This is a continuation of a long topic, addressed by post number rather than by page. Start at post 1.
Following, with nothing to contribute beyond having asked the same thing elsewhere.
The answer to the reading-order question is: the how-to-ask page, then whichever compound page applies to you, then the sourcing standard. Forty minutes and it saves weeks.
I have deliberately not rounded that, because the rounding is where the argument starts.
One small courtesy that makes a large difference: put the specific question in the title. It is the single thing that most changes how quickly you get a useful reply.
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.
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.
The evidence for this is thinner than the way I have phrased it suggests.
Reading the guidelines before you post is genuinely worth the twenty minutes. Not because you will break one, but because the rules explain why the place reads the way it does.
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.
Joining rather than answering. I have read the orientation set twice and the thing that finally made it click was realising the documentation pages are the destination and topics are how they get written.
It is the sort of thing that seems obvious in retrospect and was not at the time.
Marked solutions are the site's way of saying that someone asked a good question and someone else gave an answer that actually worked. It is not a competition and it does not appear on your record — it is just how the site learns which topics stay useful six months later.
That is a fair summary of where the discussion has got to.
One thing that took me a while to notice: the search box indexes maintained documents as well as topics, and documents carry a review date. If a document and a five-year-old topic disagree, the document is the one somebody has looked at recently.
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.
First week here. The thing I would tell someone arriving behind me is that the answers are slower and much better than anywhere else I have looked, and that trying to hurry one does not work.
I would put the burden of proof on the interesting explanation, not the dull one.
The compound and evidence pages are updated regularly and they are worth reading when you are new. They answer the meta questions like "do we have data on this" and "what do the trials actually show" before you ask them.
Trust levels accumulate over time and they give you access to small things like the ability to edit your own posts without a timestamp. They are not a status symbol and they do not make you more right. Someone at trust level zero with a good question gets better answers than someone at trust level four with a bad one.
That is what the documentation says. What happens in practice is usually close.
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.
Nothing here requires expertise. The experienced members here got that way by posting questions, not by knowing the answer before they showed up. If you know something useful, post it. If you do not, ask.
You do not need to introduce yourself before asking a question, and nobody will think worse of you for arriving with one. The introductions subcategory exists for people who want it, not as a gate.
One case, stated as one case.
If you are not sure which subcategory a question belongs in, post it in the closest one. A moderator will move it, the move is logged, and nothing bad happens to you.
Stating my assumptions rather than smuggling them in.
That reframing is the whole thing. The facts I already had.
The answer to the reading-order question is: the how-to-ask page, then whichever compound page applies to you, then the sourcing standard. Forty minutes and it saves weeks.
Nothing here requires expertise. The experienced members here got that way by posting questions, not by knowing the answer before they showed up. If you know something useful, post it. If you do not, ask.
I would want to see it done twice before believing it once.
The tag pages are usually a better entry point than the categories for a first read. A tag cuts across categories, so following one shows you how the same subject is treated by the analytical people and the practical people at once.
Reading it back, the second half matters more than the first.
The compound pages are the fastest way to find out whether a question has a published answer at all. If the page says the trial is ongoing, that is the honest state of it and no thread will improve on that.
If you want a fast orientation, read three solved topics in the subcategory you care about. Solved means somebody said the answer worked, which is more signal than reply count.
I have said this before in a thread nobody could find, so it is worth repeating.
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.
The compound pages are the fastest way to find out whether a question has a published answer at all. If the page says the trial is ongoing, that is the honest state of it and no thread will improve on that.
Right — I had this wrong and I am glad to have read it before it mattered.