So this occurred to me:
Even though most people just see them as Booleans, it turns out you can with the right script see the actual count of votes up or down given to a particular comment.
Could we do something similar with "maintenance tags" like translation_request? I'm pretty sure our translators would welcome knowing whether their efforts on a particular translation would be eagerly awaited by a large crowd or by only a handful; they could of course still pick and choose what to actually work on, but it might help them focus their efforts.