I'm fairly certain that Paul Graham doesn't hold the copyright on the word "flamewar". There's no "Paul Graham term" about it. We all understand what a flamewar

I'm fairly certain that Paul Graham doesn't hold the copyright on the word "flamewar". There's no "Paul Graham term" about it. We all understand what a flamewar is, plus or minus a handful of picked nits. The HN flamewar detector isn't a human being. It's a software algorithm. It doesn't care about the subject of the flamewar or take that into account. It only looks for certain posting patterns. What you're asking for is something that discriminates (no negativity intended) "controversial discussions" from "flamewars" - where "controversial discussion" is pretty much defined as "stuff I want to talk about".