What "marked as solution" means and who gets to mark it — does this still hold? posts 61–75

Welcome. The orientation materials are pinned at the top of this category and they take about an hour. They answer most of the questions a new member has and they save time in the longer run.

The compound and evidence pages are updated regularly and they are worth reading when you are new. They answer the meta questions like "do we have data on this" and "what do the trials actually show" before you ask them.

Practical note that does not fit anywhere else. Whatever you conclude from this topic, write down what you did and when. The single most useful thing in your own records is not any individual result; it is that they are dated and consecutive.

This follows post #61 rather than contradicting it.

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.

On post #61 — agreed on the reasoning, with one qualification.

The moderation log is public. Every staff action is logged with the rule cited and the reasoning stated. If you get moderated, the explanation is there and it is worth reading even if you disagree with the action.

I disagree with the reply above, and I think the disagreement is substantive rather than terminological.

The distinction being drawn does not survive when you look at the published data for this specific question. I would be glad to be shown wrong on this, because the version I am arguing against is more convenient.

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.

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.

Worth separating two things that post #65 runs together.

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.

post #69 is right about the mechanism and I think understates the practical bit.

Marked solutions are the site's way of saying that someone asked a good question and someone else gave an answer that actually worked. It is not a competition and it does not appear on your record — it is just how the site learns which topics stay useful six months later.

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.

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.

post #72 is right about the mechanism and I think understates the practical bit.

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.

Worth separating two things that post #70 runs together.

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.