Quote - In all fairness, the original rule was around because you couldn't ask a question or post a tip without it being drowned out of the forum with commercial posts.  That's why we made the MP forum in the first place.  Well, that was before I came on staff, but still.

Oh, I know - I saw it contort itself into its current mess a long-arsed time ago. Road To Hell Pavement and all that.

Personally, there is no easy solution - we all know that.

The DAZ Commons forum was named "The Commons" for a reason. Just like The Commons in any college, one could hang out, discuss anything, post handbills, protest whatever... and, well, whatever comes to mind. Just don't expect anything serious out of anything you do in there. Tech questions had their own home. WIP discussion had its own home. And etc.

Problem is, when you omit a forum topic that handles common bits and bobs, the chit-chat, and the "hey - I built this! go take a peek and maybe spend a little on it!" posts? Well, you get what we have here - folks settling in to discuss anything but Poser in the Poser forum. Sucks but true. And, it ends up spawning complex and convoluted rules, or rules that make no sense (like the one Anton rails against right now).

All that said, Renderosity has a conundrum on its hands - they're a commercial site, first and foremost. They have their bottom line to protect. But... they also want to be a community, so that have to present that facade as well. Normally, it's pretty easy to do both, but the PTB wanted to do it with one hand tied behind its collective back by omitting a common gathering area. So... you get what we have now.

I know why they did it. They wanted to avoid having to do the dirty work of keeping the blood and muck out of an area that can get boisterous at times... after all, on one hand they can have a semi-common area to chit-chat, but on the other they can point to the lack of one as justification to lock any thread that gets out-of-hand.

I like the Renderotica (and the near-comatose PoserPros) fora rules better: If it gets out of hand, move it to the flame bucket forum and be done with it. This means you only have to lock and/or delete the really nasty/libelous/illegal stuff, letting the membership take on some responsibility to police themselves. Of course, neither one are nearly as obsessed with a shiny corporate image, no?

/P