www.wikipedia.org wrote:
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" and its variants ("n00b", "naab", "noobo", "übern00b", "nUb", "nublet", "n44b" etc.) 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' sometimes appears in a similar manner ('b' is right besides 'n' in a standard computer keyboard).
An interesting moral point which has recently come up in some areas of the Internet is that those who call others noobs indeed are noobs in that calling them such a degrading term reveals the caller's immaturity.
It's in my encyclopedia though
