Totally agree with the author.

@Boz, totally disagree with you. "What they are doing IS unethical, possibly even dishonest (due to a lack of full disclosure), but it is NOT "stealing.""

Are these people stealing loot from other people? Not in the sense that they're reaching into another player's inventory and removing it. Neither are they master looting the loot and taking it for themselves contrary to the established system of determining the winner.

No, but they are stealing in this sense: The vast majority of raid situations use the established and well-understood system of "highest roll wins". In theory, in a 10 man raid, each person has a 10% chance to win an item if everyone rolls. If 2 people collude and agree beforehand that one of them will win the item by trading if necessary, then 1 person has a 0% chance, 1 person has a 20% chance, and the other 8 people each effectively have only a 10% chance to win. You're weighting the chance of winning in 1 person's favor while reducing everyone else's chance of winning.

In the article's scenario, assuming a 10 man raid and a roll on an item wanted by their buddy and everyone else (for ease of numbers), the 2 colluders each have 0% chance, their buddy has a 30% chance of winning, and the other 7 people each only have 10% chance. If it was a 25 man raid, each person would have a 4% chance of winning before weighting...after weighting, 1 person has a 12% chance, everyone else stays at 4% (except the colluders, at 0% each).

So in a sense you're stealing other people's PROBABILITY of winning the loot rather than the loot itself...but since a successful roll leads to the actual loot...yes, in fact you ARE STEALING loot from other people, by improving your chance of winning at the expense of your competitors.

Kinda like if you were playing baseball and when you hit the ball you don't have to get within six feet of the bases while everyone else has to tag up...eh, I'll stop now.