To Gank or Not To Gank - PvP Servers

Sorry for the lack of a Saturday update - I was away at Anime Expo this past weekend and unable to post. This Saturday will be a normal update day though.
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Since I went over RP servers, I figured I should do a similar topic for the PvP side of things. As PvP is hardly dead (and indeed, more encouraged than any other part of the game in my opinion), I thought I'd touch on the habits and ethics of this nature of gaming instead.

Every action on a PvP server is always automatically justified by the fact that you rolled on a PvP server. End of story. Anything that happens to your character is intrinsically *your fault*. To an extent, I agree. But it brings up the question of what is typical behavior and when does it cross the line into malicious?

I don't gank others much myself. Granted, a good part of that is because the nature of my character is usually defensive and not offensive. Most of the time, though, it's because I consider how irritating it is for me to get ganked, so I don't bother. And even when I do get provoked or killed, I just go about my business. It's difficult to seek Retribution if you're not specc'd it, after all.

I also play on the theory I grew up with: if you stop being fun to pick on, the bullies will leave you alone. As most gankers are just looking for a fight, usually if you either prove too much a thorn in their side or if you don't put up a fight at all, they'll lose interest with you and leave you alone. If it's not worth their time, they'll not waste it.

Conversely, you have the 70's who hound STV ganking people because it makes them feel superior. There's not a lot you *can* do about them, unless you have your own 70 or there are others on your faction who are roaming around combating the ganking themselves. You can either run or die, and those are usually your only choices.

However, if you can find a creative way to hold them off, I wholeheartedly endorse it. Once, my female Orc Warrior was being chased down by three 70 Allies. I knew there were a group of Horde 70's fighting off gankers in the area and they had been looking for this particular group, so I managed to alert them in the LocalDefense channel. They invited me to group and tracked me down. Luckily enough for me, they weren't too far away, but I still needed to keep the Allies busy. They'd surrounded me at this point, so I dismounted my slow mount. Without really thinking about it, I targeted the gnome warlock and... started dancing.

Obviously, they thought this was hilarious and all dismounted to dance with me. Some emoted laughs, clapped for me, one flirted... and right in the middle of this, a group of five Horde 70's mow them over out of nowhere.

While the PvP environment can incite some pretty ugly behavior, it's for the moments like the one I just described which makes it often worth the risks. It's fun and exciting, and sometimes downright hilarious. The jerks aside, it's a fun place to play. So, despite it all, I'll grin and bear the anguish inherent with the hostile environment and never regret the nature of the server I rolled on.