Elitist Raiders or Tobold being wrong.

Tobold recently made a series of posts about how raiders in WOW are elitist and don't want anyone to join them in their raids.  It is a revealing sort of diatribe against a group of people that Tobold obviously wanted to join but couldn't for a variety of reasons - scheduling, dedication, skill, take your pick.  Not that I am saying that all raiders are lovable bunnies who help everyone, because they aren't, but rather that they have the usual distribution of niceness and selfishness that you find all throughout humanity.  Becoming a successful raider has a number of barriers to entry including a substantial time commitment and playskill and it can certainly be discouraging to try to join that group and find out that you simply can't make the cut for one reason or another.  It is certainly disheartening to try to do something new and find out that you aren't good enough or don't have enough time to play as much as is necessary to match up with your group but that doesn't much mean that those you are trying to join are somehow deficient.

In fact the raiding community has an incredible selection of articles and tools available to those trying to join it and many volunteers from the raiding community (myself included) go to extreme lengths to assist the new and inexperienced in joining the raiding community.  Though in the best guilds in the world there is definitely the expectation of independent knowledge and research I have seen plenty of the medium guilds that are very happy to assist people in learning and improving.  New recruits definitely have to show some initiative and drive but there are an endless list of opportunities where the only expectation is time spent on research and the ability to do a simple google search.  There is a reason that recruitment notices for guilds nearly always ask for people who are dedicated, self motivated, easygoing and tenacious as more important than book knowledge or track record.  Hell, many or most of the mid level guild advertisements explicitly state that they are happy to train anyone who is willing to work hard and put in a lot of time trying to improve.

This 'raiders are elitist' attitude is nothing new or special.  People generally reserve their greatest enmity for those that are close to them but have some particular difference - just see divorce proceedings for evidence that those closest to you are those who end up being the focus of your greatest hatred.  Raiders dislike casuals, casuals dislike raiders and this relationship is true across the spectrum of hobbies and sports.  Not everyone falls prey to this of course but it is an undeniable tendency.  It is a little sad though - both in the general case and the specific. Tobold is so often a voice of reason and sense on the internet that it makes me sad to see him ranting and raving against raiders for no particular reason.  Raiders are jerks, raiders are nice, raiders are people.  Mostly they are just people who have lots of time to play video games and really like to kill gigantic dragons and take their shiny, shiny loot.  You might dislike those particular traits or you might love them but there really isn't much more to the group as a whole than that.