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

[Tao Starbow]

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