From the linked comment: > You're right that we could have 'vouch' show up even if an article is merely [flagged] rather than [dead]. There's the problem righ

From the linked comment: > You're right that we could have 'vouch' show up even if an article is merely [flagged] rather than [dead]. There's the problem right now that flagging articles can drop them so low on the new articles feed (3rd or 4th page) that they are effectively dead. Some discussion may continue for a while from people who were already participating in discussions or are dropping in via the comments link. But typically this will be a very small number of people. So even if an article is not, strictly speaking, dead, it is effectively zombie-ified. Allowing a "vouch" on a flagged article which actually works to offset a single flag might be a good compromise.