Not for the first time I have to make a post because of reading a message or an OOC post or a PM in which a player who is not a part of the admin/ops/HC CATEGORICALLY states to others that some aspect of the game works in a specific way when they are actually talking nonsense. Not surprisingly certain players tend to be the same ones who keep doing it and I won't be protecting their identitity if they do it again. They know who they are.
So let's start with something that SHOULD be obvious. Some aspects of the game are transparent and everyone can read them on the web site. The combat system comes to mind as an illustration of this. I would say spell effects are also transparent but that same player who made a fool of himself in OOC last night has also had to be corrected on misuse of spells which are fairly clearly defined. So obviously these are no guarantees on that aspect if a player WANTS a spell to work in a way that suits them.
Now other aspects of the game are quite deliberately NOT transparent. If they were, they would reduce the aura of uncertainty from play and lead to players tailoring their roleplaying activity to certain patterns based upon OOC knowledge. Guess what? We don't WANT players to know how everything works, we want them to not be tempted and to play their characters as far in the dark as they would be if it were real life. That makes for better roleplay. Players can try gaming the system to analyse results but they can never be 100% sure. And if they are, they will never be sure we haven't seen that and changed the way it works without announcing it.
One example of hidden knowledge is exactly how exp and promotions work in relation to roleplay and multiple characters. Another is how voting and bribery work in a Reeve election. In most of these there is no point in asking an Op either because we don't tell them everything, only two people here have the full and undisputable picture, that is Ehlanna and myself. Secrets shared are not secrets. So the Ops likely know somewhat more than the average player but only what they NEED to know. Players know very little because that way they cannot be tempted to take that OOC knowledge into channel.
Based upon that, you would imagine that a sensible player would offer a qualified opinion when talking in OOC. The player who wants to avoid being labelled an ill-informed halfwit would say something like "I can't be sure but it looks to me as if.... blah blah blah" Ops present may quietly snigger to themselves or they may decide to comment by telling that sensible player they are a bit right but they haven't taken account of the deviousness behind the scenes. Because yes, we DO throw in hidden spanners to keep things more unpredictable. We're bastards like that, live with it
On the other side of the coin an egotistical player who is not even an Op will say "I KNOW how this works and it's blah blah blah." Now that player then becomes fair game to be openly derided in the same medium they used to make that statement. Clearly they cannot know for sure unless they have hacked into the server, which they haven't, I can assure you of that. Of course we could take pity on said player and tell them in PM that they have it wrong but there are two reasons not to. Firstly the player will tend to be so jumped-up cocksure that they will discount what they are told and carry on believing they are right after spending several hours arguing about it in PM. Secondly and far more important, that player may have been around the game for a year or more and carry some credibility with other players who don't know them too well. So those other players will believe what they have been told if it is not publicly countered by a strong message of opposition from an Op.
If the player wishes to believe their own theories, I could care less. But if they pass those theories as facts which get assimilated by other players, and repeated still further, then it is something we cannot allow to happen. One way to deal with it is to reduce that player back to level one so that they automatically lose credibility. Another way is to make a strongly worded statement to the same audience that said player is an unmitigated halfwit who has no idea what s/he is talking about.