Did I say deny a request for nothing other than SOP? No. What I said was I'm going to assign you SOP and if that doesn't work, then we work on accommodating your request. I'm not going to waste frequency time to figure out what you want. I'm going to give you what you should get then you will advise me if you want something else.

I did not intend to imply you did. I was specifically addressing a thought process that widely exists in the community here. Going back to my original post the problem isn't that the controller doesn't always see what the pilots wants to do (that would be ludicrous). The issue I was instead getting at is that once a pilot makes his request known it is rejected for no other reason that what was stated above.

You mentioned that controllers on the network aim to efficiently and realistically provide service (not your exact words). I completely agree with this. It should be known that pilot requests both usual and extremely abnormal are a constant in the real world. If you aim for realism you should be ready for them. I have witnessed far more strange requests and deviations in the rw than VATSIM. In my experience such abnormal requests are quite uncommon on VATSIM. I think that is the reason why so many issues occur when a situation comes up that ventures outside of standard procedures and what most VATSIM pilots do.

Personally these unusual situations are what make the work exciting and fun. Doing the same thing over and over again can get monotonous. Abnormal requests shake things up. Something as simple and usual in the rw like pop-up IFR could be considered an abnormal request on VATSIM.

To attempt and connect this back to what Shane was getting at...even with unusual situations, pilot requests, etc., less words is usually more.

You make a valid point. I would say to remember there is a time and place to use nonstandard phraseology. On VATSIM most pilots have no training. Most controllers can think of situations where a pilot on the network simply didn't understand a piece of phraseology. In these situations nonstandard phraseology is needed. In addition to this the .65 is not an end all be all. There are times where no standard phraseology exists for what needs to be said.

Maybe this is starting to veer off but i'd add that while a controller may not be a customer service representative they do provide a service. Too often I see controllers unwilling to deviate from the norm because of a lack of comfort doing so or what have you. Using something like the MSP example above...i've heard multiple times where a pilot may request runway 17 but if 30L is the norm than that request would be denied even if traffic permitted. If traffic permits and a pilot wants a opposite direction approach or departure why not grant it? Opposite directions ops can be extremely common in the rw with flight training ops. Additionally if traffic is light, why not see if the a/c would like a shortcut rather than forcing them to comply with entire procedures. Where this can connect back to the heart of the thread is that many of these situations, in particular various solicitations of what a pilot may or may not want do not come with standard phraseology. A controller needs to be able to use judgement and not be afraid to deviate from the norm in order to provide the best service possible.