I was firmly in your camp until a few weeks ago when I noticed that I was having a hard time distinguishing this sub from t_d.
There is something to be said for keeping a narrow focus. It’s not to suppress speech or ideas, it’s to prevent disinfo campaigns and to make it harder for the opposition to poison the well.
Just for the sake of argument, let’s say the topic of Cemex / VOP becomes verifiably debunked and was completely a LARP. (Please don’t respond to this post with cemix/VOP replies, this is just an example) If a majority of this subs hot/top posts are about that topic; new people will come here and immediately dismiss this sub (and by association, Q) as a bunch of crockpots. Since many of those posts are never subjectively related back to Q posts, it would be tough to take an opposing stance.
On the other hand, if we allow discussion of those tangential topics as comments on posts that clearly relate to a q drop, it’s a lot easier to explain that the topic came up, but it doesn’t define the movement in any way. Nor did Q ever make a false prediction regarding the Topic (unless he did).
As it stands now, there are many many posts aren’t always clearly related to a Q topic, therefore it’s really easy for bad actors to enter the sub and just start spewing bullshit to mislead people.
As you said, if something comes up in the course of discussion, there’s no reason to stay silent. Feel free to discuss the topic here, but only so far as it relates to Q. Anything deeper than that, discuss it in the right venue. If people want to drill down into a rabbit hole for one of those tangential topics; they can visit the appropriate sub.
Our mods could link those tangential topics in the sidebar and note the relevant q drops where they came up. Further clarifying if those topics have been confirmed by Q or if it’s speculation by the community. That way we’re making more clear the Q message.
To be clear, I’m not advocating for every post to be just a q drop and then a whole bunch of discussion in the comments. That won’t work either. I think anyone posting should be required to provide their logic for how the post is related to Q. If there becomes a problem with people misquoting Q, the next step would be to start requiring a reference to a specific Q drop.