Idea:
Most tutorials teach you the right way to do something. But when you're new to a program, you don’t make just one mistake — you make the same ones that everyone else does.
This is a proposal for a shared database that focuses not on what to do, but what people always do wrong. A reverse manual,
a museum of misclicks, a guide to getting frustrated exactly like everyone else before you.
Example (Unity):
I wanted to open a scene. So I dragged the scene file into the hierarchy window — that looks right, right?
Wrong. Unity treats that as adding a scene object into the current scene.
What I should have done: double-click the scene file in the Project view.
A small difference, but a major "why-is-this-not-working" moment.
More examples:
Photoshop: Drag image onto canvas → It creates a smart object. User: "Why can't I edit this!?"
Excel: Typing 1+1 and hitting enter. "Why didn't it calculate?"
Git: Doing git push --force on main because "it said there was a conflict and I just wanted it gone."
The vision:
A crowdsourced, searchable “Do It Wrong” archive.
Entries list:
The wrong action
The expected result
The actual (weird or silent) result
The correct action
A short explanation of why the wrong one seemed right
Optional plug-ins for IDEs or programs that pop up gentle reminders when you repeat a classic mistake.
Why it's useful:
Beginners get reassurance that others have made the same mistake.
Saves hours of banging your head against the keyboard.
Shows how interface expectations and user logic often don’t align.
Tagline:
Learn from everyone’s bad instincts — including your own.