The best place to get started is the Codex. Search for my question codex and you’ll probably get the info. Or simply function_name, and follow the link that leads there. And, surely enough, searching here at WPSE or at SO.
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I only used the automated install once, but it updated WP on its own and I cannot tell if this behavior is normal or not. Most of the times it’s not something that you do without consent or doing a backup first.
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Those are
Posts(ordered chronologically and organized by taxonomies -categories and tags). A “News Feed” can be extracted from them. -
You can start in Function Reference. The important functions (and classes and APIs) are well documented.
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No, it doesn’t matter which directory WP is installed: Giving WordPress Its Own Directory.
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http://example.com/wp/wp-adminif installed in/wpdirectory.
This shortcut also works:http://example.com/wp/admin. -
http://example.com/wp/wp-contentis the custom files directory. Contains themes, plugins, language files, uploads. A basic backup consists of database plus wp-content. -
The feed is one thing (a RSS feed
http://example.com/wp/feed) and the posts page another (a regular index webpagehttp://example.com/wp). See Template Hierarchy. There are plenty of Infinite Scroll solutions out there. The plugin Jetpack has one (along with a variety of other modules).