The article did say that 40 comments is the minimum cut-off before the flamewar penalty is applied. However, the flamewar detector seems to be throwing the bab

The article did say that 40 comments is the minimum cut-off before the flamewar penalty is applied. However, the flamewar detector seems to be throwing the baby with the bathwater in many cases, with legitimate stories going off the front page(and then some posters mistakenly assuming it was because of flagging). Here's a very good post about the chilling effect of the flamewar detector. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6597049 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6597049