First off, yes I know why this rule exists: It is exists to keep discussions on track and not lose focus on the suggestion at hand. But sometimes when “off-topic” discussions do happen, they aren’t always fully off-topic. They can be related to the topic, but be really specific and mistaken for being off-topic.
Another thing, discussions about the forums sometimes pop-up. We do it in the comments when someone brings stuff up like this because we don’t have anywhere public that we can discuss it (We could use messages, but it limits the discussion to a select group of people and isn’t as fun as when anybody can chime in).
So my suggestion is to allow discussions to be slightly off-topic (But still related to The Hive) or forum-related for a certain amount of replies. If we can’t get back on topic after that amount of replies, then staff should intervene and remind us to get back on topic.
Nobody intentionally tries to derail the discussions when going off-topic, we just want to talk with each other. Alternatively, a new category could be created to allow non-suggestion-related topics that’re still related to the forums or The Hive server.