This odd online persona can be intimidating when first encountered. When you're entering the forum as a newbie, you'll notice this person's name, signature and/or handle all over the place. They're one of the main debaters, they've planted a few
Epileptic Trees in their time, and
their knowledge of the forum's series/topic is second only to that of the Font Of Knowledge.
But they've not spoken to you once in the month since you joined the forum. When you posted your introductory message, they didn't even reply with a one word "Hello." When you replied to their post, they ignored it, replying to the two regular members who posted before and after you. They don't seem to know you exist.
Oh, wait a minute — they have spoken to you once. So they must know you exist, because they made some rather acerbic remarks when you asked a question about the first episode (the Font Of Knowledge answered that one), or when you wanted to know which forum to post fanfiction under (
The Shepherd bailed you out there). Something along the lines of "How can any real fan not know that?" or "Isn't it obvious?" if memory serves. Not the most positive feedback in the world. Provided you're not disheartened enough to leave the forum, you'll probably ignore the negative remarks, thank the people who did help you, and continue to learn the ropes of the forum.
Then something strange happens. As the newbie gets better acquainted with the fandom, starts taking part in discussions and gets to know the other forum members, they'll find that this character starts to warm up to them. They start posting replies to the newbie's questions. They ask for their opinions. Eventually, they're chatting away as if they've known each other for years.
What happened? Well, the newbie stopped being a newbie
and moved up a rank.
Once a newbie becomes a valuable sparring partner/ally/source of fanfic, fanart or information, this character becomes much more approachable. You see it's not that (s)he's nasty — (s)he just
Suffers Newbies Poorly.
They don't intend to scare the new blood off
(guess who's in charge of that?), but they find the more obvious questions (and initial blunders) made by newbies intensely irritating. In their opinion, if you haven't got something intelligent to add to the debate, you should just stay quiet. They have next to no patience, and it doesn't seem to occur to them that not everyone who joins the forum is a die-hard fan with encyclopaedic knowledge of the topic. They conveniently forget that they themselves were the newcomer at some point. Still,
once won over, they're probably one of the friendliest and most active members of the board. Their bark really is worse than their bite, as most of the forum will be quick to reassure you. The fact that this character is usually pretty well liked among the regulars and old guard of the forum is testimony to that.
Despite not being genuinely nasty, this is one of the few online personas that clash with
The Shepherd, since the Shepherd patiently mentors the same newbies that drives Suffers Newbies Poorly bonkers.
Examples:
- The entire population of alt.folklore.urban.
- They actually have a running joke about this tendency, sometimes asking "Whose turn is it in the Nicey-nice barrel this month?" What's really fun is that the same person who Suffers Newbies Poorly today may be The Shepherd tomorrow. It really depends on the quality of the newbie's contribution: Post to say "Hi, I'm new!" and you get deafening silence unless there's a Shepherd in residence that day. Post with a a substantial contributive post, and you'll find yourself in the middle of an interesting conversation.
- On Neo GAF, you are a "junior member" until you have a total post history of about 150 or so posts. Of course, most people don't make it that far because regular members tend to instantly dismiss or chastise anything juniors say, no matter how relevant, and the moderators are notorious trolls and console fanboys who goad people into getting themselves mocked or banned with wild abandon.
- Quite a few residents of the Dead Lounge forums; understandable, as they're almost all Goths.
- Wait, what does being a Goth have to do with suffering newbs poorly?
- Somehow, 4chan manages to be this trope despite the fact that users are completely anonymous. Established users detect newbies with something akin to the Force.
- This may be to do with the fact that newbies attempt to intergrate themselves by repeating old memes and such. When you try this on an imageboard that has a new meme every other week, detecting a newbie doesn't seem so hard.
- Also look for people with a writing style that doesn't quite gel with the rest of the board, or people who aren't as jaded as the average 4channer.
- This Troper on Bungie.net. I've made many, many threads, decrying the "New Idiots." It has now mostly become a joke, though.
- Shoryuken.com
, a Street Fighter message board, is infamously rude to newbies to the point where if your Join Date is recent, it is used as an insult ("damn 09'ers"). Word of advice - don't make a "Hi I'm New" thread unless your intention is to troll.
- Forumgoers on Facepunch, the forum for the Game Mod Garry's Mod, also frequently use joindates as insults.
- As does Something Awful, with the added irony of nobody staying there past two or three years anyway since they inevitably fall victim to the miles-long rule list there.
- On Game FA Qs, many veteran players in Left 4 Dead complain about how newbie players generally suck at the game and ruin the old timers' fun by constantly screwing up (running ahead of the group, taking too much damage, etc.) Many others also attempt to hush the complainers by reminding them that they were newbies once and that not every new player is an idiot. Of course the complaining got worse when Valve allowed people to try the game for free for a day and then announcing a 40% off sale for the game. Some players are even encouraging others to not play, grief the newbies, or just be plain outright mean to them when the "free to play for a day" event rolls around.
- This is more than just the Left 4 Dead Boards. In fact the whole site tends to attract this sort of character, most often, within a set of boards related to a similar topic, like A game and its sequels or Humongous Mecha.
- Touhou fans in the comments pages of You Tube videos tend not to react kindly to people asking "what anime is this?"
- Somewhat justified (amongst themselves), and not so at the same time, since touhou isn't anime. It isn't the reason to be as nasty as the occasional fan is.
- About half of the Battleships Forever forum.
- Play Diplomacy.net .
- The Siren Board, forum of Airraidsirens.com and essentially the only forum for outdoor warning siren enthusiasts, tends to be like this. As an increasing number of preteens/younger teenagers develop an interest in sirens and find their way to the board, each gets a fairly limited time to prove that they can be a useful contributor and practice good grammar and spelling. Unfortunately, like with any fan community there's a lot of noobish mistakes one can potentially make that the mods don't take too well, namely blind defense of the classic Thunderbolt siren and equally foolish insults of newer electronic sirens. To be fair to the mods and other veteran members, it's a small forum with an extremely devoted core community that's been running the board in one incarnation or another for years before it got as popular as it is now. Most of these veterans are actual adults who are really of an entirely different generation from the newbies. And finally, the board is apparently used or at least viewed by representatives of actual siren manufacturers, so it's important for us "civilian" enthusiasts to look competent and well-behaved to them.
- There is such a thing as an "outdoor warning siren enthusiast"?
- Damn straight son, and now you're on our shit list. Enjoy your no heads-up warning the next time a tornado rolls into your neighborhood.
