Quote Originally Posted by Coldbrand View Post
Or the far more like /city HEY I'M DRUNK GUYS *GENERIC WOMEN KITCHEN JOKE* *STUPID RACIST JOKE* *BRAGGING ABOUT SOME THING X DID* *Y SAYS WHAT X DID ISN'T WORTH BRAGGING ABOUT*

You will lag behind the people who can stomach the global channel if you don't use it since it'll become the main means of communication, thus saying it's optional is only a half truth. It'll also take away endless GM time from letting them deal with the variety of offenses being committed across Eorzea.
That's not even close to true. WOW, Aion and RIFT all have OPTIONAL global chat channels, and you can function in the game perfectly well without ever entering them. They are player moderated for the most part; players can right click and report spamming offenses on a player, which not only sends a notice to specialized GMs, but also mutes the player for the session.

Zone-wide channels are still employed a LOT in WOW, especially for non-city zones, because very few people can stomach LFG and Global Defense chat like you said.