Interestingly, we seem to be waffling back and forth between those complaining about the volume of newbies and those complaining about rudeness to newbies.

For example, this thread from August is about FT bring too newbie-friendly, while this thread starts with complaints about the signal-to-noise ratio and eventually goes off on a tangent about how to respond to newbie questions.

I'm pretty sure there are at least a couple other recent (recent = last 6 mos) threads about these issues, too.

I guess we are back to "be nice to newbies"?

From a personal standpoint, as I've stated before, the few times I actually happen to be in the right place at the right time, I try to point newbies in the right direction in a polite manner.