[development] "Is this a bug?" type questions

I have been reading this dev list for 18 months now, and I am still not 100% sure what questions will get you slapped down. I particularly wonder about questions like Carl Mc Dade just asked - ei: I am writing code that interacts with the core modules and found an unexpected behavior - is it a bug or intentional? I have interacted with other open source projects in the past where they got very upset if I filed an issue in ignorance, so I like to research before I file. Is this list an appropriate place for that research, or is this list intended to be only for developers working on the core? thanks, -tao