Yeah. That. I tend to drift away on my browser when I'm mining, so it'd be nice to just click once so I could do something else while I'm mining (esp. since I sometimes spend 3 game-days straight just on mining).
Might I ask why it is the worst idea ever? People like to have reasons.
I think it would be handy, i too tend to check Email, facebook and play solitare while mining just because you hit a button a billion times. Maybe above Mining III or something.
Sorry, I was just being snotty. Honestly, I'm not convinced it matters one way or the other. There's the game balance issue, which says, why should mining be easier than farming etc..? But also there's the looming plague of bots issue, which sometimes leads to the feeling that harvesting actually should be easier for live players so that bots have less advantage. So, no, I cannot definitively say that this is a dead issue, despite the fact that it has been a mostly-dead issue in every harvesting-MMOG for an awfully long time. I would also advise all readers of this forum to take me veeeery light-heartedly. I cannot censor for I have no brain!
I think the solution to "mining is overpowered" (I don't know what word to use other than overpowered, so I'm using overpowered) is just to buff every other skill path and make certain objectives, currantwise/XPwise, a bit harder. Gardening is extremely underpowered, as is cooking/animal interaction. For mining, the thing that makes it so powerful is not the action itself but the reward on gems and chunks of stone, as well as the reward from shrine donations.