The Tech Support forum answers most of the "how do I......" type questions that are to do with the mechanics of posting. When I joined AT I will admit that I read an awful lot of the threads in that forum and learned a lot. I also posted a couple of questions - you generally get a very helpful answer quite quickly (remembering time differences etc).
Likewise I read the stickied "Posting Guidelines" to be found at the top of just about every forum here; they also helped a lot in finding out where I could post what etc.
Any mod will answer any question you ask about AT, and if they don't know the answer they will find out. There are no silly questions at all; the most obvious thing (to you) could be totally obscure to me until I asked you to clarify.
I do think that sending a helpful email that details all of that information (rather than just giving some links) would be horribly daunting for a brand new member. It would have to be quite long if it planned on answering as many questions as possible... and that, I think, is what the FAQ section is for
. I know this all sounds horribly unhelpful, and I don't mean it to be but I do know that when I was a new member if Solandia had sent me screeds of "how to" info I'd have been totally put off! I learned a lot more by just gently pottering around among old threads
.