Newbie

A newbie is a newcomer to a particular field, the term being commonly used on the Internet, where it might refer to new, inexperienced, or ignorant users of a game, a newsgroup, an operating system or the Internet itself.

Variant spellings, such as newb, noob, or n00b (in "l33tsp34k"), are numerous and common in Internet use, particularly in the Internet language Leet.

Semantics

It can be both a disparaging and friendly term, referring to a neophyte, someone who behaves as such, or someone who is seen as such. A newb is generally a positive term, while n00b usually has a negative connotation.

The word itself is probably a corruption of new boy; a new arrival in a school and who is, therefore, vulnerable to bullying of various kinds, such as hazing or fagging. It could also derive from "new beginner".

"Newbie" was used prior to this as slang in the U.S. Military to denote men who had finished technical school (so no longer a recruit and rookie) and were just arriving to their first permanent assignment.

Discouraging newbies

In some contexts, such as on Usenet and in multiplayer video games, being a newbie is discouraged. Newbies may ask questions that seem extremely simple to experienced users, or disrupt normal order with their lack of skills or etiquette in a certain type of technology. For example, video game players may dislike newbies because they think newbies will hurt or bring down the collective efforts of a team game. Usenet posters may dislike newbies for bringing up off-topic discussion or violating netiquette.

In some groups, the term "newbie" is used by experienced users to refer to any newcomer, whether the newcomer acts ignorantly or not. In this case, the regulars assert their position with a sort of hazing (sometimes called pwning in video games).

In some MMORPG's a newbie is anyone who is lower-leveled than the person making the remark, regardless of actual time spent playing the game. (for example, a level 60 player in World of Warcraft may consider a level 30 player a newbie). Some forums and MMORPG's have banned some of the more common spelling variations ("newb", "nub", "noob", "n00b", "n4b") in an attempt to reduce flame wars. This has, of course, led to more variations.

Referring to regular members as newbies is often considered to be highly insulting. The implication is that they are behaving as if they do not know the rules when in fact they have had more than sufficient opportunity to learn them.

In IRC, newbies are both discouraged and encouraged, depending on the particular channel. There are channels on any of the major networks dedicated to catering to newbie questions and getting into the IRC community. However, beyond the scope of these introductory rooms there are many channels where common newbie mistakes are not tolerated. This may include, repeating the same sentence, begging for pirated software, immature insult slinging, attacking an operator, usage of color, and the use of channel bot search and file list commands (such as !find or @search). Most channels have rules that are posted as a link in the topic or sent to the user as an on-join message. Breaking said rules or established policy by someone who does not take the initiative to find out the rules can result in an instant kick-ban.

Encouraging newbies

It is often a personal choice within a community whether to discourage or encourage newbies. For example, some GNU/Linux users may discourage non-technical users who try to install GNU/Linux, because supporting these users will be difficult and the newbies may be dissatified in the long run. On the other hand, some GNU/Linux users may prefer to encourage newbies, because it grows their userbase and may help the newbies learn more about computing.

Sometimes newbies are recognized as the most important members and received with extra attention. Some chat rooms, for example, have established rules to ask "oldies" to first answer the newbies' questions or concerns before resuming their ongoing discussions. Large Internet forums such as 2channel and Gaia Online have special boards for newbies to learn the basics of chatting on that forum.

Other communities do not treat newbies with a significantly elevated status, but do greet most of the friendly newbies with welcomes informing them of methods to receive assistance. In these situations, the term is basically synonymous with newcomer and is meant with or without affection. For example, Wikipedia has a firm policy of welcoming all new contributors whether or not their first edits are helpful to an encyclopedia. This way, users who make mistakes will be encouraged to learn the rules and keep contributing, rather than provoking censure or anger.

The positive interpretation is probably the more recent but has become quite common. The only way to determine the intended connotation is to examine the context.

Individuals may refer to themselves as newbies in a self-deprecating manner or in acknowledgment of their newcomer status, which may (or may not) lessen the amount of harassment they receive. This may have negative or a positive connotations, depending on the standards of the community.

Newb vs. noob

Newb and noob may have somewhat different connotations. Newbs are simply newcomers—noob, on the other hand, generally means someone who is obnoxious, annoying, or breaks the rules; whether they are actual newcomers or not is mostly irrelevant. Therefore, a noob may be someone who has been around for a time but still engages in behavior that he or she should have learned is unacceptable. Noobs are generally confident in what they are doing, but in reality are annoying others. "Newb" is not necessarily an insulting word, but "noob" is.

More experienced players are often encouraged to give friendly advice and help to Newbs, to support them as they tackle the learning curve of whichever game they're playing, and some game servers are set up explicitly for the purpose of allowing Newbs to gain experience before entering more competitive environments.

"Noob" can also mean a person who claims to know a lot about a subject but in truth does not. It was first used in hacker groups on the BBS chat systems in the 1980s. It is important to note that noob and newb are not necessarily interchangeable.

Recently, the spelling noob has been used more interchangably with "newb", however, and is being used in a more joking manner.

In online gaming, the term is also often used as a general insult. Frustrated players on the losing team may refer to the winning team as noobs. In this case there is no actual connotation of newness meant; the word is simply being used as an insult. By the same token, members of a dominating team may use the term "noobs" (n00bs) to further frustrate their opposition by implying a general lack of skill on the losing team's part, such as "camping" (staying in the general vicinity for an extended period of time) or wastefully firing at a wall. Noob might also be used by veteran players to criticize cheap tactics or overusage of unbalanced weaponry. E.g., in an online team game where friendly fire is turned off, a noob "tactic" would be to overuse explosives in cramped areas around fellow teammates. Noob also specifically applies in games where team-play is important, and the players choose to completely ignore the team structure and goals.

Noob has frequently been written in different forms. Because of the proximity of the "j" key to the "n" key, players in online games often typed "j00b" or "joob" by accident, and the recent proliferation of "nub" (used to shorten the word noob) has often turned into "jub". Though neither "joob" or "jub" have any meaning, their connection with "noob" makes the two words equivalent. "B00b" and "m00b" sometimes appear in a similar manner ("b" and "m" are right beside "n" in a standard computer keyboard).

U.S. Navy Usage

The term "non-useful body", or N.U.B. was coined in the submariner world. A brand new sailor reporting aboard a submarine had to earn his "dolphins" (submarine-qualification = learning everything about a submarine and how to assist in damage control). Until the sailor became so qualified, he could not do his assigned function aboard the submarine. During this time, he was declared a non-useful-body, and was generally harassed until he completed it. The term has since migrated to the surface fleet, and is used to negatively refer to new sailors, who are not as experienced and useful as their shipmates.

Likely etymology of n00b

The following is the likely etymology of n00b:

newbie (new person)
newb (shortened version of newbie)
noob (a variant probably for both phonetics and "Leetspeaking")
n00b (Partial Leetspeak of "noob")

Noob Talk

An underground joke is "Noob talk" or "NOB TALK". Noob talk is when an individual uses harsh spelling errors and terrible punctuation to insult noobs. A lot of "real" noob talk is found on games such as Gunbound, Ragnarok Online, Counter-Strike, and RuneScape. An example of this dialect is "ITAM PLEX" (translated into "Items Please") (In Runescape, the higher leveled players usually use the term "PLX" or "PLOX" when imitating N00b Speak."). Noob talk is fairly simple to grasp: one makes numerous spelling mistakes and overuses common Internet abbreviations. It is easy to discern between "real" noob talk and "joke" noob talk. In many ways, this is similar to the 1980s B1FF postings on Usenet.

Example of real "noob talk": OMG LOLOLOLO U SUK!!!!!!11

Example of joke "noob talk": OMGWTFBBQ U SUK!!!!!11oneone11!one

Example of total "noob talk": "DOOM BUCKET YOUR THE NOOB!!!"

This is also "fr00b," meaning cheater, or fake.

Noob or n00b as insult is sometimes ethically loaded in ways similar to troll. Thus, there are certain actions which will trigger someone's being labeled as a noob or n00b, as a form of peer-to-peer negative sanction. In role-playing games for instance, this would include such actions as begging for free in-game items off other players, attempting to initiate trading with other players outside usual trading areas, following or harassing players, and massively under-/over-charging or /-paying for ingame items. It can also include asking for in-game help rather than solving problems oneself or by Googling, using dirty tricks to gain an advantage in competitive situations over more skillful or higher-level players, and letting down a team effort through incompetence - with the exact parameters depending on who is using the term. Although apparently originating in descriptions of ignorant actions common among new players, its usage extends to high-level players who act in these ways, and does not cover new players (newbs) who do not act in these ways. Its pervasiveness as a general insult or means of chiding players for annoying, foolish or disruptive actions probably originates from the banning, censoring or penalising of more common insults and swearing in many online gaming settings. Someone online may call someone a "n00b", who offline would call him or her a bastard or idiot.

Noob as a verb

The verb "noob" usually means "to own (pwn in some cases) someone like a noob." Noob is not necessarily a derogatory verb, but can be depending on the context. For instance: if person A beats person B to the point where person B looked like a newbie in comparison, person A noobed person B. In any situation where person A could say he "owned" or beat person B like person B was a noob or newbie, person A noobed person B.

It is also possible to hear the verb used in the opposite context. If person A is new to the game or does not play well and beats person B on a lucky chance, then person B could say that he "got noobed", especially if he or she is an excellent player. Noob as a derogatory verb is therefore not hard to grasp, as it is merely an extension of its noun and adjective counterparts.

And finally, the verb "noob" is sometimes seen as "noobing it up" (or more commonly, "newbin' it up"), which means to be or act like a noob. If person A is getting pwned by person B, one could say person A is "newbin' it up."

References