Does "Hacker News" in the title apply a hefty anti-meta penalty? Or is it just people flagging anything about moderation, fearing the typical empty speculation? (That doesn't apply to your post, it's interesting and has lots of supporting data.)
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.
