Sorry but no matter what, we are not going to bypass the rules in any way, shape or form. The simple reason is this.
It will not be that hard for any person, be it a staff member or a member who has access to the area to forget they are in the public forum and post something and get themselves into trouble. They think they are in the "special" area when in fact they are not and we would have no choice but to uphold the rules to the fullest extent.
So yeah while the rules maybe a bit more lax in the area, there will be no dropping or negating of any rules in any area at any time.
Any and all rules. James made a comment about ditching Rule #2 completely in exchange for a donation. That is what my comment is directed toward.
While we may setup a forum or even user group for those that donate, while we may go forward with this, we are not going to allow for rule violation any where at any time. As i said it gets confusing for any one to remember what they can and cant say on a specific part of the forum.
So they maybe in OT and want to respond with something that they could do in the "special" area but forget they are not there and post it up. They will get an infraction to the full extent of our rules. Then they get upset cause they got an infraction when they feel they shouldnt cause they simply made a mistake of not paying attention to where they had posted that stuff. Which then gets the member upset.
It is not a good situation to try and play this game with "special" rules for a specific group. It was tried before and failed miserably.