Coming back to: A newcomer's list of things that confused me, and the fixes

Posting this under the heading it deserves: A newcomer's list of things that confused me, and the fixes Everything below is what sits behind that.

Question in the title. Context below, and I have tried to include the things people here always have to ask for.

What I have already read: the relevant maintained document, the two topics it links to, and the tag page. What I could not find is the specific case I am in, which may simply mean it is uncommon.

I am happy to be told this is answered elsewhere if someone can point at where.

Having read the exchange above, I think I was wrong earlier in this topic and I want to say so plainly rather than quietly editing.

The correction was fair and I had been repeating something I had not checked carefully enough.

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.

Coming back to post #2, because the follow-up matters more than the original answer.

Nothing here requires expertise. The experienced members here got that way by posting questions, not by knowing the answer before they showed up. If you know something useful, post it. If you do not, ask.

post #4 is right about the mechanism and I think understates the practical bit.

For anyone arriving from a search: the marked solution above is the direct answer, and the replies underneath it add the caveats that make it safe to use.

Trust levels accumulate over time and they give you access to small things like the ability to edit your own posts without a timestamp. They are not a status symbol and they do not make you more right. Someone at trust level zero with a good question gets better answers than someone at trust level four with a bad one.

Your introduction is well framed. You have given enough context that people can actually answer. That is rarer than it sounds and it matters more than it sounds.

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.

post #8 answers the question as asked. The question underneath it is different.

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.