RailFanning is a gift you give yourself. - Varun

In the earlier days of IRI, the grounds for Deletion of Blogs were very clear-cut. Offensive/abusive posts were promptly removed. As the Site/Forum matures, it is time for these policies to be upgraded.
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Over the past few months, the number of controversies have soared. On the face of it, the controversial blogs are perfectly legitimate - they seem to be "natural discussion points". But looking closer, there is much more going on beneath the surface. Ultimately, the effect of such "apparently harmless" blogs is exactly the same as that of the "highly...
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offensive blogs of the past". However, it is very difficult to explain "Why was my blog deleted? It is perfectly harmless!!!".
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Accordingly, the following features will be introduced by tomorrow.
1. We shall be adding a new Opinion called "Objection". Any long-time member (recipient of >= 50 positive opinions) will be able to make an "Objection" to ANY blog, based on his OWN perception. The Objection will be anonymous. Reason need not be provided.
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2. If any Blog exceeds 5 Objections, the blog will AUTOMATICALLY be REMOVED. Whenever a Blog is removed, the member will automatically get a Pvt. Post to that effect notifying him of the same.
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3. All members will be able to view their deleted posts (along with regular posts) under the "My Posts" subtab.
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4. The number of Objections against any member will be displayed against that member's statistics.
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Hopefully, the above evolution of Deletion standards will stem the tide of controversies in this site.