Uniqueness, intelligence, and talent in flaming. Willing to invest personal energy and money to continue flaming. Stubbornness and thick-headedness above and beyond the call of duty. Deafness to the responses of their opponents. Flames are good.
Flames having nothing to do with the newsgroup in question are better.
Flames against the newsgroup as a whole are best of all. Spending all your money to get a news feed just to flame is the pinnacle of membership. Nominations for membership are now being accepted. UUnet feed just to keep reposting the same stuff even though they're in the killfiles of half to world. This message brought to you by the letters aleph and xi, and the number e.