The question in the title: I have no scientific background — can I still follow the analytics categories? I will give what I have already checked below so nobody repeats it.
I want to check my reasoning rather than get a conclusion.
My current understanding is set out below in the order I arrived at it. I think step two is the weakest part and I would like that examined first.
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.
If anyone has run this properly I would rather read that than my own guess.
Marking my place. If it changes for me I will come back and say so.
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.
Written quickly, so the reasoning may be tighter than the wording.
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 category structure looks heavier than it is. There are twenty top-level categories and you will use three of them. Find those three, mute the rest for a month, and come back to the others when a question sends you there.
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.
One of those cases where knowing the mechanism does not help the decision.
The FAQ link in the sidebar is maintained and worth ten hours of forum browsing. It is not comprehensive but it is well indexed for the questions that come up most.
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 balance I think that is right, and I would not bet much on it.
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.
A single observation, in a thread that deserves better than single observations.
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 would put the burden of proof on the interesting explanation, not the dull one.
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.
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.
Muting is under-used here. A category you mute stops appearing in Latest for you, and you can unmute it in a second. Most long-term members read four or five categories and mute the rest.
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 confident version of this sentence would be wrong, so here is the hedged one.
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.
I would be glad to be shown a cleaner way of putting this.
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 the version I use. It may not be the version that is correct.
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.
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.
Take it as a starting point and not as a specification.
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.
Worth saying I have only my own numbers here, and n is small.
Worth knowing early: the archive is not retrospectively corrected. A topic from two years ago was accurate when written and may not be now. Every post carries its date for that reason.
I would want the raw data before agreeing with my own summary of it.
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.
I keep a log of this specifically because memory is unreliable about it.