" I hope there have been ‘lessons learned’ for the particular Mod who removed them."
Apologies, I did miss this. There are no lessons to be learned.
The issue is, The AnswerBank is at a pivotal point. We're trying to make the site a place where the community is free to discuss, but there does need to be a line. For example, if someone joined the thread to talk to their AnswerBank friend about a pet, or their dinner, you wouldn't be happy. The off topic rule is a fail-safe for that situation.
Historically, off topic answers were removed as they were seen to violate
Site Rules. The
Site Rules don't state that members can't go off topic, it mentions that we reserve "the right to remove any post that does not relate to the topic being discussed". Only today have I made this more clear for our moderators. The AnswerBank is evolving.
Please see the
further notes for our moderators.