It def seems like you are speaking as a moderator rather than a user. No offense but to get snotty with someone because they ask "How do I hack Pokemon" rather than forward them to a couple of links, faqs, or utilities shows who wants to be helpful or who wants to muscle or throw someone out because they are being perceived as an annoyance. For example, I know something about music. If someone who has never touched a piano keyboard before in their lives asked me how they could start learning to play music, since I play by ear I wouldn't very well tell them "Oh too bad if you don't know what a note sounds like, you're out of luck". I would more or less link them to diagrams as to where each note is located on a keyboard. Saying "find it yourself" is simply lazy in my opinion and not helpful. Having said that its also very discouraging.
We -do- link them to FAQs, Utilities, and Tutorials. Have you checked the
Getting Started section? Not only does it give definitions of all the various aspects of ROM hacking, but it also links to in-depth tutorials, and popular and useful utilities.
If new users don't even bother to read that when we link it (which is the first thing we link), then what are the odds they are going to take any other advice we give them? If they read it and have more questions, we're more than happy to respond to them.
How is that elitist in the least bit? Because channel operators (very few of which are actually ROM hackers or translators) won't hold a new users hand? If you join the channel and ask an intelligent question, I can guarantee you'll get the answers you need.