Comment by zahlman

> I do edit Wikipedia from time to time, and while you can always find drama everywhere, newbies are welcomed not thrown rule books.

I've lost count of the times that other editors insisted that I log into my account and stop posting anonymously, for committing the sin of actually understanding policy (after spending inordinate amounts of time reading back-room pages that most people wouldn't even know how to find). And I've seen countless others yelled at for not understanding it.

But imagine if 99% of people who came to Wikipedia sincerely believed that it was completely appropriate to go to the page for dogs, and edit the main-space page to ask whether Rover needs to see a vet. That's how it felt for me on the inside of Stack Overflow. I went out of my way to place the rulebook neatly in their hands and hardly anyone cared.

But the actual "culture, expectations and rules" of SO are not "if you want to know something, you can come and post as if you were using a traditional discussion forum and are not expected to consider anything or anyone outside of that".