Does the word "newbie" have a negative connotation?

Imagine that I'm running a friendly and informal online business. I would like to introduce my service to the new customers by a blog post that entitles, 'Are you a newbie to XYZ.com?'. Will that title make my customers feel intimidated?

My brother and I had a long argument about that word. I said that the word doesn't make such a bad meaning and it can be used anywhere in a friendly manner; but he said that it sounds derogatory and should be avoided. He also asked me to completely avoid that word. He believes it will make people angry.

Who is right and who is wrong here?

Solution 1:

Adding to what everyone has mentioned here, newbie should not be confused with noob (Which happens a lot), for all intentions and purposes:

newbie should be considered a word that references a person that is new to something, inexperienced or otherwise lacks in that particular moment, the knowledge to do some tasks, activities or any other actions in a way that shows experience and knowledge about the usage of how the system in use works, be it a particular game (where it is used most often), a programming language or other activities where the user can gain experience over time.

noob on the other hand is the negative aspect that gets many users confused with newbie, this is mostly related to the pronunciation and environment where they are used. noob means a user who has at least one of the following characteristics and still does not appear to have gained experience over time:

• He/She has been a user of a particular system for a long time
• He/She has the knowledge of how the system works
• He/She is preconsidered an experienced user because of time spend on the system and supposed knowledge of it (Sorry for the preconsidered oxymoron)

Because of all of this, one would think the user knows about the system but after having some experience with the user, one finds out the user, with all of his/her time using the system and learning from it, has nothing to show for. Basically an "experienced user" with 0% learned. In this case, noob is used to denote that the user, with all of his/her time spend in said activity, game, task has not learned anything new or has nothing to show for.

So the basic difference is that newbie is only applied to a new user that is introduced to a system he/she does not know yet. noob is used when a user has already time spend on the system and has learned nothing yet.

Solution 2:

When it started in [who knows? See Mark's question on the word's origin] it was, if not derogatory then certainly condescending.

It can be used in a tone of "friendly ribbing", but that's true of other terms that would be considered derogatory when there's no other context to reposition it.

It's not considered explicit, so you could safely use it of yourself in a self-deprecating manner without much risk of people taking offence at the word itself.

To use it of potential customers, you'd have to be confident that the informal and fun tone had already been set. If so, then it could well work, but it could definitely backfire too. vBulletin's default member levels jokingly mock both new and more senior members by having "cool newbie" as the starting level, and "no life" as one of the more advanced levels. Since "no life" would generally also be seen as derogatory, this gives an insight into the way "newbie" can be taken here - it's an insult, but the tone is set so that mild insults are to be taken as a joke. There are businesses that can work with that tone, but most could not.

Solution 3:

Of the 17 general references for newbie listed in Onelook.com, 15 denote newness and inexperience, without discussing any negative connotiation.

Only two suggest a negative implication:

The Word Spy suggests that it can be derogatory:

A new or inexperienced user, especially one who is ignorant of netiquette and other online proprieties.

They offer an example:

There is nothing inherently bad about being an inexperienced user. It's only when the inexperienced ignore those rules that serve to grease the wheels of Net social interaction that they get branded with the 'newbie' label.

Wikipedia also suggest the possibility of negativity:

It can have derogatory connotations, but is also often used for descriptive purposes only, without a value judgment.

It is likely that many newcomers would not take offense at an acknowledgement of their lack of experience, but some may bristle.

Solution 4:

"Newbie" probably owes much of its widespread use to Usenet, where it definitely had negative connotations. In general, yes, I'd say calling someone a Newbie would be negative. The implication is not just that someone is new, but that they haven't "done their homework".

Having said that, there are clear examples of people using words like this in a way that gives a positive message. The publishers of the Dummies books did very well out of taking a negative word and giving it a positive slant.