One guy says "I was lambasted on Reddit", no link, no proof, no hearing the other side, no any substantiation anything actually happened even.

Immediate conclusion: "community is full of assholes, unwilling to change".

This escalated quickly, didn't it?

The person you’re replying to isn’t suggesting cURL is that community. See another comment on this thread which makes that clear:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46720626

Rather they seem to be arguing “if there is a community that is like that (whatever that community is)…”.