Off-Topic

The term off-topic, also Offtopic, off topic or out of topic, briefly also OT, comes from English and means about as much as away from the actual topic or unrelated to the topic. Especially when communicating on the Internet, it serves as evidence that a review or e- mail does not take whole or in parts to the actual subject reference. He signaled to the readers before the opening of a contribution that this does not deal with the actual topic. You can save time by skip this post.

The term off-topic is therefore also applicable only useful when people discuss with each other within a medium, which specifies a particular topic (for example, in the Usenet, forums, or mailing lists). In a private mail exchange between two people is nothing about off-topic, since both authors make only statements in the normal case, which they believe that they are for each other's interest.

In Internet forums -topic posts sometimes by the moderators or administrators in specific forums be moved by pointing out that these are off-topic. This is especially the case if the debaters have removed from the real issue and discuss a different topic.

On Usenet, there almost always is a violation of the Charter of the respective newsgroup, because the Charter generally prescribes the subject. The damage may exist in a destruction of clarity, especially if it is a classified ads newsgroup in which should not be discussed. A damage limitation is the Followup-To: set to the correct newsgroup, then appear in the subsequent articles of the thread.

To allow other users to facilitate the filtering, you indicates in mailing lists an e- mail with off-topic content by an OT: Offtopic or one at the beginning of the subject.