On Start: the maintained page in the documentation commons covers the general case with citations and a review date, which is more reliable than any reply here including this one.
Why the Start Here categories exist, and what they are not for — one year on I have a specific reason for asking rather than idle curiosity, and the context is below.
Collecting what is known about Start in one place, because it is currently spread across a category, two tag pages and a thread that is hard to find.
This is a summary rather than new work, and I have attributed each part to where I found it.
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.
That matches what I was told, which is not the same as knowing it.
Start is well covered in the tag pages, and the older discussions are better than the recent ones because they were argued out properly. Worth twenty minutes before adding to this 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.
I am reporting what happened, not recommending it.
On Start: the maintained page in the documentation commons covers the general case with citations and a review date, which is more reliable than any reply here including this one.
My experience of Start contradicts the reply above. I am posting it as a data point rather than as a refutation, because one person's experience is exactly that.
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.
Someone should write this up properly, and it should probably not be me.
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 methods point on Start rather than a substantive one: if the comparison is not like for like, the difference you are measuring is the difference in method.
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.
Caveat: everything above assumes the paperwork is what it says it is.
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.
Genuinely open to being wrong about this one.
This is the first time the answer has come with its own limits attached. Appreciated.
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