Lurk to learn. Watching how a scene works before jumping in saves you a lot of rookie mistakes online and off.

Every group has norms nobody wrote down: what counts as funny, what is off limits, who the regulars defer to. None of it is on the rules page, only in the watching. Jumping straight in means learning those norms by breaking them in front of everyone, and first impressions in a group are slow to revise. Watching first costs a week and saves considerably more.

Give any new place two weeks of reading before you contribute. Notice what gets ignored and what gets a response. Then make your first contribution something useful rather than something about yourself.