I genrally consider veterans to be people who have been here about the same time or longer than I have. Even still, there are so many exceptions to that. There are plenty of members that joined in '04 and even in '05 that I would consider vets simply because of their actions. As for being a newb, that ends when you learn the ways of the forum. Like countless others have said, you grow into it. Some are newbs for a day, and for some it takes months.