Actually the rules are official, but the sticky thread and list in Meta is unofficial. It seems really weird saying this. Maybe the Bitcointalk governing body didn't give it's approval for the list to be official . The title of the thread says "Unofficial list of (official) Bitcointalk.org rules".

In general, I'm all for being lenient. There are users who have been temp banned many times but still haven't been permabanned because their contributions outweigh their misbehavior. I actively disbelieve in the idea of a "rule of law" where hard rules exist and are strictly applied across the board as if we're all robots. Every case should be considered individually in the context of the forum's mission.