Best advice for Newbies is to 'LURK'.
If you sit back and watch what/how this new [to you] community does/says/handles itself you can hop in and not appear quite 'odd' to the regulars.
Now and then someone pops into view suggesting some wonderous solution to a WB issue, say, but he's replying to a chap called 'Neil Banfield'. Now, if he had lurked just a wee bit he may have discovered it was probably worse than teaching his grandmother to suck eggs...
When I 'got into skinning' and joined my first forum I lurked for quite a while....working out who was who and maybe what they were like....but particularly the appropriate way to interact. OK, that was a while ago now....on Customize.org and skinz.org ....[and #skinners and #litestep on efnet].
It was a whole new world/experience...and I didn't really want to get off on the wrong foot...