Please mark off-topic discussions with [OT]

[Chris via Digitalmars-d]

On Saturday, 14 May 2016 at 15:46:27 UTC, Joakim wrote:
> On Saturday, 14 May 2016 at 13:07:56 UTC, Andrei Alexandrescu 
> wrote:
>> The thread "Github names & avatars" is not related to the D 
>> language, and adds much traffic to the forum. Please place 
>> [OT] in title when posting anything that is not releated to 
>> the D language.
>>
>> Thanks,
>>
>> Andrei
>
> It was about contributing to the dlang github so seems on-topic 
> to me.  It's not clear what you're trying to avoid.  I posted a 
> link to a much-read article about scripting languages' 
> failures, along with a D forum link that talks about avoiding 
> one big problem he raised, on-topic?
>
> http://forum.dlang.org/thread/tvyxljetdhjequhudfpv@forum.dlang.org
>
> I think so, though his article doesn't mention D.

The question is what is [OT] and what isn't? Theoretically 
anything that does not talk about D internals may be called [OT]. 
The problem I see here is that if we become too orthodox, after a 
while people might not "dare" to post anything that could be 
considered [OT] by _some_, although it might be an important or 
perfectly on topic issue. A lot of people will then stay away 
completely and not even read the threads anymore, as Nick pointed 
out. It can turn you off, if you get scolded for an innocent [OT] 
remark within a post.

I think Adam's suggestion is good. Just ignore things you're not 
interested in (although it can sometimes cost you €73, if you 
ignore threads ;)