Welcome aBoard, plutarch and Yoda.
May I suggest you check out the "Helpful Hints for Newcomers and FAQs" in the Info. and Announcements category? It will take a bit of wading, but I believe you'll find it worthwhile. This is a compilation, spearheaded by our lovely jmh, of suggestions from a bunch of us "old-timers" that we thought would be helpful to new people. We try to keep it on page 0 so that it is immediately visible, but note that sometimes it slips back to page 1. (These clickable page numbers are in a row, just
beneath the thread listings.)