Wow... go to sleep for a weekend..
On the porn comparison... there is a vast difference between a word and a concept. Recently someone PM'ed me they were offended at the word Porn being in a thread. I for one, don't find the WORD offensive, it was not actually pornographic pictures, so I refused to force and edit, and the user with all of 13 posts, thought he should be a mod so he could do it. Sometimes life is funny.
Anyhow, it's not a question of legality, its a question of appropriateness, Porn is an inapropriate subject here, on a totally different level than games being an inapropriate subject. Quite simply, games can and are family friendly, Porn is not, that is an instant perma-bad. Hope that solves that querry.
As for the Game topics, I go through phases where i find them incredibly annoying, and phases where I participate in them, participating, at least makes me want to read them... some of the other topics I think are put out there as fodder for arguments, those are the ones I am rapidly losing tolerance with. If it ahst o be said for the millionth time, this is not a free speech zone, this is a privately held endeavour, and your right to say anything here is by the Grace of Phil.
That being said, this is a community, and let's face it, CP's are cool, but not a lot changes in our community on a day to day basis, there is no radically new technology or super cool fertilizer coming out, and once you have learned the basics, posting in per say, the VFT forum becomes to help newcomers, or show off a new acquisition, so on so forth, if people didn't have game topics and other releases, this place would probably stagnate and die, I see off topic conversation as a way to fill in the silence between the relevant discussions... plus, for one reason or another, some CP growers have to get rid of their plants, the general discussion forum gives them a way to be a part of this community in a different way, I know there are a few of you out there that don't have plants right now. I know my collection is about 10% of what it once was, I simply don't have the space for it anymroe.
Also, I have to say, my opinion is probably different from the average mods, I don't have to read every post every day.
All things in moderation please.