OK I did eventually find one after some time, but the real point is...it's not always easy for a newbie who knows nothing much about the game to find a mentor. There's no 'mentor's lounge' where off-duty mentors hang out waiting for newbies. And at that stage the newbie will take advice from anyone, not knowing whether it's good advice or not.
there might be a project about that ongoing i heard of
i didn't say that all ppl asking for mentors are bad
but it happened 3 times with me, always the same manner
i mainly warn to be careful
say someone is asking for a mentor, and wants a tp run
take maybe another disciple or 2 more, cant be that hard to find a candidate running around, if hes just after tps, and kicks you after that, you had at least 2 ppl helped
if he is asking for stuff
say no
but i don't claim to know that everyone who is asking for a mentor is a mentor hopper, i doubt it
but you can find it out quite often
just the "can you be my mentor" question
how can a fresh newbie know what a mentor is?
i mean, he knows nothing about the game, but about mentors?
several options ofc
he heard it from a guide, read in EF (although he might search one here than anyway), heard from another newbie "my mentor helped me a lot"
and he goes to find one
and best way is shouting ofc
if he finds the next best guy with a shiny settler and rascal armor, the best mentor possible is found... (sarcasm, but happends quite often i guess)
or the newbie heard "my mentor just gave me an opalo and ammo!"
newbie thinks-->mentors give stuff, gotta find one and ask for it
since he doesn't know it better even, not even intended to beg or something
mentor thinks-->mentor hopper, i would for sure, especially if he asked me to be his mentor before
i don't know if i told the story here already, but one of my ex disciples took one on his own once, i added him to the soc
soon the question came "I want cash"
me "Mentors are there to provide info, not to finance your trip"
him "but they get those 20 000 ped gifts at the end, i want my share!!"
(i searched in my storage, if i found something valuable below the bunch of alpha MEs and Brave MEs, but wasn't that lucky
)
anyway, what i say
is that you should be careful if someone is asking for a mentor
it depends a lot how this guys behave then
first of all, if he asks questions (he is a newbie, he can't, or shouldn't know much)
second, use abbrevations, usually you get asked "TP?", "TT?", "PA?"m those are kinda known, but if he knows "SIB" "HA", well
doesn't exclude him at all, but its a bit suspicious, no?
all that being careful thing hurts of course especially the ones who need the help and are honest about that