I think the mod's point was that this is not a "live chat room" - the message posted was specifically for one or two other people.
Would you not find it odd if I got my mates to join up just so I could post here and say things like "hello Jay, how's your day been? Fancy a pint later?" and so on?
There are things like MSN Messenger for that kind of carry on, plainly General Chat is to debate topics in an open forum with all members here...
Having said that, I agree that the mods are a little heavy handed - it only took me about a minute to write this reply, and all we got from them is a huffy "this is not a chat room".......