One thing to be careful with allowing some bending of the rules, is some are going to start testing how far they can bend the rules. Everytime you bend a rule you create a precedent for it as well, and you get into nasty fights of why was I banned but not them and have your clemency hit you right back in the face.

If it’s okay to bend some rules, then that should explicitly be the rule instead. Offtopic discussions for example, you can have a rule be “all top level comments should be on topic” as a balance, so offtopic discussions can happen, just not take over the whole comment section. If you allow something, make a mod comment explaining why for transparency and set the right expectations: “This post is off-topic but is generating on-topic discussion so we’re keeping it.”

Similarly, well designed punishments goes a long way. For example, automatic ban after N warnings can be unfair. What you’re really after is, you don’t want to be warning that user every day to stay on topic. So the punishment can be more like “more than 3 warnings within 10 days results in a 7 day ban”. But sometimes the situation is such, you can rack in 10 warnings in the same threads. So you can make the punishment account for that: “If you get warned more than 3 times during a 14 day period, you will be banned for 7 days”. Or per thread, whatever makes sense. Understand common mistakes community members do and how you can steer them in the right direction without being unnecessarily harsh.

With those two combined, it shouldn’t matter if you moderate like a robot or not. The expectations are clear, forgiving and fair while enforcing some order for repeat offenders. The rules have the flexibility you need baked in so you don’t have to bend the rules.