A newbie (1337: n00b) 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. The term is generally regarded as an insult, although in many cases it is used in purposes of negative reinforcement by more experienced/knowledgeable people, urging "newbies" to learn more about the field or area in question.
Variant spellings, such as newb, noob, or n00b (in Leetspeak) are numerous and common in Internet use.
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.
Social rejection
In some contexts, such as on Usenet and in multiplayer video games, newbies are discouraged from the group. 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). Even if a newbie is actually a veteran of a particular game and has just started to play online, they may still be considered a newbie.
In some MMORPGs 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 30 player in World of Warcraft may consider a level 10 player a newbie.) Some forums and MMORPGs have banned some of the more common spelling variations ("newb", "nub", "noob", "n00b") 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.
Social acceptance
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 dissatisfied 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 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 and n00b, 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" usually is. If someone makes an unintellegent comment on a forum or asks a question that even other newbies could answer then it is said that they are making a "noobish" comment or asking a "noobish" question.
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. Many times the term noob or n00b will be used by veterans to degrade a user for their lack of knowledge, or claims to know more than they truely do.
Recently, the spelling noob has been used more interchangeably with "newb", however, and is being used in a more joking manner, usually among friends and users on good terms when one user makes a mistake that most veterans would know better not to do, whereas a "newb" or "noob" wouldn't know better. For example, in the computer sense, a user on a bulletin board may call a veteran user as a noob in a joking manner because they didn't search for a topic currently open with the same discussion before posting a discussion of their own.
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, usually a spawn point, for an extended period of time) or wastefully firing at a wall, wasting ammunition and time. Noob might also be used by veteran players to criticize cheap tactics or overusage of unbalanced weaponry. 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 usually applies in games where team-play is important, and the players choose to completely ignore the team structure and goals. Some other "noobs" are players who overly use vehicles and "uber weapons" to defeat other players, players who "kill-steal" from others, and players who scam others into losing their items or money.
"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). Similar to the internet terminology "pwned" which originated from owned when an anonymous gamer made a typing error by pressing the "p" key which is located to the right of the "o" key on 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 in order to quickly and decisively 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
Noob talk
An underground joke is "Noob talk" or "NUB/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. Also, there are many examples of noob talk on game-related websites, especially forums. An example of this dialect is "ITAM PLZ" (translated into "Items Please") (In Runescape, the higher leveled players usually use the term "PLX" or "PLOX" when imitating N00b Speak."). Other examples of "noob talk" is randomly shouting "i 4m t3h pWn!" and "t3h d00m!". Noob talk is mostly used to make fun of players who whine and ask for money or items. More advanced players might mockingly walk up to a low-level character and plead "moses plz!! or "i wnat godl! plz!?". Noob talk is fairly simple to grasp. The main characteristic of noob talk is to make numerous spelling mistakes and overuse common Internet slang. 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
OMFG R U SERIUS??? <<PERSON>> IS SUCH A NEWBIEz0r$!!!1!!!11!!!1!
Example of joke "noob talk":
OMGWTFBBQ U SUK11oneone11!one
omfgkthxbai11one1+shift
Froobie
The term froobie or froob is a combination of the words free or freebie and noob or newbie. It originates in the online-game Anarchy Online and describes a player that is playing for free (with an ad-supported account instead of a monthly subscription fee). There was a great deal of initial controversy over the froobs. The older players were upset that the froobs obtained service for free, when the veterans had to pay for service. Despite the controversy, Anarchy Online was full of game stopping issues prior
Utilization of noob or n00b as an insult is very similar in act being called a troll; certain actions trigger someone's "noob" or "n00b" label, as a form of group insult.
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Originally Posted by genryu
