I don't know that it's always a guarantee of a scam. Not that this isn't a much more welcoming community than some others, "lurk moar" was a common refrain once upon a time when people posted before understanding the culture of some places.

I've only be around a few days, but I've taken care to understand a bit of what's going on before speaking too much. 

 There's absolutely nothing wrong with that. Lurking and trying to learn is perfectly fine. I'm talking about something different, though I guess it could be adjacent. It's about too many red flags to be a coincidence. People trying to hard to seem authentic. We've seen this before, time and time again. 

 Gotcha, completely understandable. Given how welcoming everyone here is coupled with new people coming in waves I'm sure it has been an issue. 

 Every once in a while, but for the most part people are very genuine and it's been an absolute pleasure of mine to meet many of them over the past year. Seriously, this is the best damn community that I've had the pleasure of being apart of in all of my years on the Internet.