Re: What does group consider to be "on topic"?
On Thu, 19 Jul 2012 02:18:00 +1200, Chris Bannister wrote:
> On Tue, Jul 17, 2012 at 07:57:11PM +0000, Camaleón wrote:
>> On Wed, 18 Jul 2012 05:06:28 +1200, Chris Bannister wrote:
>> > Oh, right! like if you turn your hazard lights on in your car you can
>> > park anywhere you like. :(
>>
>> Well, exactly... that's what an OT flag is for: you are saying "hey,
>> people, something happens here but I don't know what, watch out!"
>
> As an aside, I was referring to people parking anywhere they like and
> thinking it is ok to do so if they turn their hazard lights on, not in
> the genuine case of "watch out! something happens here" An accident, or
> **genuine** hazzzzard.
There are times when you have an unmanageable/mechanical problem with you
car that forces you to park in the first place you find/can. Of course,
these situations are an exception and do not happen often so the rest of
the drivers have to be a bit patient.
> Relating this to the [OT] flag; sometimes during a thread, a sub-topic
> will start, perhaps by a misleading statement or remark which prompts a
> corrective statement by an eagle eyed reader. This "corrective" action,
> may in fact, be unrelated to the original topic, and hence the [OT] flag
> is a good indicator that the discussion in this sub-thread is, infact
> off-topic. A threaded MUA, like mutt allows you to hide such
> sub-threads.
The "Off-Topic" flag can be used for many situations, there's no "one
rule fits to all" here. For instance, if you are using an application
with your Debian system that is not available in the official repository
(e.g., an Oracle database, Google Chrome, Skype...) and need help/
feedback on how to configure it, this can be tagged as OT and people can
either help you or omit the question but at least the OP is noticing the
exceptionality to others and and I will thank it regardless is OT or not.
> If it is a case of "hey, people, something happens here but I don't know
> what" then IMHO, an [OT] flag is not needed.
IMO, it depends on the exact matter (better to be safe than sorry).
Greetings,
--
Camaleón
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