Reading order for a first week here, and what to skip until later Writing it up because I had to work it out twice and would rather nobody else did.
Trying to work out what would count as evidence on reading order, before collecting any. This is the part I usually skip and it is the part that makes the rest useful.
If two explanations predict the same observation, observing it does not help. So: what observation would separate them?
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.
It is worth stating the boring hypothesis before the interesting one.
Reading order is worth one more sentence than it usually gets, and the sentence is the one about how the number was arrived at.
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.
It is worth checking rather than assuming, which costs nothing.
The moderation log is public. Every staff action is logged with the rule cited and the reasoning stated. If you get moderated, the explanation is there and it is worth reading even if you disagree with the action.
Somebody will have a better source than mine, and I hope they post it.
Reading counts toward trust level, so lurking is not wasted. That is unusual and it is the reason the levels here track familiarity rather than volume.
Second-hand, so weight it accordingly.
Agreed, and I will stop repeating the version of this I had been repeating.
I would rather this thread reach "we do not know" about reading order than reach a confident answer that nobody can support when asked.
On reading order, the part that usually goes wrong is that the question is asked as though it has one answer. It has a range, and the width of the range is the interesting bit.
If you can post the two or three numbers you are working from, several people here will check the arithmetic rather than argue about the conclusion.
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.
That is my reading. Someone else read the same page differently and was reasonable.
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.
What would change my mind on reading order is a second dataset collected by someone with no stake in the first. Until then I hold it loosely and I would rather say so than pretend to more.
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.
Introducing yourself is fine and requires no question. Post in this subcategory, describe the context that matters for why you are here, and lurk for a bit before posting technical questions. That order works well.
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.
Adding the boring version of reading order, because the interesting version keeps getting posted and the boring one is usually right.
Check the ordinary explanations, in order, and stop when one of them accounts for what you are seeing. Most of the time the second one does.
Right, and stated more narrowly than I would have dared to state it.
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.
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.
That is where I would start, not where I would stop.
Speaking only to reading order as I have actually seen it, rather than as it is usually described: the effect is real, it is smaller than the thread suggests, and the variance between people is larger than the effect.