The data don't suggest this. Users flagging the post might be weighing the likelihood of an informative, substantive discussion against a flame-fest. The latter

The data don't suggest this. Users flagging the post might be weighing the likelihood of an informative, substantive discussion against a flame-fest. The latter isn't just distracting, it can cause actual harm, and flagging is a self-protective tool for the community. When moderators notice threads like these, we can turn the flags off (at least temporarily) to see how the thread shapes up. We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14748443 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14748443 and marked it off-topic.