I think the word is mis used a lot. From what I see, "noob" is more of an insult, and "newb" is just saying they're new.

Noob as a word is a slang for Newbie. Newbie meaning new, and noob is a slang insult. Even so, people missuse the insult, such as "You rusher noob". When you tell somebody that they are a noob, you are insulting the little ammount of time they have played the game, which in most cases isnt even relevant to the situation.

My opinion= Noob is a missused word.

Noob is a pretty encouraging word for marking your skills up further, "lucker noob" for example is telling you that you were lucky for a win for a very unskillful man.

Definitely depends on what type of person you are though, and how you react to negative comments. Some people take it badly so you gotta be kinda polite about it.