"...remain courteous and friendly at all times..."
I look forward to all posts that do not adhere to this recommendation and are reported to be either deleted or edited.
Unfortunately, this clearly has not happened in the past.
The past practice could be acceptable to allow less than friendly posts as part of a robust discussion but then courteous posts should not be deleted because of an "off-topic" judgement. In my view
- off-topic posts can easily be ignored. Rude posts, however, cannot as easily be ignored because they usually are engaging in some topic that is of interest to many readers and it is not possible to decide to ignore the post until one has come to the offending part.
- for the above reasons, "off-topic" posts should not be considered an offence. For some they are interesting, for others they are not, but as long as the discussion style remains civil, they cause no real harm.
- it may be argued that "off-topic" posts can derail a thread to an extent where the thread loses its value. However, it can be very tricky to decide whether something is "off-topic" or not. As long as the thread continues with the main topic still being discussed, seasoned with some "off-topic" themes, it shouldn't be considered a problem that there are some "off-topic" themes.
- let's face it, most threads contain some diversions and almost all longer threads fizzle out into completely off-topic subjects. Most of the time this is considered acceptable or part of the norm. Only some "off-topic" topics seem to be deemed problematic which makes it difficult to see the fairness in such an approach.
Pentaxforums has recently been mentioned on Facebook as an unpleasant place by multiple users. The cause of that was not that threads weren't focused enough, i.e., that there was too much "off-topic" discussion. The cause for these expression of dislike was that users were rude and a generally unpleasant style of arguing.
In my view this suggests to take rude and overly zealous posts much more seriously than the odd "off-topic" digression.
I may add that being too strict with threads staying on topic has the potential of drying out discussions and stopping engagement. I don't think that's what we want for this forum.
Finally, I believe the practice of closing a thread is sometimes used too quickly.
Closing a thread hurts those the most who wanted to continue with some discussion and/or keep subscribed to discussions they were interested in.
The posters who caused the thread to be closed thus cause everyone to suffer for their behaviour.
It's like sending the whole class to clean the toilets because two out of many pupils caused some trouble.
I suggest to target individual posters who are endangering a thread, rather than closing the whole thread for everyone.
P.S.: I think Pentax criticism should be allowed and passionate responses to such criticism should also be allowed. It's the tone of the respective posts that is important to get right, not the viewpoints.