What's the main purpose of the Off-topics board?

[Jessie2121]

I have been wondering why we have Off-topic board in the forum. Moderators do move post or threads that are not relevant to the forum to the off topics section, since it doesn't really count especially those members who are in the sig campaign because no sig member I have seen post there, what's the essence of keeping it? Nobody goes there to post and earn merit or anything serious is happening there, nothing counts in that section, why not remove it totally from the board so that whenever we don't see our post we know it has been deleted completely from the forum. I said I should ask because it doesn't really count as an important section to the forum.

[Crypto Library]

I have been wondering why we have Off-topic board in the forum. Moderators do move post or threads that are not relevant to the forum to the off topics section, since it doesn't really count especially those members who are in the sig campaign because no sig member I have seen post there, what's the essence of keeping it? Nobody goes there to post and earn merit or anything serious is happening there, nothing counts in that section, why not remove it totally from the board so that whenever we don't see our post we know it has been deleted completely from the forum. I said I should ask because it doesn't really count as an important section to the forum.

If you say that no signature campaign allow off-topic post then you are wrong for example if you check the Bitvest Signature campaign then you will see there is no any rules that in off-topic board post will not qualify. And you will also be wrong if you say there no campaign participants posts in off-topic. They posts but in lower amount because most of the campaign don't allow off-topic post which was don't relevant to cryptocurrency.

Off topic is a section for any other topics that do not fit into any other sub, however, it is not a subforum for account farmers to lazily spam their way through the ranks and doing so will no longer be tolerated. If you are caught spamming unsubstantial posts just to farm or rank up your account your account(s) will be immediately permabanned without warning.

[Hatchy]

Nobody goes there to post and earn merit or anything serious is happening there, nothing counts in that section,

Have you tried visiting the board? I'm not sure you have. That because if you did you would have seen by now that there are some members who even post on that board some constructive post that earn a good number merit.  The off topic board isn't as useless as you said, as it's a board for discussion not relating to the forum, Bitcoin, economy or cryptocurrency at large. Such post might be health, food, transportation or whatever you might consider not amongst those I listed.

[BitMaxz]

Do you have any problem with the off-topic section? All non-related to crypto will always moved to off-topic and I think the reason why we have this section is that some people want to talk about any nonsense or non-crypto-related topics that they want to discuss.

If you have a problem with this section and don't want to see this board then you can go to your profile and then "Ignore Boards Preferences" and look for that section and mark it check.

[Alpha Marine]

They move topics that are not relevant to the initial board it was posted in, not entirely because it wasn't relevant to the forum. If the post wasn't relevant to the forum it would be deleted, not moved.
I get that a lot of nonsense post are made there but so is mostly every other board in the forum. It's a discussion forum after all, you just have to pick what's useful for you and learn or educate, the difference is it's worst in the "off topic" board.

If you've bothered to read the description you'll see that it says "other topics that might be of interest to bitcoiners". So it's not totally irrelevant.

[Jessie2121]

I have been wondering why we have Off-topic board in the forum. Moderators do move post or threads that are not relevant to the forum to the off topics section, since it doesn't really count especially those members who are in the sig campaign because no sig member I have seen post there, what's the essence of keeping it? Nobody goes there to post and earn merit or anything serious is happening there, nothing counts in that section, why not remove it totally from the board so that whenever we don't see our post we know it has been deleted completely from the forum. I said I should ask because it doesn't really count as an important section to the forum.

If you say that no signature campaign allow off-topic post then you are wrong for example if you check the Bitvest Signature campaign then you will see there is no any rules that in off-topic board post will not qualify. And you will also be wrong if you say there no campaign participants posts in off-topic. They posts but in lower amount because most of the campaign don't allow off-topic post which was don't relevant to cryptocurrency.

I haven't seen, like I do check some of these campaign rules maybe not all but is hard to find campaigns I mean serious campaigns that do allow post in that section. Find let's say we have sig campaign that allow, if we have 10 sig campaigns in the forum I believe is only 1 or 2 that accept it but understand that off topic section is like a garbage zone where things that are been discarded are kept. Ok as side from the campaign you mentioned how many others are allowing members to post in that section and it counts to meet up post quoter? And you'd agree with me that is pointless posting in that section except you're not in any campaign.

[_act_]

There are few good discussions that are moved to off-topic. Example are 2FA topics like this one: Best 2FA applications to use. Open source, free, secure. Better than Google's
May

But off-topic board is truly full of trash topics and discussions which is the main reason most campaign managers are not accepting discussions on the board.

This forum is not primarily about signature campaigns payments which makes your request not valid. Off-topic is very useful which is the board off-topic topics are moved.

[Jessie2121]

Do you have any problem with the off-topic section? All non-related to crypto will always moved to off-topic and I think the reason why we have this section is that some people want to talk about any nonsense or non-crypto-related topics that they want to discuss.

If you have a problem with this section and don't want to see this board then you can go to your profile and then "Ignore Boards Preferences" and look for that section and mark it check.

Honestly I don't have any issue with it, is just that I've been asking why is it there? Members do post in that section but it has less importance compared to other boards in the forum. We know members do make topics without knowing if it relate with the section or not all they want is start up a topic. And we have moderators who are doing their work perfectly well by removing irrelevant post to occupy the space, was saying if is not better to DELETE it completely than keep the post where even the OP won't want to continue posting.

[Davidvictorson]

I said I should ask because it doesn't really count as an important section to the forum.

All boards and child boards on the forum are important and serve their own purpose. In my estimation, they help to keep the forum well structured and very organized. I know you may soon ask about the archival board so let me answer it to the best of my knowledge. Just like the off-topic board, the archival board is equally important, it's almost like a personal draft book for some users or a scratchbook. They put their thoughts, if it makes sense they proceed to posting it, if it doesn't they move it there if they don't want to delete it. Also the mods move stuff there too that doesn't fit in off-topic or other boards.

[un_rank]

...And we have moderators who are doing their work perfectly well by removing irrelevant post to occupy the space, was saying if is not better to DELETE it completely than keep the post where even the OP won't want to continue posting.

Irrelevant posts gets trashed regularly. For a thread to be moved to the off-topic board, it is relevant enough to remain on the forum and will attract good discussions for those interested, but does not fit into any of the general boards.

Mods do not use off-topic board as a quick fix.

- Jay -

[Nwada001]

I have been wondering why we have Off-topic board in the forum. Moderators do move post or threads that are not relevant to the forum to the off topics section,

Not all topics that are moved to off-topic are irrelevant; there are really some important topics that are educating newbies, especially on security aspects, that have been moved to off-topic. Most of the threads that are 2FA-related are now all off-topic. Do you want to tell me that they are all irrelevant?
 
The topic might not be forum-related, crypto-related, or even fit into any of the subsections that we have in the forum, which might be the reason why moderators consider off-topic to be the perfect place.
 
Aside from those off-topic topics, there is somewhere you can go talk about your husband, your favourite TV show, and the rest of things that might only interest a small population of the forum. I do visit there once in a while, as do some other reputable members, as I have seen a few other threads on that board.

[The Sceptical Chymist]

Have you tried visiting the board? I'm not sure you have. That because if you did you would have seen by now that there are some members who even post on that board some constructive post that earn a good number merit.  

And it's pretty active, too, as far as I can tell from my infrequent visits. 

My experience with other discussion forums has been that pretty much every one has had an off-topic section or at least a politics & society one, because members of forums (but not this one so much) tend to get to know one another and sometimes like to talk about topics that don't pertain to whatever the focus of the forum is.  If sections like the two I just mentioned didn't exist, you'd probably see a ton of posts veering way off-topic into things like religion, politics, and so forth.

I get the feeling that OP thinks bitcointalk is where people make money online and nothing else, but that could just be my jadedness. 

[uchegod-21]

I have been wondering why we have Off-topic board in the forum. Moderators do move post or threads that are not relevant to the forum to the off topics section, since it doesn't really count especially those members who are in the sig campaign because no sig member I have seen post there, what's the essence of keeping it? Nobody goes there to post and earn merit or anything serious is happening there, nothing counts in that section, why not remove it totally from the board so that whenever we don't see our post we know it has been deleted completely from the forum. I said I should ask because it doesn't really count as an important section to the forum.

Do not underrate the off topic board. Let me believe that you have not visited there, maybe a few of your post have removed to the off topic board and you feel bad about it. I will just advise you to spear for you minutes of your time to visit that board and read the contents therein. It is then that you will understand that some users will just go to the off topic board and create topic for discussion. There are a lot of general discussion that teaches new knowledge in the off topic board. Also according to the description in the office topic board, you will understand that the board is as important as every other board in the forum. Without the off topic board, every other boards would be affected with unrelated topics. Deleting the posts instead of moving them to the off topic board as you suggested will reduce freedom of expression.

[Adbitco]

Everyone here must not be a signature participants and there are people who still visit that section to see what is happening in that section of the forum, there must be needs for offtopic at least to move some post that doesn't have classification towards their content or that are seen to be baseless.

I believe this board has been here even before you signed up from this forum and if admin or mods noticed it wasn't good they could have removed it for long now but instead it's still there and doing it's function. I know it's a very rough section were most people don't like visit except for the newbies or some other who just noticed their post has been moved from where it was created to another section.

[Jessie2121]

I get the feeling that OP thinks bitcointalk is where people make money online and nothing else, but that could just be my jadedness.  

Ok let's face the fact this forum is a place where so many things can happen making money, taking loan and scammers do come here to do their bidding but we shouldn't always hide from the truth that many are here for the money for what they truly want, everybody wants to make money and I believe this forum have helped many through sig campaign. I never even thought of what you said before starting this thread and you know how serious this forum is, I don't think a place like off topic can accommodate the lifestyle of people and they dump topics that are not related over there.

Do not underrate the off topic board. Let me believe that you have not visited there, maybe a few of your post have removed to the off topic board and you feel bad about it. I will just advise you to spear for you minutes of your time to visit that board and read the contents therein. It is then that you will understand that some users will just go to the off topic board and create topic for discussion. There are a lot of general discussion that teaches new knowledge in the off topic board. Also according to the description in the office topic board, you will understand that the board is as important as every other board in the forum. Without the off topic board, every other boards would be affected with unrelated topics. Deleting the posts instead of moving them to the off topic board as you suggested will reduce freedom of expression.

I have and non of my post if I can remember that have been thrown there🤔, you know is a step up for me to know more about some certain things in the forum. Let's say I have gotten a better view of how the off topics section works but I still see it as a place of discarding a lot of irrelevant post. Are you some how saying the OT is a place to go and relax, having a non-serious time with other members? If yes then is ok but I don't see that counting for campaign members when counting their weekly quoter.

[BlackBoss_]

I have been wondering why we have Off-topic board in the forum.

This is another description for purpose of Off-topic board. You got one from hilariousandco above.

Off-topic - "Other topics that might be of interest to bitcoiners"

Moderators do move post or threads that are not relevant to the forum to the off topics section, since it doesn't really count especially those members who are in the sig campaign because no sig member I have seen post there, what's the essence of keeping it?

The Off-topic board serves for everyone who want to discuss topics which don't belong to other boards. If you are not interested in getting your posts to be counted in a signature campaign, I am sure you feel well to post in any board for pure discussions.

You can see people who post in Wall Observer thread in which only avatars enable but signatures disable. They have interests in that discussion and feel happy to join it and they don't care whether signatures are allowed to visually displayed there or disabled.

Two new no-signature boards that still have posters but it's difficult to say these boards have better quality topics than other boards.

[Hyphen(-)]

I have been wondering why we have Off-topic board in the forum. Moderators do move post or threads that are not relevant to the forum to the off topics section, since it doesn't really count especially those members who are in the sig campaign because no sig member I have seen post there, what's the essence of keeping it? Nobody goes there to post and earn merit or anything serious is happening there, nothing counts in that section, why not remove it totally from the board so that whenever we don't see our post we know it has been deleted completely from the forum. I said I should ask because it doesn't really count as an important section to the forum.

Deleting them does not sound good; it might be meaningful to others just that the thread did not match any section or subsection in the forum, which is why they were moved there.

You can find some interesting topics in the off-topic section that do not fit any other section in the general board or local board. You can interact there, just that campaign managers don't count posts in that section, and that is the reason signature participants do not like posting there.

[Majestic-milf]

 Sometimes we tend to take some words the way they are and I think that's what the Op did; by taking the literal meaning of the off topic board and seeing as a section that bases mainly on posts that make no sense, more like a section where shit posts should be dumped and coupled with the fact CMs have listed it off areas of post quota further belief that it's irrelevant to the forum.
 Op, just as the others have explained, every section or sub board here has its use and purpose, all doing their jobs to make the place as clean and organized as possible.
The other day I visited altcointalk, and believe me, that place has nothing on this forum as it's not really organized, just as if the developers weren't looking for a perfect, orderly place, but rather somewhere users can come to and share Information, offer their services and at the end of the day, every one is happy.
 If you have issues with the off topic section, then I guess you'd have a fit when you hear of the Archival board

[Plaguedeath]

@OP, who are you? my campaign manager didn't even ban/kick the participant who post on board where the post will not counted. While you, a nobody, is asking to remove the board just because it's not active like other board, less merit circulation and didn't counted in most of campaigns.

Imagine if Off-topics board has been removed, a random user will create a new thread in Meta asking the reason why it's get removed and request to bring it back.

[Pmalek]

Don't think of the Off Topic board as being irrelevant just because you won't get paid for posts you write there. Signature campaigns aren't official features of the forum. It's just a bonus someone come up with years ago, and every campaign and manager have their own rules about where you can and can't post.

The main point of this forum is to discuss Bitcoin and Bitcoin-related topics. However, just like in life, you aren't interested in just one thing. When you are at work, you will talk to your boss and colleagues about work related topics, but you will also discuss, sports, women, movies, holidays, favorite foods, etc. That's off-topic, not related to the reason why you are there but you still talk about it.