What is the best way for a newbie to avoid the peat and repeat dilemma?

I would suggest that you take a close look at the guidelines, and try out the search bar on the upper right hand side of the page before posting. Those should give you an idea of what’s been done to death, or what’s not cool.

1. Do long distance relationships work?

2. Why can’t Fluther be like X (substitute any other Q&A site)?

3. How do you use the @ sign to address another user?

4. Can friends become romantic?

etc.

As long as you don’t ask me to do your homework for you, you’ll be fine.

NO TROLLING. I’m sure you’re not one to troll, but I like to have it out there for everyone who might read this question.
Relationship questions get kinda old, especially if they’re this huge, loooooooong story.
In general, really try to stay away from long-ness in your questions.
Long answers are good, as long as they’re trying to actually help and give a thoughtful answer. It shows that you were willing to help the person asking the question.
Actually try to be thoughtful, especially in the discussion questions, and respect other people’s opinions.
Generally follow the guidelines.

And follow the Golden Rule –
Do unto other Jellies as you would have them do unto you.

Just ask it. If it gets modded, well, then you know not to ask it again.

If the Collective gets snarky with it, well, they didn’t really have to click on it to begin with, did they?

Questions about the site moderation have been asked way too many times. Specific questions about Fluther that can be found easily in the Guidelines are asked far too often also.

Read the Frequently Asked Questions

After reading the guidelines, trial and error is your best bet.

Welcome to fluther, and thank you for asking. Being sensitive to points like this will take you far.

The question that bugs me the most from a newcomer is any form or variation of this one:

If you could change one thing about fluther, what would it be?
also seen as
What changes and improvements would you like fluther to make?

I don’t even enjoy that one very much from long-time users, but I answer it now and then because I too have a few pet wishes. On the whole I think this site is so satisfactory that I would rather see no changes and improvements ever again than see us fix ourselves to death.

Now that we have the meta category for questions about Fluther, I don’t think the questions about how something works or the point of lurve will bother long-time members so much. However, duplicate questions of any kind (especially if it was asked two days ago or something), will raise ire. The best you can do is use the search box to see if it’s been asked before. That said, we all know that the search function isn’t perfect! Rather than getting snippy with new users, I really wish people would just flag those types of questions and let the mods handle it. After all, that’s what we’re here for!

I’m going to have to disagree with @ChocolateReigns and say that long questions are much better than short, not-thought-out ones. Especially if it’s about relationships.

@andrew Oh don’t get me wrong. I don’t mean not to think about your questions or something like that. I mean don’t go rambling on and on about your life story or something.

“What do you like about fluther?” is the one that I have to add. Its asked over and over, sometimes by new people looking for information about the site and sometimes by older users who want to know if other people are appreciating the same things or different ones that they can come to appreciate as well. Its a decent question… if it hasn’t been asked in the past week or two. But if it has, its rather annoying.