Because I don't have enough to complain about... ^_^
Welcoming Newbies
So when someone makes a first post on this forum, which takes a lot of courage for some folk, saying that they're new to Flash - what's your response (if any) ?. Is it a to the business, two line elitist comment that you'd dish out to anyone regardless of age, or do you actually try to welcome them to the forums and hope they'll turn out well rounded and less trollish?
I know which one I am. And I don't like seeing my nice flowery intro posts end up three posts down the tree because some yutzes give the most spartan response they can to newbies who probably aren't even sure what the Timeline or Library are yet...
Re: Mercenaryism
Regarding the "not seen too much of it" line of reasoning, next time someone on the forum suggests an idea for the "next big thing", watch the first responses. The first one from a saneish Reg will be "Can we see samples of your work?" whilst the first one from someone less adjusted will be "How much can you pay?". Both are motivated, at heart, by a desire to not waste time on a project, and possibly to earn some reimbursement for time wasted.
Regarding the "It's time I could have spent working on paying Flash work" line, that's fair enough - provided you work on Flash 24/7 and never do a personal project of your own. Because even if you work freelance, the stuff you'd be working on from the Forums or from other Newgrounds related work would be stuff you'd do in your spare time, away from the corporate climate, picky clients and paymasters. I could easily say "It's time I could have spent playing Guitar Hero / reading a book / watching TV / drawing / Painting that Eldar army I bought and still can't assemble the Wave Serpent for" and be just as justified. For me it just ended up that the thing I spend my 9-5 doing happens to be one of my hobbies as well, and I have the desire to keep them seperate.
I'm not saying I'm above the Mercenaryism myself. I've not submitted anything to the Portal in years, I've dropped out of collabs and partnerships because I saw them going down the pan in advance or felt my name wouldn't stand out amongst the crowd, all from a desire to have my name in fairly impressive Front Page lights. And I always perk my ears up whenever a seasonal AG contest comes around just to see how much money I could make out of it (and normally try to make a game out of it as well... normally failing). But I've started to notice just how bad I am and just how pronounced it is on, well, a lot of people.