what is full description of persist command in iRule

My problem is where, I have made that assignment on my profile:

profile persist cookie_hash_4_hours_across_pools_services_vips {
   defaults from cookie
   mode cookie
   timeout 144000
   cookie mode hash
   cookie name BigIpCookieHash
   across services enable
   across virtuals enable
   across pools enable
}

and my VIP says:

virtual communities_http {
   destination 216.xxx.180.123:http
   ip protocol tcp
   profile http tcp
   persist cookie_hash_4_hours_across_pools_services_vips
   rule communities_http_contains_phoenix_pool_split
}
virtual communites_https {
   destination 216.206.180.123:https
   ip protocol tcp
   profile http communities_clientssl communities_serverssl tcp
   persist cookie_hash_4_hours_across_pools_services_vips
   rule communities_https_contains_phoenix_pool_split
}

and my iRules:

rule communities_http_contains_phoenix_pool_split {
   when HTTP_REQUEST {
   if { ([HTTP::uri] contains "Phoenix") or ([HTTP::uri] contains "phoenix") } {
     pool communities.com_phoenix_http
   } else {
           pool communities.com_http
   }
 }
}
rule communities_https_contains_phoenix_pool_split {
   when HTTP_REQUEST {
   if { ([HTTP::uri] contains "Phoenix") or ([HTTP::uri] contains "phoenix") } {
     pool communities.com_phoenix_https
   } else {
           pool communities.com_https 
   }
 }
}

Yet my persistence does not stick! The idea was to remove the project phoenix from the main community site, since they over-grew, but keeping persistence does not work...