Can one (wo)man change the world?

WoW servers in general make for very interesting social structures, there's a great many people on a real and only a few seem to stand out.

Whether it is the griever constantly spamming the trade chat with lines that summarize a whole world of stupid in one go, the guy who has been selling and buying wares for so long he's practically part of trade or the illustrious leader of some obscure high-end raiding guild that is just known because his guild happens to be 'the most progressed'.

Despite the few good shining examples of people that deserve to stand out due to actually having achieved something (as far as one can achieve anything while playing a game anyway) there always seems to be a negative connotation to the World of warcraft.
Whether it is the person calling the guy with a question a 'stupid nub' or just some guy with 5th grade spelling making a terrible attempt at correcting someone's 3rd grade spelling in a very unfriendly way.
Or perhaps it's the guy who comes in and mines your node after you've painstackingly cleared out all the mobs only to proceed to tag your named mob kill on a 15 min respawn timer before you can close into combat range after having sat there for 15 minutes because some jackass stole your mob rather than grouping up for the kill.

The problem with things we percieve as negative is that negative things are substantially easier to remember than acts of random kindness. A strong emotional response helps to commit things to memory and negative impact generates a stronger emotional response.

That isn't to say nothing good ever happens. Getting your rear-end saved by some druid who was just flying by seeing you struggle with an elite or getting fully buffed in while you're just standing in a battleground guarding a flag does happen but in the end it seemed like those were a few solid rocks in a sea filled with grief.

At some point I grew tired of all the nonsense. The endless e-peening, the random insults about spec, gear, arena points, missing achievements, dps averages, the pointless trade spam and the generally grievous behaviour: I disconnected. I left trade, I made my own guild with people I appreciate and I simply stopped associating myself with most people that couldn't produce a legible english sentence (or a dutch or a german one, I am not that picky after all).

I wondered where all the good people had gone whilst I enjoyed my stay in my jade palace knowing full well what happened with all the good people. They had done exactly the same. They had disconnected themselves from most things they didn't like, they learned not to get involved or ignore them and went on their own merry way leaving the world to fester associating only with their own guild or even just a sub-group in their own guild.

I decided to make a change, the disconnect wasn't doing anything to make life anything more tolerable. I decided to answer the simple questions that come by in trade, to toss out a few dozen buffs every now in then as some form of good will and even started actively helping people without going particularly out of my way. For the first time since I started playing I joined /help, granted, the channel was empty, but if anyone had any questions that required help at least now there was someone available in /help.

Can one person change the course of a realm? I don't know. Perhaps I am too idealistic to say no, dreaming of a world where we can more or less get along without stabbing each other in the back.
I am not asking for some kind of utopia where it's all love, fluffy bunnies and hugging trees but a realm where when push comes to shove you can feel like you can trust your fellow faction member, where you can lock ranks and fight side by side to fight a common enemy without having to wonder what bastard is going to roll need on something they can't use anyway or how you'll be left in the dirt because someone so an opportunity to earn x gold/honor/marks/emblems instead of helping a fellow horde out for the 30 seconds it would take..

In the end: if a handful of grievers can make the world a worse place, then why couldn't a handful of good people make the world a better place?