Newbie: Difference between revisions

A newbie (written in 1337 as: 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 more experienced/knowledgeable people use it in purposes of negative reinforcement, urging “newbies” to learn more about the field or area in question.

Variant spellings, such as newb, noob and, in Leetspeak, n3wb are numerous and common in Internet use.

SAM WALLACE

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. However, highly skilled individuals also tend to refer to themselves as newbies to make others think they will be an easy kill, only to be shocked when they find out how skilled the "newbie" really is.

Internet Relay Chat

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.

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 unintelligent 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. However, due to the evolution of language, the term noob or 'n00b' is now used both ways and newb is used only infrequently.

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 truly 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, especially America's Army and DOOM) 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 "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.

U.S. Army usage

A 'Newbie' was a term to describe new arrivals in the Vietnam theater of war, decades before its popular use on 1980s bulleting boards and subsequent internet message boards and chat rooms.

"It was very tough to be a newbie in Vietnam. When you get to your unit, the other men look so angry at the world, they look tired and unmotivated."

Rough etymology

The following is the likely etymology of n00b:

1. newbie (new person)
2. newby (variation of newbie)
3. newb (shortened version of newbie)
4. noob (a variant probably both for phonetics and Leetspeak, also sometimes used as slander)
5. n00b (partial Leet speak of "noob")

Newbies in Internet culture

Since the internet has long been an attractor of people, especially children, to sophisticated areas of expertise (programming, gaming, system administration, etc.), there have been certain cultural and behavioral patterns that result as a conflict of newbies against veterans, veterans against newbies, and newbies against newbies; these clashes typically result in newbies showing childish behavior. Newbies have the bad habit, whether accidental or purposely, of asking obvious questions in online forums and chat rooms that could be quickly solved by use of a search engine. For example, a newbie on a Yu-Gi-Oh! card game forum could ask this obvious question: "What are the green cards called?" even though it states in the rulebook, anywhere on the internet and on the card what they are.

Noobs in Internet gaming

In gaming, noobs tend to exhibit one or more of the following behaviors:

• Poor sportsmanship: noobs might communicate explicit/racial/prejudicial comments to the victorious parties, in situations where the newbies lose. Blame might be redirected to an external phenomenon, such as a latency (a.k.a. lag) spike. Other poor sportsmanship actions include: disconnecting in a game once victory is deemed impossible (albeit this may prevent statistics from being recorded, both for the victors and the losers). In team games, newbies might team kill (sometimes called gank, meaning 'Gang Kill') friendly players as a vent of their frustration.
• Giving personal information that is fabricated or is not actually true. For example, a "noob" may claim that they are "football players" and "could beat you up in real life", and countless other claims of "real life" superiority.

• Noobs look for opposite or same sex companionship online. It is common to see a "noob" requesting a "gf" or "bf" (girlfriend/boyfriend), especially one that is advanced or at a high level (e.g. Runescape).
• The inclination to shout random phrases when voice is enabled, that may be nonsensical and/or use an overwhelming amount of explicit language. Some "noobs" even do strange things such as playing on the piano or impersonating celebrities or people with ethnic accents. This is especially a problem on Xbox Live and Counter-Strike. This can drown out aural environmental indicators, which could lead to a detrimental gameplay effect to the other parties involved. Some games have options specifically made to drown out the voices of other players.

• Little or no use of team tactics, or understanding how to cooperate. This is especially critical in games with players assuming specific roles on a team, such as Battlefield 2 or TeamFortress. Moreover, a tendency to be 'greedy' in regards to personal user experience versus the team objectives, i.e. always using a vehicle without being inline with objectives.

• Not understanding the game environment. This includes not understanding the concept of friendly and hostile players, combat/trading zones and non-combat/trading zones, or ignorance to game world rules regarding player conduct.

• A tendency to use only the most powerful weapon possible, such as always using the rocket launcher when possible in Doom 3, even if the situation would call for a different approach.
• A tendency to utilize cheating programs, after a period of frustration experienced from getting beaten by veterans. This is most frequently seen in Counter-Strike and Diablo.

• A tendency to require the quick fix solution. In computer role-playing games for instance, this would include such actions as begging for free in-game items off other players.
• A tendency to act like a certain place in a map belongs to an individual. This occurs very often in MMORPGs, as a lot of players want to level up their characters quickly without being bothered.

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!

OMG KAN I HAV SOME FR3 5TUFFZ PL0X!@11!

Example of joke "noob talk":

OMGWTFBBQ U SUK11oneone11!one

omfgkthxbai11one1+shift

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.

Noob generally describes a player's current behavior rather than his level of game experience. Although apparently originating from reactions to the ignorance among new players, its usage extends to high-level players who act similarly, and invalid with new players who lack apparent foolishness. Someone online may call someone a "n00b", who offline would call him or her a loser or idiot.

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 to froobs. In the MMORPG RuneScape, the term froob is commonly used to describe high leveled people who act like they are the best. Also in MMORPG's a froob can be someone who bought his money off a third party source, such as eBay using PayPal or similar companies. This usually results in low lvl characters having strong armor or valuable items, while he doesnt deserve it.

Usage in popular culture

Doctor Cox in the TV show "Scrubs" continuously refers to his protége John Dorian (J.D) as "Newbie" as a way of breaking his spirits and constantly reminding him who's in charge.

In The Sims video game, the tutorial family with which you learn how to play the game are called Bob & Betty Newbie.

In the online game Kingdom of Loathing, one enemy that the player may face in the Valley of Rof L'm Fao is a "Lamz0r N00b." Their attacks include "omgwtf"ing the player, a reference to noobspeak.

In the game Baldur's Gate, there is an NPC called Noober (obviously from noob), who talks to the party for a while before running out of things to say. His purpose in the game is to annoy the player (and give experience if you wait long enough).

References

Resources to help newbies to the Internet include:

• http://www.newbie.org/
• http://www.refdesk.com/factbeg.html