU

https://youtu.be/THNPmhBl-8I

Indeed, and as usual XKCD has an explanation for the "someone hasn't heard of everything" phenomenon.

https://www.xkcd.com/1053/

However HN does seem to curate specific on topic informative posts, especially early on in the conversation (when everyone is reading, rather than just people looking for replies to their comments).

Overall I think I agree with the policy.