Yes, in my experience, this is the most likely reason that this article disappeared.
I have a hard time deciding if this is a good policy or not.
On the one hand, it does tend to mean that there are fewer flamewars showing up on the front page, and getting people sucked into endless debates that go nowhere.
On the other hand, I feel like this works to sweep under the rug real problems that occur in this community. Rather than being able to expose and deal with such problems, once things become contentious they just disappear, leaving only the things that the community has more consensus on.
