In the context of mailing lists, discussion groups, discussion forums, bulletin boards, newsgroups, and wikis a contribution is off-topic if it is not within the bounds of the current discussion, and on-topic if it is.
Even on very specialized forums and lists off topic posting is not necessarily frowned upon,[1] but a common netiquette convention is to mark a new off-topic posting or email by beginning it with "OT"[2] - for example in a forum discussing the Linux operating system someone might post: "OT: Wow, did you feel that earthquake?".
Posting off-topic messages to deliberately aggravate other members is a form of trolling.