Well, I’ve been here for a little bit (not still a newbie, I think) but I still haven’t gotten a lot of the abreviations people use… like WAG, IIRC, etc.
wag - wild ass guess
iirc - if i recall correctly
etc - hmm… Latin for ??? so on and so forth 
Latin for “et cetera” (pronounced “EHT KEHterah.”) It means “and the rest.”
Also, in Cafe Society, or in any forum, remember that posting spoilers without notification in the thread title or within the spoiler tags is frowned upon.
The ending of The Sixth Sense was ruined for me in that way. It was a “Very Bad Thing.”
As a newbie myself I thought I would take this opportunity to ask some questions of my own…
How do you make that “Spoilers” box with the black background and black font?
What do these terms mean:
Witnessing
Trolling
Hijack
I would like to know so that I may be able to use them in the proper context in the future.
Thanks.
Spoiler box:
{spoiler]Text that you want in the spoiler box.[/spoiler]
Replace the initial { with a [.
Witnessing - giving testimony as to one’s deeply held religious convictions, to be done in GD
Trolling - posting inflammatory remarks designed to evoke angry reaction, solely for that purpose
Hijack - to post a response to a thread that points the discussion away from the subject described in the OP
To give examples, for those of you who learn visually…
Witnessing…
Being a newbie on the SDMB is kind of like being a newbie Quaker. Initially, you have doubts, but if you just let God into your heart, and let the love of Christ take hold, you will achieve wonderful things through your relationship with Him. So, for all of you reading this thread, I sincerely hope you find out about the Truth of the Gospels. I pray for you all. God bless.
Trolling…
This thread sucks. Newbies suck! Anyone who doesn’t know the rules of the SDMB should be BANNED immediately. Anyone who disagrees with me should be shot. PROVE ME WRONG! I DARE YOU! Otherwise, you suck.
Hijacking…
Speaking of being a newbie, I was a newbie in Napster before I knew the ropes. And let me tell you, it was great to finally get the program working. I loved downloading music at my convenience, but the government shut it down. They’re trampling on freedom of speech! The record companies just want to squeeze the last ounce of money from the public. I think that they are in the wrong, and that file-sharing should be legal again. Who’s with me?
Those are examples. Hope it clears things up a bit.
If you haven’t already done so, go to the “About This Message Board” forum and read all the faq/sticky threads carefully.
Also read the message board faq (button in the upper right corner of every page).
And welcome!
And stop picking your nose! Fer God’s sake, we can all see you.
If you make a tiny mistake (such as typos, the wrong to/two/too, then/than, teh instead of the, :plays the harpsicord:, whatever), do not, I repeat, DO NOT post a second time only to say, “Damn the smilies!!! that was supposed to say : plays the harpsicord :!!!”
Yeah, we’re a pretty intelligent bunch, I think we can figure it out.
BTW (by the way), : blahblahblah : indicates action.
There’s a thread in ATMB (a couple, if I’m not mistaken) re: acronyms. This would be a good time to familiarize yourself with the search function because, to be real honest, I’m just too lazy to look it up for you.
Also, I’d like to point out that dantheman’s last post here really cracked me up. (Seriously, I’m giggling. Funny, funny stuff.) I will not, however, run in here screaming, “OMFG, dude! I’m totally LMAO!! I spewed ketchup/soda/juice/mucus/cheese doodles/whatever all over my keyboard/monitor/favorite N’Sync action figure!!! Somebody toss me the Bounty!” I will especially not do that if that’s the only reason I’m posting.
Never, never, NEVER post the complete lyrics to a song. Never post the complete work of anyone who isn’t you. There are copyright issues there and I seriously think Eutychus is on the brink of insanity because of people posting songs and whatnot. Really, he’s a sweet guy and everything, but I think he’ll maybe kill you if you do it.
There are thousands and thousands of things you could (and probably will) do that will piss off someone here. It’s pretty impossible to keep everyone happy all the time. We can help you out plenty by posting more of the obvious “rules” here, but the best way to learn is to participate.
Welcome to here and happy posting! 
Don’t care about your post count, or other people’s post count.
Judge people by the content of their posts, and the way they carry themselves around the board.
<nods to Silver Fire ;)>
Oh, and when you are using that Search function, it’s best if you search one forum at a time, rather than all of them at once. This means that the system retrieves data from just the one forum, rather than the entire database, thereby saving wear and tear on the server.
Almost every “Great” Great Debate has been beaten to death a million times. But if you want to debate it again, you can start a new thread (its easier than going through six pages of a thread started two years ago where you want a poster who isn’t around any more to clarify something). You will probably have someone link to the old thread. Some of the people will come back and rehash the same old over a over again. Others will have lost interest in the topic, but there will be new people willing to discuss “Is there a God.”
We are terribly patient with Newbies - there is no SDMB hazing process and we will extend the benefit of the doubt - unless your first couple of posts indicate you are a troll or sock puppet (troll has been defined, sock puppet is when we have reason to believe you are actually someone who posts here (or used to post here but got banned) using another user name).
Hang out, read and learn. There have been several successful posters who find the site, post a lot immediately, earn a good reputation and stick around. But most people start a little slow. Unless you earn yourself a reputation for being particularly note worthy (good or bad), it may take months and hundreds of posts before you begin to feel like anything other than a newbie. Its ok, some of the people with a thousand posts still feel like no one knows who they are.
I don’t know all the abbreviations either. Nor do I know how to link something. Are there instrutions for technical dummmies?
Abbreviations, vB codes (including how to link something), and the source of all this wonderful information, theTechnical Issues FAQ, which is also a sticky in ATMB.
(Abbreviations and vB Codes links provided by Arnold Winkelried in the Technical Issues FAQ thread. After all, proper citations are important.)
Happy linking, BTW!
Everybody with an e-mail address eventually receives a page of cute questions stolen long ago from two or three famous comedians. They really have no answers, and we’ve swatted them down again and again. Please don’t post them here. Some folks get snappish about that.
You also may come across a page of “little known facts.” We’ve repeatedly dissected them and skinned the phony ones. You can find the threads by Searching.
My current signature line refers to some of these no-nos. I discovered, though, that if you change your sig, all past posts will carry the new sig.
If you want to post a link, move your curser up to the address bar at the top of the toolbar. Click on it so it turns blue. Then press ctrl + c. Go to the top of the response box, just to the right of the vb code box. Click on the box that says http://. If you want to say something clever, like “look” or “see” or “link”, type this into the box that will appear. Click ok. Then another box will appear. Press ctrl + v. The address to the site should appear. Click ok. I am not an expert. I see some folks practice this stuff in the “about this message board” forum. People also practice or test signatures and stuff. It is pretty cool. Check it out.
Also, the system is set up to automatically parse URLs, meaning that the coding is inserted for you. All you need to do is type the actual website name. For example, when I type www.straightdope.com, URL will become a hyperlink when I post this message.
If you’re ever unsure, click Preview Reply after you compose a post.