The advice that those that have been here for a while would give to a newbie

welcome to the wonderful world of mylot. the number next to your name is the number of post you do. after i respond here at your discussion mine will add one for i add one post. but that number does not represent earnings just post. it can decrease in some way if you post on a discussion that gets deleted then your response will get deleted as well so it minus at that number.
those little marks + - are use to rate the member. if you find the response cool then you hit the + if you find it not good then you can hit the -. though i dont use the negative, for me everybody is entitle to their own opinion. the! sign is for reporting at mylot. if you find that the response was copied or against mylot rules then you can report that to them through using! you will get a star when you reach 100 post and with that star there is a number. numbers from one to ten. the numbers represent how people finds you here. if they press + as a rate on you then your number will be high. 10 i the highest. i do not want to offend anyone here too but when i need to say something that i know might offend i always put at the end JUST MY OPINION or JUST A SUGGESTION so people will not misinterpret what i am trying to say. you can only email some one if that person is on your friends list. go to her profile by pressing her name. then below at the avatar you can press send a message. goodluck