Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-126761-20160211184015/@comment-126761-20160212125121

Certainly we'll see your reply :)

We did not dislike flags, but as we continued work on it we realised the approach we had chosen was getting more and more complex to the point where it would likely become confusing to both us and editors. Retiring it wasn't an easy decision - no-one wants to feel like they wasted time - but it means we can focus our efforts on more beneficial stuff.

The general idea of article metadata is something we really like - it's entirely possible we'll revisit this area in the future, but with a different approach.