What word would describe the opposite of a newbie? I'm thinking of snobs who dissect and mock posts by newbies, especially posts in which the newbies say something foolish but well-intentioned. I've seen them in almost every forum I've ever posted in, but haven't had a word to describe them except perhaps "regulars."

IMO, "opposite of newbie" means people that do not post messages, because they know how to solve problems themselves, and standard problems aren't interesting for them. "snobs" are few levels below them.

Okay, then should I simply stick with "snob"? As I said, that's the type I have in mind, whether it's the opposite of a newbie or not.

Maybe the people you're so worried about have discovered that the best answer for a dumb question is, "Figure it out yourself."

There is no opposite since everyone is a newbie. Even Linus is a newbie!

Literally the opposite is... oldbie!

Actually, newbiesforever, you might be onto something here. What about we start calling them simply sn00bs or something along that line?

I don't know what's worse, a snob who thinks they're better than you in every way, or a know-it-all who pretends or thinks they know how to fix the world's problems and give bad (and sometimes damaging) advice to others.

But like rickh says, are you possibly confusing someone who is encouraging to you to learn through research with a snob?

Call them "rickhies".

In my early novice days, I got to work with these so called "snobs". The end result made me a better administrator. When I'd ask a stupid question, most of the time I got the RTFM you F**kwad, the answer is already in front of your face.

I respect these guys now and still remain friends with them after we've all gone on to other jobs.

Now those that don't know shit but think they do and give you wrong advice, those people should be dragged out into the street and shot. They not only make you less productive but also drag the whole team down with them cause you'll find yourself cleaning up their damn messes.

^^^ What he said ^^^

I'd agree that we are all "newbies" in some sense. Having been a *NIX administrator for nine years, I have a decent understanding of some things, a better than average of a few, and a great lack of knowledge about a great number of things. Why? Because they don't come up for me. My servers here at work have no sound (what would I need that for? It is a 5 minute drive to get to them, so I'd miss any audio alerts or whatever anyway). My PC and laptop have sound, but they were configured when I installed Linux on them, and they work for me. If something were to go wrong, I'd be very much clueless about it all. However, ask me a question about how to script something in BASH, and chances are, I can answer that off of my head, or a few quick looks at a man page or two to get an option that I may not have had a need for previously.

I think that what has happened is that you've run afoul an individual or two that is arrogant, or has a big ego. Most of the truely helpful people that I see post here all of the time may have a bit of a "RTFM" attitude, but it is usually a bit more of teaching a person to fish type of mentality than being arrogant.

Personnally, when I try to post, I try to come up with an answer to the question at hand, maybe through out a few gotchas to watch for, and a few links out to the ABS (maybe even the specific section that they need). I do this because I want people to treat me with some respect when I have a question about something that I don't really know about, or haven't figured out how to find my answer, and there is a chance that the person at the other keyboard is like myself. Has a good handle on things, but just isn't sure about something. And if they are not, then I surely don't want to turn them off to using open source or Linux because I've been arrogant while answering a question that someone who might be a "newbie" might have.

Just my 2 cents.

Wrong. Being snob doesn't protect you from being newbie. So it is not an opposite. Besides, normally opposite of "newbie" is "power user", "experienced user", and so on.

What about "graybeard" as the opposite of newbie? No offense intented to those of us actually *with* gray beards since I'm getting that way

Possibly, but I doubt it, since I've been dealing with forum snobs long enough to know one when I see one, and since what I dislike is not being told "figure it out yourself" but being mocked, rather than merely ignored, when I say something stupid. (The first time that happened, in early 1999, after the snobs chased me away, they laughed among themselves about "some poor newbie wander[ing] in here and BLAM! get[ting] it right between the eyes."