Everything is roleplay. Or is it?

There's a maxim among the Eve roleplaying community known as the Garreck Doctrine, which goes "everything you do in game can be considered roleplaying."  In other words, anything anyone does in Eve, whether they consider themselves a roleplayer or not, is roleplaying.  This has been largely embraced by many members of the roleplaying community and basically treated as fact, but I have to wonder myself.  For me, roleplaying involves some inherent effort, or at least recognition of what you're doing.  I don't think "everyone roleplays" in Eve -- to say so dilutes the meaning somewhat in my mind.

The refutation of this is, of course, that you can't simply ignore the parts of the game you don't like as a roleplayer.  I can't say "well, those pirates aren't roleplayers, so I'll just ignore them."  You have to treat what is happening in the game as "real world events," at least as far as your character is concerned.  On the other hand, there's clearly some things that aren't roleplaying and can be treated differently or ignored as the case warrants; people talking about football scores in local, or asking for help with game mechanics questions, for instance.  I don't try to speak to a newbie asking how to fit a ship (as in, open the fitting screen, not asking what to put on it) as if he really was simply a clueless pilot.  I don't try to come up with a complicated roleplaying explanation -- I just say "click on the button with the symbol on it in your station panel."

I also don't think a person is roleplaying in the game just because they are playing -- obviously, you are "playing a role" of a starship captain, but for me, it's all about perception.  I think most people who play Eve and are not roleplayers don't see their characters are really that distinct from themselves, and don't think "I'm playing a starship captain in a virtual world," they think "I'm just playing a game where I blow up other people's space ships."  It's a subtle difference, but one which I think is quite key to the whole idea of roleplaying.

On the other hand, I agree that a roleplayer must take pretty much everything that they see or do as something real as far as their character is concerned.  The enemy is using alt scouts on gates?  Well, you can't cry foul and whine -- it's pretty lame (at least in my mind), but as far as CCP is concerned, it's legitimate gameplay.  Your character needs to accept that her enemies have hired these pilots to sit on gates and report back, and deal with those pilots in that way.  Whether that means berate them in local, shoot at them, avoid them, or whatever, you must treat that alt scout as a real person within the game, in the service of their "benefactors."  You can certain complain, OOC, about those things, and say that they hurt the gameplay, but so long as they are in the game, your character needs to treat them as real.

By the same token, my feelings are that if something isn't done in the context of the game, it's not worth talking about.  If you aren't very good at PvP, don't talk about how you're a veteran of countless battles.  If you barely have a penny to your name and just started playing the other day, don't talk about how you're more powerful than anyone else can imagine.  It just makes you look ludicrous.

Hrm....this is getting a little ranty, and I'm having some trouble with Steam....so I think I'm going to cut this off for now.  I'm sure, however, that this will be a topic I'll return to later.