Elitists - Reason With Them or Ignore Them?

You find elitism everywhere in WoW and its related communities. You see it in everything from using GearScore as a determination of skill, to posting damage meters as a way of stroking one's ego. It seems to be a phenomenon that won't go away.

The arguing in Trade chat never ends. One person posts a question or a comment. Another responds with an elitist (unhelpful, by the way) response. Followed by several supporters from both sides of the coin.

The same happens on forums or blog sites, such as WoW.com. Someone posts a reasonable article. Then at least one elitist person responds with an attack against all noobs. That's followed by several people supporting or attacking the elitist.

Why do people even try to reason with elitists? I admit, I often get suckered into reading the debates. There's something enjoyably masochistic about putting myself through it. I suppose it's like watching reality TV -- the shock value when you think, "I can't believe he just said that!" Yet afterward you ask yourself why you even watched.

But honestly, why do people even bother trying to reason with them? Has an elitist ever been convinced to recant their statements?

On WoW.com today there was an Arcane Brilliance article about DPS meters and how people misuse them. One reader wrote a typical elitist response -- anyone who complains about DPS meters is the person with low DPS who is being carried by the others. This elicited pages and pages of responses, attacking his point of view. The elitist never posted again, indicating that he had read all the responses and had recognized the err of his ways. He either probably never looked back at the post, or maybe he read all the responses, enjoying how much he had riled things up.

Why do we do it? We know we're not going to get anywhere with them, so why try? Why not just ignore their statements?

When someone accuses another of being "fail" because his gear score is in the 3000s, why does that person feel the need to defend himself by explaining that the toon is not his main, or that he has taken 3 months off from the game, or that he only has 2 hours of play time per week, etc?

I experience this first hand from both sides. My Priest is one of the best geared on the server. Currently, her gear score is 5600 or so. I don't brag about it. It's just a sign that I have a lot of time to play and that I'm lucky enough to be in a 25-man raiding guild and I've won some very good drops. I've received high praise for my "leet-ness" while on my Priest.

Meanwhile, my Moonkin's gear score is still in the 3000s. I've been criticised and ridiculed for having such a low gear score and "low" dps. The level of her gear is much lower than that of my priest because (a) she is not my main and so I spend very little time on her, (b) she has no raiding opportunities in the guild she's in (and even if she had, I wouldn't have the time).

But, I'm the same player behind both toons. I am not a fail player. And, even if I didn't have the highly geared priest, and only had time to play the Moonkin, I'd still be the same player. High gear scores are mostly just a sign of time spent playing the game. They're not necessarily indicative of a person's skill, and definitely they're not indicative of a person's worth!

In the end, the elitists are people who judge others' worth on their gear and their knowledge of the game. Reasonable people recognize this as the crap that it is. So, why do they (we?) let them get to them, making them defend the not-so-elite?

Is it important to argue with someone who makes outlandish remarks so that either (a) they will change their opinions, or (b) others will not be fooled into agreeing with them?

Or do we just like to argue?

If we just ignored elitist comments, would the elitists stop talking?