Howrah Rajdhani - At 50, the Handsome King 👑 is still ruling the tracks superbly. - Somanko

Blog Rating/Voting: To encourage higher quality in blog postings, the blog rating system has now been enhanced. As before, you can vote on any blog post by clicking on the thumbsup/thumbsdown buttons on the right side of each blog post/reply.
Guest users are allowed to vote - 1 vote will be accepted from a single IP address. Members/Admins are allowed one vote per person for each blog post/reply.
The following points system is assigned to votes.
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Guest users: 1 point per vote - either +1 or -1 depending on the vote.
2. Members: 2 points per vote - can go either +2 or -2 depending on the vote.
3. Admins: 5 points per vote - can go either -5 or +5 for each vote.
When a Blog Post/Reply gets lower than -10, it is automatically hidden from view. The header will still be visible - so you will know who posted it and when. But, to view the contents, readers will have to explicitly click on a link.
When a Blog Post/Reply gets more than 20 points, a gold star appears to the right.
In the future, this overall rating score vis a vis points will be reflected in the User Profile (just like the Prediction Accuracy metric).
The Delete button will still be available to Admins to remove offensive posts - but these are the extreme cases. The negative rating/hide scheme will take care of the vast majority of cases where the post was disapproved by many, but still did not meet the criterion for a Delete.
The new democratic system is hoped to spur a higher quality of blog posts. This is still a somewhat experimental feature, and further modifications will be made based on feedback.
All Admins & Members, who have had concerns regarding the quality of the forum, are encouraged to vote actively, and thereby control the overall tone and discourse.