I think that instead of requesting core team members to keep up a blog on "what they are doing", you should let them concentrate on the testing effort and packaging of the next release.

The bottom line is that it will be ready when the testing is complete.

It certainly would be nice to have what you and the previous poster are requesting, a simple blog entry with the status on the current RC release. I see Joomla! and other frameworks like ours doing this for their respectivecommunites.

As long as it's relevant, informational, and doesn't detract from completing actual work on the release, then I am all for it.

Posting information via blogs is acceptable and we have no problem with using that medium for communication as one of several communication channels that we regularly use.

Release dates are very common in the software world - like Q3 2007 or July 07 or such.  Rarely does a product announce a specific release date.  Usually they announce a general timeframe.  We have given release targets in the past and we did so again for 4.5.4 in the original RC1 blog post.  These are not exact dates but they do give you the opportunity to plan for the next release.

Exactly where is the weekly status report on Microsoft's website for Visual Studio, or say DevExpress - I am really interested in know the exact release date for the next CodeRush version?  If you are going to use the rest of the "software world" as the standard, then be consistent.  The software world rarely gives a date or a weekly update for the release of the next version of a project.  Even in the Open Source world, release dates are seldom given.

As for "unimportant blog topics" that is your opinion and you are entitled to it, just as we are entitled to ignore it.  The DotNetNuke policy does not forbid the posting of non-DotNetNuke related content in the DotNetNuke blogs.  That is a gross oversimplification and distortion of the policy.  Just because you do not find specific blog post valuable or important, does not mean that others don't see value in the posts.  So step out of your narcissistic view of the world for a moment and stop acting as if your wishes speak for any significant part of the community.