In HS's defense, I think there is a lot more of a "gray area" within the rules than y'all mods really seem to acknowledge.
For example, it's pretty obvious from the rules that you can't bash the band, belittle them, criticize them in a non-constructive way, whatever.
But many times, it's also been made clear that you should express an opinion that, for example, "the band did something wrong". I forget where this came up, but I remember someone being warned pretty sternly because their criticism was veered in that territory of "the band made a mistake by doing X".
Then, there are times where speculating on a situation in a pretty reasonable way (like saying you think MM "got fired") has drawn the wrath of the mods, even though that's not even speculation at this point, but rather, just a colloquialistic way of expressing a situation where one person's employment ends when they would have rather it not have. Not sure what the big deal with that is, other than I guess the mods and/or band don't like it.
And now this stuff. I agree that these rumors are stupid, but what's the point of having a discussion forum if you aren't going to allow people to discuss (and dispel) stupid rumors?
It really does seem like the rules aren't that clear to me. Or rather, they are, but there's an unwritten rule: if the band wouldn't want to see something, don't say it.
But then again, this place was a total shitshow during the last tour with LaBrie criticism which, I'd say, often veered into stuff that was perhaps not constructive, and maybe even belittling to James. Yet, no one seemed to do anything about that, so even then...