Inconsistency in Star Trek TNG holodeck

Question

I’m rewatching TNG, and twice have noticed that objects from the holodeck are able to exit the holodeck. Wesley gets wet and stays wet when leaving; and also has a snowball fight, throwing a snowball which exits the holodeck and hits Captain Picard. How?

Answer 1

Holograms can't exit the holodecks on the Enterprise-D, since they require holo-emitters to exist, and there aren't any in the corridors of that vessel.

Holodecks are apparently capable of transporting and/or replicating real matter, however; Data intimated as much in one of the scenes you cited (the one with Wesley Crusher, from Encounter at Farpoint):

Riker: "I didn't believe these simulations could be this real."

Data: "Much of it is real, sir. If the transporters can convert our bodies to an energy beam, then back to the original pattern..."

Riker: "Yes, of course; then these rocks and vegetations have much simpler patterns."

Data: "Correct, sir."

So apparently, the water Wesley was drenched with was real, non-holographic matter (and I'm guessing the same thing applied to the snowball).