TheoryCrafter vs The Unwashed Masses

Last time I talked about general theorycrafting and the blizzard forums. Today I'm going to go through a bit more detail about the sort of things that I run into as one of those TC types. By now I assume most people that read this Blog are aware of the Shaman: Elemental Theorycrafting Think Tank (or TTT for short) entry, and my ever evolving spreadsheet, SIEC (stands for Shaman Elemental Item Comparisons). There are also a few threads going in the Class Mechanics - Shaman forum as well.

Part of what I try to do is to make sure that all the necessary information is available for Elemental Shaman, mostly via the TTT entry. While there are some differing opinions and playing styles (optional talents to take, whether or not to use Chain Lighting in rotations, etc), I try to make sure that all of those options and (valid) opinions are covered. However I tend to avoid the overly basic things like giving example stat weightings (aka Equivalence Points), Best in Slot gear lists, or enchants, because these things should be covered by other points in the entry, or on Wowhead & Lootrank via the links generated in SEIC. In other words, I try to make all the information available, but I don't plan on doing all the work for you either.

A downside to doing this sort of work are the questions people ask. Good examples can be found in The BanHammer, which is fairly well populated by people who didn't read or follow the rules. Unfortunately, you can't banhammer PMs, or random level 1 alts on your server. An example of the sort of PMs that I receive:
This follows the typical format for this sort of message. A greeting, attempted flattery, statement how they've already searched for the information, a question that could have been answered via said search, and then a thank you for the information that they're expecting. Generally I'll ignore these users (mostly if they have zero forum posts, and registered the same day they sent me the PM) or suggest they post it on the class mechanics forum.

Here's another good one (and by good I mean bad), although it should be noted that this was sent prior to patch 3.0.8
This user had registered the same day they sent the message, and has not posted anything since then. These are the messages that I really wish I didn't receive, because they can usually be answered by reading the threads/TTT entry first. Messages about things I screwed up in the spreadsheet or TTT entry are perfectly ok, because I do make mistakes like that (hey, I'm only human).

The level one alts that are created specifically to talk to me to ask questions are worse. When I'm logged on, I'm on to play a game. I'm not on to answer questions from people, be they random level ones or friends of fellow guild members. It'd be like someone asking you how to play while you're in the middle of playing it.

So in general, no matter what class you play, make sure to read both the class forum and the TTT entry (if one exists for your class). Then if you can't find an answer make a post in your class mechanics forum, because the people that you'd PM or ask in game are players too.

PS: after reading this before posting it, I imagine Blizzard forum posters like Ghostcrawler have it worse