This playlist with a new player being led by an experienced player was very helpful for me when I was learning to play. Still haven't ascended, but what an addictive game.
I'm a Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup player, which is a cousin to Nethack, but I imagine the process is the same: get an IRC client, connect to Freenode, join #nethack, ask questions, and learn to use the utterly invaluable resources provided by the in-channel bots (e.g. the learndb).
NetHack's learndb (Rodney) isn't quite as vital as Crawl's, mostly because NetHack is more spoiler-reliant and (as a result) has a much more detailed and accurate wiki, as well as other sources of spoilers.