Off-topic
The term off-topic , also offtopic , off topic or out of topic , also OT for short , comes from English and means roughly as much as apart from the actual topic or without reference to the topic . Especially when communicating on the Internet , it serves as an indication that a post or an e-mail does not refer to the actual topic in whole or in part. Even before opening an article, it signals to the reader that it does not deal with the actual topic. The reader can save time by skipping this post.
The term off-topic is only meaningful when people are discussing with each other within a medium that specifies a certain topic (for example on Usenet , in forums or mailing lists ). In a private e-mail exchange between two people, for example, nothing is off-topic, since both authors normally only make statements that they believe are of interest to the other.
In Internet forums, unrelated posts are sometimes moved or deleted by the moderators or administrators in special forums with the indication that they are off-topic. This is especially the case when the discussants have moved away from the actual topic and are debating a different topic.
In Usenet it is almost always a violation of the charter of the respective newsgroup , because the charter generally prescribes the topic. The damage can be the destruction of clarity, especially if it is a classifieds newsgroup, in which discussions are not allowed. One harm limitation is to put the Followup-To: on the correct newsgroup, in which the following articles of the thread then appear.
To allow other users to facilitate the filtering, it identifies in mailing lists an email with Offtopic content by OT: or a Offtopic at the beginning of the subject.