There has been a lot of discussion on flag-weight, its worth, etc. Clearly, the introduction of the gold Marshal badge has rejuvenated a lot of inactive flaggers and people would be less inclined to flag borderline ones because of the enormous drop in flag weight compared to the micro-gain.

I propose changing the requirements for the badge to:

Provided 600 helpful flags and 95% or more flags are helpful.

This will allow people to absorb the hit from a few declined flags more easily yet, maintains the difficulty in acquiring the badge. It also brings the silver and gold badges more in line with other similar badges for voting, namely Civic Duty and Electorate

       |              Voting              |              Flagging                
Silver | Voted 300 times                  | Achieved a flag weight of 500      
Gold   | 600 votes on Q, with 25% or more | 600 helpful flags, with 95% or    
       | of total votes on questions.     | more of total flags being helpful. 

The number 600 above is roughly how many flags that are required to reach 750 at present, if one were to have no declined flags. This number can be tweaked/changed as the team sees fit. The crux of the request is the shift from focusing on flag weight to %age of helpful flags.

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Also note the parallel with Tenacious/Unsung Hero badges. I'd say that both badges should be based on count rather than flag weight. –  Aarobot Sep 18 '11 at 23:39
Meh, you're putting a bandage on a broken leg. –  Gilles Sep 18 '11 at 23:40
@Gilles If the leg's both broken and bruised, and no one's willing to plaster the fracture, I'd much rather try to bandage the bruise than neglect it altogether. –  yoda Sep 18 '11 at 23:43
I'd be inclined to agree with change if there wasn't so much stuff that wasn't borderline that still needs to be flagged. –  Some Helpful Commenter Sep 19 '11 at 0:03
@Conrad Flags on that should be deemed helpful under Jeff's rules. Declining is only for abuse or wildly inappropriate flags. –  Matthew Read Sep 19 '11 at 0:18
I will agree with this suggestion, but the count should be 400 or 500 helpful flags rather than 1,000. I have 347 helpful flags and have achieved a flag weight of 720, just 30 points shy of 749, which is currently needed with the Marshal badge. –  Peter O. Sep 19 '11 at 1:12
I believe those 30 points will be a pretty steep climb :) 1000 was an arbitrary number and team@stackoverflow is free to change it. Perhaps it could be as many flags that are required to get 750 at present, if one were to have no declined flags (I think somewhere around 600?) I'll update it to reflect this. –  yoda Sep 19 '11 at 1:29
@yoda Regarding the broken leg : –  belisarius Sep 19 '11 at 4:59
@belisarius My requests are usually tagged Morgue :D –  yoda Sep 19 '11 at 6:49
@PeterO. You need exactly 566 helpful flags (with none declined) to achieve 749 flag weight. At 576 you cap out at 750 –  NullUserException อ_อ Oct 10 '11 at 15:36
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1 Answer

up vote 26 down vote accepted

The badges are totally in line with the editing badges now.

Marshal = Raised 500 helpful flags

Deputy = Raised 80 helpful flags


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Do helpful flags that are from deleted questions or answers count? So lets say I flag a comment in a question but it was deleted. Does it count? –  puretppc Jan 14 at 21:06
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