Oh you just know Kincaide is gonna come along and give some damn fool opinion on this. So here it is.
It seems to me there are two issues being discussed here, and some of you are conflating them into an argument that doesn't make much sense. So here's my perspective, for what it's worth.
There are two times when I get mad at people on my team who are fighting in the enemy's graveyard. One is when we're winning, and the team stops playing objectively in order to rack up kills. This is "farming" in the classic sense. Not all killing in the graveyard is farming, and that's where some of you are swapping terminology to level a valid argument against farming at another activity that isn't so automatically and universally heinous.
The other time I get mad at the people on my team in the graveyard is the opposite end of the spectrum: when we're losing, and we need people to organize to take out the entrenched EFC, and some people can't be bothered to stop their personal killing spree to help out. Again, the same theme runs here: Ignoring objective gameplay for personal gain.
As an aside, an argument could be made that even doing this, while it's generally looked upon in the community with scorn and disdain, is still only "wrong" by a matter of subjective opinion. But let's accept for the sake of debate that graveyard farming, i.e. racking up individual kills in the GY while ignoring objective play, is a universally bad thing.
Okay, so, it seems to me from reading this thread objectively, that that isn't what was happening in the original incident. One team employed a strategy to make an -objective win- as quickly as possible, and that strategy involved controlling the graveyard. Sure, no one likes having to break a blockade, but no one really likes having to break a 3-way cross-healing flag team either. The point is, while it's an annoying good strategy, it's still objective play. Even if you or some people think that it's in poor taste, one person's or one group's opinion on the matter does not constitute a societal standard, and the other point of view (even while I don't even agree with it myself) is still valid and should be accepted. To do otherwise is to effectively say "my opinion is better and more worthy than your opinion" and that's just not cool.
Universally, we agree that actual graveyard farming--that is to say, prolonging a game just to rack up kills, from which there is no escape other than to /afk out--is overwhelmingly considered to be bad sportsmanship. However, if a team employs graveyard control as part of an objective strategy to win as quickly as possible, and you call it out as "graveyard farming", you're creating a Straw Man argument. It's like having difficulty accepting that there can be differing but equally valid points of view on a topic, so one side decides to demonize the other side by calling it something worse than it actually is, and then attacking that thing as if it were the real thing.
In the end, what you're basically doing is chastising people for -objective play-. Isn't objective play something we want to encourage?
Graveyard control is a tactic that really only works if one team outguns the other. But look, if you're outgunned, you're likely not going to win anyway... isn't it a good thing that the more powerful team is making every effort to end the game as quickly as possible? I'll be the first to say that I hate graveyard control, for the same reason that the French hated the English bowmen in the Middle Ages: they're denied a fighting chance. But folks, it happens. To everyone, eventually. And probably in pretty even distribution. There are worse things that could happen, what's the point in hanging on to this one?
There was talk along the way about being stuck in the game or forced to /afk. If all that were actually happening, then yes that would be farming and yes that would be uncool, and yes I think we all agree that that sucks and we don't want it to happen to us. But don't be so eager to condemn the act of actual farming, that you apply that label to a valid (if controversial) tactic for quick, objective wins.
They're just not the same thing.