My human factors antennae are twitching:
Bifurcation and structured taxonomies are engineering approaches. They are not something that non-engineers typically use for everyday tasks.
More importantly, who is going to answer the newbie questions on the newbie board? Gurus? Well, some of us might lurk every now and then, but we've got other work to do as well. A board who's membership is entirely newbie will not get their questions answered. Participatin in the main discussion will introduce newcomers to the gurus who can help them up and over the learning curve hump.
Creating "getting started" content elsewhere on the site is probably more effective and encourages contributions from the entire community (and feedback from consumers like non-tech or newbies).
