Comment by nkurz

Thanks, that helps to clarify. I wasn't aware of the progression of flags: from downweighted, to showing [flagged], to [flagged][dead]. I also wasn't aware that stories with lots of comments were essentially "immune" to being killed. Is it correct that the number of comments is what saved this story from being killed?

Accidental flags seem like another good reason to add a "reason" field. I'm not sure what interface makes sense, but I do think it would be useful to know if the flagging was done because the link was broken, or because the title is bad, or something else that could be easily fixed. Personally, I'd be more likely to flag dupes if there was a way to signify why I was flagging them.

Your answer also makes me wonder if all [flagged] stories should have a "vouch" link visible. I view flagging and vouching as opposites. It seems suboptimal and oddly asymmetrical that a story can be permanently penalized by flagging without allowing other users to cancel out those flags. The vouch link seems like a wonderfully democratic solution apart from this.

Alternatively, if the goal of showing [flagged] is to signify that a story is contentious, I wonder if [flagged][dead] stories that are revived by vouching should still keep their [flagged] tag even if the penalty is removed. Consider a story like this one but with fewer comments. If it's [dead], one can vouch for it and restore it fully; but if it's just [flagged], it's penalized forever.