UGC (User Diaries) & Drupal: Can We Do This?

Hey everyone,

I'm a long time WordPress user and the administrator of many popular blogs that run on WP. Next year I'm launching my own venture, and I'm wondering if Drupal is right for me. There is one area in particular where I'm having trouble determining compatibility with my vision--user generated blogs or diaries.

I've read that this functionality is out of the box with Drupal, but can't seem to find any specific information about it. I know little about the platform, and I probably just don't know where to look. Basically, I'm looking for something that can either do the following, be extended to do the following, or which has the potential to be rebuilt in order to do the following:

Basically, I want users to be able to register, create content, and then have that content be ranked based on popularity or votes. I think the system most people refer to when talking about this is the User Diary system over at the liberal blog DailyKos.com.

The most important thing I've looking for is the ability for users to generate content, and then--as a community--rate and either promote or demote that content.

Is this possible?