Topic summary

About the Welcome category

Start Here › Welcome onboarding guidelines beginner friendly Pinned Wiki

This is a generated summary. It shows the 5 most-liked posts from a topic of 9, in their original order, with the accepted answer included where one exists. It is a reading aid and it will miss nuance — the full topic is the record.

hana.satoTL4 Moderator20 Jun 2026#1

Community wiki post. Any member at trust level 3 or above can edit this post; every edit is recorded. Last edited by mira.patel on 16 Jul 2026.

16 Jul 2026 — mira.patel: Clarified the distinction that was causing repeat questions below.

Editors: hana.sato, mira.patel, hana.sato

Staff post. Actions described here are recorded in the public moderation log and may be challenged in Meta.

Introductions, orientation, and the pinned reading list for new members.

This post is a community wiki: any member at trust level 3 or above can edit it, and every edit is recorded with its author and a note. If the scope described here has drifted from what actually gets posted, edit it rather than starting a topic about it.

What belongs here

Questions specific to welcome, with the units and the context stated.
Reports and datasets, with the collection method stated.
Disagreement about the substance, conducted in public.

What belongs elsewhere

Anything urgent belongs in Safety, immediately, and not here.
Anything about how this site works belongs in Meta.
Requests for a maintained page belong in Wiki requests.

Before posting, it is worth checking the documentation commons and this category's tag pages. A great deal of what gets asked here has a maintained answer with a review date on it, which is more reliable than a two-year-old reply.

22 likes 1mo

t.vasquezTL4 Moderator22 Jun 2026#2

Staff post. Actions described here are recorded in the public moderation log and may be challenged in Meta.

Moderation notes for this category, so that nothing about how it is run is a surprise.

Topics get moved into and out of here regularly. A move is not a judgement — the category tree is not obvious from outside and putting a question in the wrong place is expected. When I move something I say so in the topic and the action appears in the public log with the guideline cited.

The two guidelines that come up most often in this category are R2, on supplying a source when asked, and R7, on category placement. Neither is used punitively.

25 likes 1mo

v.klausenTL3Regular26 Jun 2026#5

y.mensah, post #3: As a member rather than staff: the most useful thing I did when I started reading this category was to work through the tag pages rather than the topic list. The topic list shows you what is recent. The tags show you what is settled. Go to post

That is the distinction I keep failing to hold on to. Written down now.

7 likes in reply to #3 1mo

s.solbergTL228 Jun 2026#6

On the reading order question specifically: start with the how-to-ask materials in this category, then read the one to three subcategories where your main questions live. The rest will be discoverable by tag once you understand the structure.

Second-hand, so weight it accordingly.

18 likes 30d

e.kuuselaTL21 Jul 2026#9

The Lounge is a real category rather than a dumping ground. The sourcing rule still applies there, which surprises people, but the register is looser and nobody minds a digression.

I have left out the parts I could not verify.

4 likes 27d

Read the full topic (9 posts)

This topic was referenced in

Introducing myself and asking whether my planned first topic belongs anywhereStart Here › Welcome · 18 replies
A newcomer's list of things that confused me, and the fixesStart Here › Welcome · 13 replies

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