I was directed to read Warb's post about his father (I have him on ignore at the moment) mentioned here on a feature suggestion thread.

I replied here because I the only time I've posted on off-topic since Christmas was in anger over nonsense written about the minority sexuality I just happen to have. I'm trying to avoid confrontations of that flavour by not posting there though I confess to be not entirely successful. That one post happened after the one shown here.

It sort of illustrates the potential of what I'm proposing here, essentially a partition of the General Chat section allowing for the current un-moderated and previously existent moderated form of Off Topic discussion.