Reading order for a first week here, and what to skip until later — what changed since

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.

It took me longer than it should have to see that.

An observation about Reading order that I cannot explain and am posting anyway, on the principle that unexplained observations are more useful public than private.

Marking my uncertainty on Reading order explicitly. I am confident about the direction, much less confident about the size, and not confident at all that it generalises past the case in 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.

I would be interested in a counterexample if anyone has one.

Agreed on Reading order, with one qualification that I think matters. The reasoning holds for the case as described. Change the starting assumption and it does not, and the starting assumption is the part nobody states.

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 more caveat and then I will stop qualifying: the sample selected itself.

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.

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

My understanding of Reading order is a few years old and may have been superseded. If it has been, I would genuinely like to know rather than keep repeating it.