Hark! I have been summoned, otherwise I probably would have missed this thread.
Welcome to the Dope, @stopnonstop. May your stay here be a long and pleasant one!
We have a practice thread you can use, here:
Just by reviewing it, you may learn a lot.
Ta - must be five characters, so Ta again. Learning
A few tips.
Quoting previous posts has involved an extra step since a recent software change. You can either highlight part of the post and click the “Quote” button, or after seleclting “Reply” you can click on the “+” sign at the right of the menu and select “Quote whole post”. Note that when quoting the whole post, it will be automatically deleted by the software if it immediately follows the post you’re responding to.
For posting images, the imgur site is a good option (Google “Imgur uploads”). Remember to right-click and “display image in a new tab” and select that URL, ending in “.jpg”, and not the album image.
For posting YouTube videos, there is a bug in the software in our specific configuration, but a workaround is posted here. My own simple workaround is to just position the mouse cursor over “Reply”, paste the YouTube URL with Ctrl-V, and immediately click “Reply”. The trick is to do it quickly.
Hello @stopnonstop and welcome to the Straight Dope! I hope you find your time here rewarding.
Here’s a link to the beginning of the Canadopers thread.
Canada is fantastic and my wife and I enjoy visiting and sightseeing. Our honeymoon was in BC, at Whistler, and Chemainus on Vancouver Island. I grew up in the Northeast US and have been to the Maritimes, the Maritime Provinces several times. These days I live near San Francisco so we tend to explore the western provinces. So much to see and do!
Yes as @Aspenglow says, the test thread is a ‘sandbox’ to just try things out. Help yourself! Almost anything goes there, within the forum rules of course. It is a place to test, to fail, and to learn.
Welcome!
Welcome! You’ve mentioned that you’re from Canada. And hooray for that.
A useful thing to do is put your general location in your profile so other people can see where you’re from. To see someone’s location, click their avatar in any thread to trigger their pop-up “profile card”. If they have a location, it’ll be below their icon signified by the typical Google-style inverted teardrop map pin.
Nobody is expecting anyone to dox themselves, but sharing your major metro area, or “the boonies of Nova Scotia” or … helps folks to get a sense of your personal context.
Me? “Southeast Florida USA” otherwise known as “Somewhere in the greater Miami multi-county metroblob.”
If you want to enter your location, open your profile by clicking your avatar at upper right, then choose the bottommost person-shaped icon on the right. That’ll bring up your profile page. From the menu across the top, choose Preferences, then from the submenu just below that choose Profile. Scroll down a bit and there’s a text field [Location]. Make your entry then scroll all the way to the bottom and [Save Changes].
And once again welcome. We can always use some new, and mostly sane, blood.
Welcome @stopnonstop
I’m also recently retired. It’s… different, but great. But sheeesss, now I have a lot to do.
The ‘Dope’ is a great place to ask or share pretty much anything. There are a lot of very intelligent, intuitive and inventive people in here.
Even though that’s true, this can’t be repeated enough. -
Hello and welcome to the dope. It’s always nice to meet new people.
I hope you’ll be happy here. This place has been a godsend for me.
Welcome, @stopnonstop! It’s nice to see folks coming out of the woodwork.
Sorry about, well, the world. At least we have a little bubble here on the Dope.
For me as well.
Thanks for all the welcomes and tips. Looking forward to being part of this bastion of sanity.
With some interesting non-sanity mixed in.
Welcome!
You really are new here 
Rumors. Discard.
Welcome nonetheless.
Bonjour.
Welcome.
Hello from England !
Bienvenidos!
I was also a decade-scale lurker before I started posting, and it’s even better when you get interactive.
And when you call it a
you should remember that there ain’t no sanity clause.
We try to help everyone. If it turns out they are more than a simple fool, and want to hurt others, they don’t last long here.
You sound like you will be fine.
Howdy @stopnonstop
I am NOT a simple fool, I am a sensitive and complex fool with missing parts(thus not a complete idiot either). I like to think I fall under the insanity claus🎅
… and constipation free one
Welcome aboard!
Loves me some Canada. I grew up next to youse guys in Alaska. Visited Dawson City when I was a child, via the Top of the World highway and the ferry across the Yukon River. Did it again as an adult some 50 years later with my wife. Drove our RV from Anchorage to Inuvik one summer. Rode the Alcan Highway with my parents in 1959, then drove it with my dad in the 70s, and then again with the wife in 2009. I’ve visited Vancouver and Quebec City and driven across from Toronto to Sault Ste Marie.