[jlgreco]

> I wonder—why can't the flamewar detector just disable comments?

In some cases it seems to, though by that time the discussion is long off the front page. I think this is a good thing, if something is on the front page then comments should be enabled, if only in case something in the article desperately needs to be corrected. If we get a post on here about a new study suggesting that vaccines may cause autism, that would almost certainly generate a flamewar but the absolute last thing we would want is for the post to remain on the front page and not permit anyone to post comments that may refute claims made by the study. In situations like those, it is better to kill the discussion and to take the post off the frontpage than to leave it there but disable commenting.