No, as far as I can tell this was the second time in recent history that this happened. The first was to scare away a flood of new users that threatened to rad

No, as far as I can tell this was the second time in recent history that this happened. The first was to scare away a flood of new users that threatened to radically change the generally congenial culture here on HN. The _why articles were getting a bit excessive, but I'm not sure it raised to the level of an attempted purge.