I like newbies and actually seek them out, but it might just be because I'm always looking for new minions.

I agree with Miss Pack Rat that it would be nice if Reviewers who have been around awhile would encourage newer reviewers.While some "newbies" are obviously just plugging a product,or think RIA is something akin to "MySpace",others are a breath of fresh air.I hope they'll stick around!

Maybe I'm mistaken, but it almost seems like many of our newbies are being overlooked. Some of them have very decent comments that are worth reading. I think that if we veterans of RIA work together and do our best in welcoming the newbies, it would be the right thing to do.

Without new blood, the organization withers and dies. Newbie are actually the life blood of any blog or organization. The older members gradually wither and die off.

Newbies are fine. Over the years, I've happily helped lots of them out answering questions etc. However, newbie or otherwise, smart asses who come here to cause trouble and foul things up aren't welcome as far as I'm concerned - most recent example is the one post wonder who apparently stopped by just to tell me how wrong I was about my low opinion of the Mary Kay makeup company. I've retired from taking them on myself - I think I enjoyed it too much.

Treat a newbie well and they may become a valued and helpful member of the community. Treat them badly and they might go down the path of being a rebel against the corrupt oligarchs who dominate RIA and who can blame them? We were all newbies once and dare I say most of us could've strayed down the wrong path if given the wrong impression of the forum. I've seen quite a few examples of potentially great contributors to RIA get blasted for one mistake they have made before overnight turning into an aggressive spammer. So, treat newbies well, for they are our greatest resource.

I think Newbies should be welcomed to RIA with open arms!It is what this site is all about!The more opinions the better!I have trouble detecting newbies from liberals though, neither one of them has a clue what is going on!

I have no problem with true Newbies. It's the folks exhibiting Newbie behavior (cheating, spamming, ALL CAPPING, reposting, etc.) who have 500 posts that bug me.

Hey, we're all newbies at one point. Back off them a bit. Besides, what's better: the loser newbie, or the loser who's been lurking around some website for however many years? UPDATE: Ah, I see a newbie-hater disliked my post: I guess some people think it's better to be the loser who spends too much time on the internet (not saying that I don't spend too much time on the 'net, but I just don't see any reason to feel proud of it, either. The loser who feels like royalty at a website is still, in the end, just a loser.) Well, to each his own, I suppose.