> Technical forums should have a code of conduct that says "Technical topics are on topic. Others are not. Off-topic conversations will be stopped. Continued of

> Technical forums should have a code of conduct that says "Technical topics are on topic. Others are not. Off-topic conversations will be stopped. Continued off-topic conversations will result in a warning, and a ban." Let me tell a story about off-topic postings in a forum that I was active at. There was a member who often posted (let's say) controversial, but very reasoned answers in this forum. They were often against the official consensus of the forum, which lead to strong reactions and controversies (I can even imagine that he loved this controversies); but as I said: his arguments were very well reasoned. So there were some moderator(s?) who rather would have liked to ban him from the forum (but they couldn't easily, since there were people who rightfully said that though his postings are controversial, they come from a completely different side of view, so they have value for the community). So the moderators gave him a warning (I think there were two warnings were before ban) because of some off-topic posts (there were some terms hidden in the forum rules, which really nobody read). This lead to an outcry in the forum since there were other (less controversial) forum members who also accidentally wrote off-topic posts, so people sensed an agenda. One of the moderators (a very recognised one) did the (IMHO) only correct thing that one can do in this emotionally charged situation as a moderator: She gave an official warning to herself in the "warnings thread", for the reason that she accidentally wrote some off-topic posts, too.