For submissions, it affects ranking quite severely, over a threshold shows the [flagged] status and over a higher threshold closes the discussion, blocking all

For submissions, it affects ranking quite severely, over a threshold shows the [flagged] status and over a higher threshold closes the discussion, blocking all comments and hiding it from people not using showdead. For comments, it's binary - over the threshold flagged hides it from people not using showdead and disables replies to it.