Yes I did notice that.
However, considering the sometimes rather UN-friendly nature of this board towards newbies in general, it's hard to separate those who are "tongue-in-cheek" with those who are really serious. It's kinda hard to believe someone is "just kidding" when you don't need to go far to find a newbie who's rudely being told to "Go do a search" or another who's being told his opinions don't count because of his lack of dive experience or threads that basically implies newbies are clogging up the board with all the "I just got certified!!" notices. With what's already been posted (particularly in Whine and Cheese) it's not hard to believe that someone truly wants the mods to limit one's total postings to one's total dives.
I'll be honest, had I found this board BEFORE I took OW I might have had second thoughts about getting certified myself. It would have given me the impression that divers act like this all the time to each other and like to treat newbies rather harshly. Fortunately I had already finished OW by the time I discovered this place, so I know divers really aren't like this in real life. But I do wonder how many potential new divers to the sport saw what went on here and thought, "No way am I going to be joining those jerks."
There have been threads that talk about these and other related issues, so I know I'm not the only one who's thinking this way.