1. For old-style class instances, both help(i) and help(type(i)) give the help for the instance type, which is highly unhelpful IMO. Otherwise it seems than both C class instances and regular Python new-style class instances give the class doc for help(i). Summary: help(x) is good, help(type(x)) unnecessary.

2. 3. Magic methods are documented through docs.python.org and eventually ABCs, not docstrings. I see no reason to make an exception for __init__, except if removing its docstring breaks code.

4. There are actually two typos ;) Regarding parens, I personally think it’s not helpful to always put them, since e.g. “len()” is not valid, but my choice is not Python’s.