Even better would be for users to never post spam, but I guess we have Monty Python and Tim Berners-Lee to thank for that not happening.
haha I don't see that ever happening lol.
Improved search tools would help (and I don't mean just in BB), but we should do our best to help with our own actions.
I think that is a key factor here. Off topic discussions wouldn't hurt anyone if there was a simple and easy way to search for the information required. Most people don't search for threads anyway, they just post their question in a new thread, so I don't think off topic discussions will affect many people in that situation. Just take a look at the help forum for repeat posts :P
That's really up to the users IMO. Off-topic discussion serves mostly forum actives, not the masses.
hmm I would argue that the masses don't use the forum. It would be interesting to see the stats though. How many users access the forum, how many different users post, and how often. From what I've seen, there are a couple hundred users that post frequently (in Global, Help, Bugs and Suggestions) and these are the forum actives but I imagine that they make up over half the people that use the forums.