Thank you for this article. I feel like you have touched on some very important aspects that truly begin to tease out how tanking has gone from being a tough but enjoyable activity to a tough and thankless job.

As an alt tank (main is a healer), I have noticed what everyone is talking about in regards to the grief that tanks get from DPS (and to a lesser extent from healers). It's important to mention that tanks are not the only ones grieffed, and DPS are not the only ones dishing out the grief.

I think that we have gotten ourselves very much wrapped around the safety of anonymity that the Dungeon Finder affords players. Pretty much you can act like a big jerk (anyone can) and get away with it with few reprecaution since you can just go back to your own server. Before the Dungeon Finder your reputation mattered. I remember jerk toons being blacklisted in their home server to the point where they had to transfer because people refused to run groups with them, even if they were great at their job. Now this is no longer a hinderance on asshattery, and so people have reverted to their middleschool selves where they expect everyone else to do the right thing and leave them free to act like self-important brats.

I think that a part of the solution will be to bring back the self-accountability model. Nothing major is needed, just a simple macro that states how you will behave, how you expect others to, and that you will be ok with voting off or being booted if others can't stand to those simple standards of civility. It can be something like this.

"My pledge for this run is to treat everyone as if they were sitting right next to me, with respect and understanding. I will not say "go go go" and will wait for everyone to be ready. I will offer advice only in whispers and respectfully. If this is something that you cannot pledge yourself, please leave the group now and we will find someone else. If this behavior cannot be followed by a member of this group they will be voted off. If all else fails, I will simply go AFK until I am voted off. Thank you and let's have some fun"

This statement clearly indicates what standards you will be holding yourself and the group to right of the bat leaving little wiggle room, and clearly indicates the consequences of violating those standards.

This isn't a solve-all fix, but it is a step towards returning to that idea that what you do now will affect in a predictable way what will happen to you in the near future.

Hope this helps.

-X

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