I’m going to speak to his defense. DrDeth thought sometime last year a Mod mentioned in an ATMB thread that a polite nudge to get back to the Op was allowed.
I let him know I wasn’t aware of it but that might have been for GD and P&E, but not for ones like The Cafe. He asked about starting this thread and I said it couldn’t hurt, I was interested if anyone found it too.
So the inspiration for this thread was from that modnote I guess but it is not directly related to that modnote.
I don’t think we have a rule allowing jr. modding even in GD. We have a specific rule that counters it if anything.
So best to flag threads going off target, choose the Something Else reason and just explain the thread needs a mod to get the thread back on Topic. If a post is glaring as the cause of off-topic, this would be the exception where “off-topic” will work.
As Colibri answered, Cafe threads will lose focus often after answered and become conversational. That is fine, I do it myself.
IMHO, this is a good example of trying to nudge a thread back to the original focus.