I am sure he meant a newbie in the sense they don't know much about the forum system. Or maybe even a newbie that at one point wants to be in a signature campaign after ranking up.

There are more eyes in Meta than in many other forum boards. Probably because to get more views and attention. Maybe he even thought there are rules to how a signature campaign should be run set forth by the forum. But like many other things, that's also not moderated on Bitcointalk.