Introducing myself and asking whether my planned first topic belongs anywhere

Introducing myself and asking whether my planned first topic belongs anywhere Writing it up because I had to work it out twice and would rather nobody else did.

Checking my reasoning rather than asking for a conclusion.

My current understanding is set out below in the order I arrived at it. I think the second step is the weakest part and I would like that examined before the rest.

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.

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.

This is the sort of thing that ought to be settled and apparently is not.

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.

It cost nothing to check and would have cost something not to.

Welcome. Two practical notes from staff. Your first few posts are rate-limited, which is an anti-spam measure and not a comment on you, and it lifts on its own. If you hit it and have something to add, edit the post you already made.

Do not feel obliged to reply to every reply on your own topic. A single "that answered it" and a marked solution is the most useful thing you can do for the next person who searches.

Asking as the newest person in the thread: is there a canonical order to read the documentation set in? I have been going alphabetically and that is clearly not it.

A partial answer, offered because a partial answer beats none.

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 short version is the first sentence; the rest is why.

Following this. I have the same question and no better information than the first post.

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.

A qualification I should have led with rather than closed on.

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.

Reporting the observation and leaving the explanation open deliberately.

There is no stupid-questions rule and no penalty for asking badly. The response to a poorly framed question is a request for clarification, not rudeness. That is a deliberately cultivated norm here.

That matches what I have seen, for whatever a single anecdote is worth.