I advocate the opening of a dedicated poetry contest account, but not the retirement of the traditional thread. The rules since the current thread's establishment (which was itself a new thread after two contest cycles) have not changed since they were passed down from Ubertuna:
It must fit the week's theme.
It must be submitted by the deadline.
It cannot have inappropriate language in it.
It cannot be stolen (if you plagiarize, we will find you).
Also:
The poem must be created for this contest
A user cannot win two weeks in a row (though everyone is welcome to submit every week!)
Only one submission per user will be accepted
As we all know, the winner will recieve a merit, and their poem will be featured on the _Poetry_ page.
Of these rules, nothing has changed, except the death of the __Poetry__ account and the current refusal to award merits (which I hope will be remedied soon). There is no evidence of "outdated rules and permanent rule changes in the middle of the thread" here.
At least, if a new thread is created, it must not only contain the rules but also links to all previous poetry contest threads.