Couple of things. Firstly, hating warnings but being incapable of following the rules is a fundamentally incompatible pair of habits. Most of the warnings I give out for off topic are not for things that are extremely vague, ambiguous and/or subjective. There’s 2 levels to being on topic.
One, when posting a new thread, it must go in the right section. Almost no one has a problem with this except really new members who haven’t yet explored the site. Two, when replying to a thread, you must stay true to the original topic and purpose of the thread. This one is where most people get upset. Again, imo it’s rarely because people think their reply is something others would consider on topic, but more that they really want to get an idea out. They can’t resist. They don’t do a double take to check if what they’ve just typed aligns with the thread title and OP content. They just see something someone else has posted, and desperately want to say something about that. They can’t resist. Ultimately it is a lack of self control. And I have no respect for that.
I’ve said this many times before, this entire site isn‘t a chat between a group of buddies over some beers. You can’t just interject, divert attention, explore tangents, etc like you would in a colloquial casual chat. This is a forum, with sections, and topics. Respect that. Especially because you have the ability to create as many threads as you want.
Secondly, as much as I try to make this site for everyone and serve the community… at the end of the day, it’s my site, with my rules, and yes, sometimes some of my biases, pet peeves, OCD, personality kinks might leak into the way I run things. Trust me, it’s a lot less for WF than it is for other forums. I will never allow off topic, unstructured discussion because I am - on some fundamental level - allergic to that.
If you want some unstructured, scatterbrained, colloquial discourse, then go on twitter. Make some friends and enjoy that in person. Or even better, make your own twitter clone for the occult. WF isn’t going to be that type of sanctuary.
