/agree firestreak and ultraseven.
shout should be used for:
- warning people if you are bring a train to a zone
- making people aware of alliances that are going for missions/quests/skill up
- asking for help on missions/quests/teleports.
- and maybe... this is an iffy one, but maybe if you are looking to make a pt of low lvl jobs, shout about it b/c many high lvls have other jobs they want to lvl. I see Japanese players doing this all the time, and it has saved me from some of the horrors of lvling lowbie characters. that said, it is certainly not something to spam...
and... hmmm... what else?
Oh wait... that is it. Shout is an ORGANIZATIONAL TOOL, any other use for shout is not legit. Don't shout about AH prices, don't shout about how much someone sucks, don't shout about your job lvl (pt leaders are very capable of /searching for a job lvl), only shout for a raise if you have /searched for whm25-75, blm 50-75 and rdm 38-75 in the zone and none are to be found/answered... and then we come to the big one… No one needs to, or desires to hear petty arguments that only involve 2-5 people on a server...
Listen to the people who are asking you to be quiet, or to stfu, or whatever… they are right. Take it to tell, asking others to leave is asking them to miss important shouts that they might be interested in, same with filtering shout. Blisting the shouters? hmmm. i guess that is an option, but i personally would rather not b/c they might ask for something legit once in a while, and i am not opposed to helping out if that is the case.
I apologize for being mean, however I feel entirely vindicated in doing so. It may be just a game, and people are going to play it as they see fit… but this game happens to involved many others, and perpetually pissing those others off because of the childish need to call attention to yourself through the use of the /shout channel is fucktarded. Grow up and learn to be considerate of your fellow players.