Sincerely, I don't like neither the idea of PW, nor its placement on the front page. The first time I saw that was actually quite a jarring experience, since the design is way too intrusive and gives a clear impression that the Administration favors it above the other sections.

That said, I like the idea of watering down someone else's effort by downgrading it to a Jump-in, free-for-all forum, or outright terminating it w/o their consent, much less.

Every idea has its worth, even the bad ones. What should be done is placing it lower on the page. Nothing else needs to change on how it's handled, I just think that the favoritism implied by that position should be undone. It may even be one of the reasons it doesn't fare well, all things considered, at I know more than one person (myself included) that think that the Persistent Words is a forum for the Moderation and Admin's circle jerk.