I see it as a large shaded area. You have the 4 guild defining skills Soim pointed out. Cut and dry scream THIEF. Black. From there, you start moving into grey and closer to white. Less thief oriented/defining skills - yet greatly varying in how much less depending entirely on how any specific individual's definition of a thief and the guild in this game.
You can try to argue certain skills "aren't black enough" (swim, skin, FA). Yet if there were only 8 survivals that fit in that black-enough area, yet they also wanted to allow more flexibility, they'd use their imagination to find reasons to incorporate a couple more (hmm... sounds sorta like what they're doing with climbing and escaping. "Rooftop climbing is on the backburner, but will someday come out!" "Escaping is extremely difficult to train and useless now, but will be worked on!").
I see trying to use this "not black enough" angle as a mistake by the GMs. It's easy to see the fallacy in its logic - I could use my imagination and come up with a 100-page post of examples and ideas as to how these skills are or could be more than suitable enough in our guild leaders' eyes to count towards circling. It's misleading to the players as to the real reason for not incorporating them. Saying things like, "The essence of being a Thief is not tending your wounds, or swimming in a river" is bound to annoy some players, because many of the skills we are allowed to circle with, like climbing, aren't the "essence of being a thief" either. As a result, I've seen many players grow heated and frustrated over this since the requirements first came out.
I see the bottom line of the debate here as merely being a difference of opinion on how much of that grey area should be cut off and allowed use with circling in this guild (how much versatility should be allowed). The real reason for having such rigid requirements, far as I can come up with, is to prevent giving too much flexibility. Balance is a must and you do have to keep it fair. Yet I don't see how making FA, swim, or skin allowable towards circling would be of any harm since our guild's requirements are more rigid than the others.
Gonif pointed out, "ranger guild owns skinning, just like we own lockpicking". But I see this as relating A to B. I'd say foraging : lockpicking :: skinning or FA : disarming. Yes, snares and traps are coming out, which will put disarming more in the ranger field, but alchemy is coming out which will put skinning more in ours, and first aid is extremely thief-like... moreso than disarming will be ranger-like even after PC traps get implemented. Yet, rangers are allowed to use disarm to circle, and we are not allowed to use skinning or FA.
All in all, I see a slightly bigger piece of the grey-area pie being cut off for us here being more balancing than detrimental.
Gybrush
"Die. Please. All of you just die somehow."
-In commemoration of Miilo
