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To do this, all that would be needed would be another "topic" or category which could be used to designate the "chat" style threads (The Guild, ATRW, The Smoker's Lounge, FReepoles, etc), and have an access level or list inplemented in the software to limit access to that category to only donors. Since these threads have no copywrite protections, there should be no fair use concerns.

I've also suggested this idea of a two-tiered system -- one for vanities and one for serious discussion. If Jim could do this and still get around the "fair use" thing, I think it would work.

There aren't many people here who, as least on occasion, enjoy posting on vanities, especially on the weekends when news is slow. But if people had to pay to chat, it would solve a lot of the problem, IMHO. And it is a problem, especially when your time is limited and you find yourself getting frustrated wading through ankle-deep trash just to find the hard news.

Just thinking a bit more. It could be made that only users who make a donation are able to post an article to the sidebars. Or get the sidebars at all. Those are features, so the people would be paying for the features, not for the content.

And if an article comes up that really needs to be bumped to the a sidebar but wasn't posted that way, Jim could move it up to one of them.

That would cut down on a lot of the abuse of the breaking news and the like, I would bet.