I find that mentioning that you are new here and learning does great things towards getting you more gentle and well explained answers. No need to 'retreat' to a Newbie room for fear of getting others irritated.

I must admit, not in our favor, that we are often tired of seeing the same questions coming every few weeks, and respond harshly. Or just point to the documentation and previous nodes about the subject. To minimize this, search for questions first. If that doesn't help you, or you need more help then they give, mention the nodes you looked into, and ask for additional help.

I think that, in theory, everyone here wants to help others. But we are all human. Some of our pet peeves include homework, cargo cult programming, and most importantly, people who just want answers without putting in any work. Hopefully, we can avoid needing a place for those new to post without fear of annoying long-timers.

Heck, if you really want to, put "(Newbie question)" at the beginning of your title, so those who aren't in the mood can skip it, and the others know how to treat you. I don't know if this will work, but it can't hurt.

As for the unwritten rules of the site, many monks have home nodes listing their favorite nodes. And while interesting Perl is everyone's first pick, there are many on expected behavior of the monastery. In the "Other Users" nodelet try clicking on a few of the first (highest ranked) monks on, and explore from there.

=Blue
...you might be eaten by a grue...

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