rsp

In other words: Cheat! The noob wouldn't have money to flip with and it is illegal to interact between your characters to transfer money and gains (even if you use other players in between).

Instead of using porters while fishing, you could just have used the fishing tacklebox reward from fish flingers. The best tackle box banks 500! fish each day :-)

I don't know which RS you played in 2001, but we certainly had no fishermen :-) My most used food was apple pies then. The mule accounts used by the miners and smiths you mention were against the rules (as was server hopping btw). You're correct on the fact that RS was and is meant to be played in whatever way you as the player like to play, so lets leave it at that before this develops in yet another relogious war about intentions :-)

You read too much in that last bit, I'm not saying how people should play RS, I'm saying that the RS developers need to keep an eye on the balance between different playing styles. The "way RS was meant to be played" part refers to the fact that RS in the beginning was aimed at the DIY playing style, not that DIY is the play style everyone should practice.

Please stop trying to determine someone elses playing style! Mining ore yields resources for smiths, dropping and later buying someone elses ores makes no sense. (At least to a playing DIY style) The original mining juju functinality fit perfectly with a DIY style. You are dismissing a valid complaint with the reasoning of a usage within a different playing style. From this change it seems that the RS devs listen too much to the boss/merchant/level buying players while not paying enough attention to the way RS was meant to be played.

All botting is against the rules and ruins the game (and its perceived rewards) for those that play the game. Conclusion; both types are equally bad and should be banned. You forgot one category: forum posts about botting ... as soon as they try to coerce people towards accepting certain types of botting they should be locked/banned as well.