The newbie flood is happening because the project is in two magazines this month -- CPU Magazine and Linux Magazine. A lot of the folks who read CPU Magazine are not that familiar with Linux.
It seems to be happening in the forum, here, the IRC channel, and what you guys aren't seeing is what's happening in my inbox. I am getting a lot of questions like, "How did you make Damn Small Linux?". How do I answer that? Or the even more frustrating, "why don't you add Gaim?" type emails.
I am grateful that our community project is getting so much attention. The newbie flood is a small price to pay for what we gain, but it does put a little strain. I think what happens when a project like this gets a lot of exposure the passing crowd swells up and then diminishes to a more natural state, but we end up retaining a few out of the group who become valuable contributors. So, it is really a good thing in the long run.