And this continues to be my stance in moderation. Conversations naturally meander, and so long as they come back to the main point in a reasonable amount of time – I usually let it go for about 10 posts – then I think brief sidetracks are ok. I also prefer to moderate actual hijacks and not potential ones.
That said, we do have some perennial offenders, and we also have some folks who like to ride their hobby horses. I don’t disagree with clamping down on those more vigorously. Also, if there is a bright line violation such as I recently modded in this thread:
Then I’m going to go after it quickly to nip an obvious hijack in the bud.
I will say this is all harder than it looks, as expounded on by @ParallelLines. We do our best. Sometimes we jump too quick, sometimes too late, but we’re always trying to maintain balance as best we can.