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The following text from an answer on the German Language Stack Exchange brings up an interesting question:

[...] To explain what happened thereafter to the translation into English is not the aim of this site.

When writing answers, should I avoid including content that is off-topic for the site, even if that content is relevant to the question?

Related on Meta Super User: Is giving a shopping recommendation prohibited?

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The off-topic section is mostly about questions and what they are asking for.

It is, however, entirely up to the writer of an answer what they do or do not include in it.

For example, recommendation requests are off-topic on many sites, however, for some questions, the right answer is or will contain a recommendation (of a library, book, camera etc...).

This really is about the question and how it is phrased, something that has been well described in the Q&A is Hard, Lets Go Shopping blog post.

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  • Hm. Recommending a programming book in an answer on a programming site would be ok, even if questions asking for programming books are off topic. That, however, isn't directly comparable to going into the details of the evolution of a word in English on a site about the German language. – yannis Dec 31 '15 at 9:46
  • @Yannis - possibly. If someone chooses to do so, for "completeness sake", I don't really have a problem with that. – Oded Dec 31 '15 at 9:52

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