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 honest answer is that it depends, and here is what it depends on.
Asking directly, because I could not find a straight answer: What this community means by "a source", in practical terms
Counting it rather than describing it, because the count is the part that can be argued with.
10 instances over 26 weeks, recorded the same way each time, 6 of them different enough from the rest that I have set them aside and said so.
That is the whole dataset. The question in the title is what it does and does not support.
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.
Fair, and the limits you put on it are the part I will remember.
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 honest answer is that it depends, and here is what it depends on.
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 would be interested in a counterexample if anyone has one.
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.
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.
Noting that I have skin in this question and have tried to discount for it.
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.
That distinction has done more work for me than anything else in this category.
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 disagreement above is smaller than it looks once the terms are fixed.
Off-topic posts that do not belong here belong in the Lounge instead. You are not in trouble if a moderator moves your post — they are just routing it to the right place so people who want to read it can find it.
I am confident about the direction and much less about the magnitude.
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 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 conclusion is tentative; the arithmetic underneath it is not.
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.
Nothing above should be read as advice about what anyone else should do.
Nothing to add on the substance. Thank you for taking the question at face value.
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.
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 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.
I have deliberately not rounded that, because the rounding is where the argument starts.
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.
That is the version I would defend. It is not the version I started with.
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 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 rule of thumb is fine; the edge cases are where it earns its keep.