When was this written? It seriously sounds like he just pulled this out of a RGP time capsule and posted it. What a crappy first post. Maybe his second will show improvement.

I'm still trying to figure you out @toymaker. This was your very first (and of this moment ONLY) post on Pinside. Which makes it sound like you have never interacted with any of us. You joined March 3rd, and posted this 5 days later. You have had no interaction with anyone here since then, unless it was through PM. Yet you are asking "why the hate for newbies"? That is just really an poor way to introduce yourself to an online forum. When I am a newbie at something, I try to get to know things a bit first. When I ask dumb questions, I point out that I realize I just don't know yet. But your introduction was to preach to us on how we act? If I ever need a bad example of how to introduce yourself, I will point people to this thread.

When I was a noob, I was lucky enough to have been directed to someone that was just making a living off of pins, but wasn’t ripping people off. I bought my first 3 machines from him over the first few months. He didn’t rip me off, and he took the time to teach me how machines worked. He was the person that showed me how to take the glass out of a game. He introduced me to other pinheads in the community, who then introduced me to the larger community in the area.

Have I met assholes along the way? Yup. Have I had people try to rip me off? Of course. However, I’ve met some of my closest friends through pinball. Really good people who I love to hang out with and call friends. Relationships that go way beyond this crazy hobby we share.

Oh sorry. You were asking for noob horror stories, and here I go giving you the fairy tale of how wonderful this hobby and the people in it have been to me. My only real horror story in this hobby was that I owned a Judge Dredd for two weeks...