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On Stack Exchange sites, I keep seeing answerers use "OP" to refer to the person who asked a question. I can't seem to find any enlightenment online as to what it means.

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The characters "OP" stand for "Original Poster", the person originally asking the question.

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    Also, somewhat less commonly, OP refers to the post itself; "Original Post". – Andrew Barber Sep 10 '12 at 14:51
  • @AndrewBarber Ha, have a look at my revision history. I took it out because I could not find a reliable reference for it, so I assumed it might just have been me. :) – Bart Sep 10 '12 at 14:53
  • ahh! hehe... nope, not just you! – Andrew Barber Sep 10 '12 at 14:54
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    For newcomers (like me), it's a little disconcerting to be referred to as an acronym you don't understand. – kdavies4 Jul 6 '14 at 3:55
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    I thought it was originated from mIRC /op :) – Uri Abramson Oct 5 '14 at 13:11
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    thank you, I was feeling ashamed to ask that in other stack... – DanielV Apr 14 '15 at 12:27
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    Until today I really didn't know what actually OP stands for but I used it (for person asking question) many times to keep the discussion going and some how I encountered this post. Thanks. – vendettamit Oct 29 '15 at 17:44
  • What is the non-Original Poster then? I would understand "QP" for question poster because the other posts are comments and answers, but from my point of view, OP is more confusing then helping. – Avatar Jan 14 '18 at 8:49

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