I also considered that a separate no rules area would be a good idea - I have one on my site and many other sites I frequent operate in this manner. But I think I have a more workable idea for boonex / unity.

I think that the Blogs section is already a no rules area (well by standard web terms it is) - people post about anything they like - and people say pretty much anything they like in response.

I think that Boonex should simply move the Blogs link on the Unity home page to the bottom. Swap see more it over with the answers link. Change the focus.

IMHO the focus is all wrong - the Answers section needs to be promoted more. (This will cure the lack of support some of us complain about) Most web users have a limited amount of time - between jobs, socialising and normal day to day life the remaining time is limited - By the time you've finished catching up on the blogs, there is very little time left to go do something useful - like answer a question in the answers section. Changing the focus will help change peoples web habits on this site (it will also stop support questions being posted in the blogs (A bone of contention for some)

I think in reality the tools are already here - they are just not being used to their full potential.

Someone already previously suggested that the User blogs shouldn't be aggregated on the main site as it gave a bad impression (they now no longer appear there) - I think demoting the Blogs link on the Unity page is the next logical step.

I truly believe that mo amount of moderation will change the blogs, this has already been proven by the fact that some pretty 'out there' things have been posted and that problem posters are still being allowed to post. People will always want to get up on their soap boxes - whether in the current blogs section, or a new section - anywhere that free speech is encouraged this will happen.

Creating a new area will probably just make the moderators job harder as they will have an additional area to patrol - keeping the existing area - but perhaps unmoderated (or at least under-moderated as it currently is) but moving it out of the lime light is a quicker, easier, and cheaper option.

DM.