When is it okay to start speed-running dungeons?

Last night, my colleague Dan O’Halloran and I got into an interesting bit of musing. He’d been testing dungeons on the Battle for Azeroth beta and mentioned that one of the groups he was in was already speed-running them. And not just the “we out-gear all this, let’s pull everything” sort of speed-running. No, this group was speed-running in the sense that they were skipping certain trash and getting angry if you didn’t know the optimal route through the place.

It sort of got me wondering just when it’s (generally speaking) okay to start speed-running dungeons in WoW. At this point in Legion, it seems to be the general assumption that people know the dungeon layouts and are fine moving through a dungeon at breakneck speeds. But again, that’s just an assumption.

There are plenty of players out there who may very well just be starting to play this expansion. Maybe they’re excited for Battle, maybe they leveled in 7.0 and then took a break. Whatever the case, just outright assuming everyone knows optimal dungeon routes might work in 95% of the cases, but there’s still likely to be someone who doesn’t.

Does that (not-necessarily-accurate) 95% make it okay to speed-run? Should the speed-runners ask if anyone needs to take things slow? Or is it on the person who doesn’t know the dungeon layouts or bosses to say something?

Moreover, is there a way to functionally change the random-grouping system to make things like this less likely to happen? What I mean by that is, would a flagging system — similar to the “I’m willing to lead” flag — help at all? Will group voice chat help? Or would pointing out the less knowledgeable among the group just lead to more toxicity?

Again, it’s a trickier question than maybe the title here lets on. But it’s one worth discussing. Obviously, if you’re expecting speed-runs on the beta dungeons, you’re being unrealistic. But when is it okay to start chain-pulls and speed-runs and all that? And what sorts of implementations could help bridge the gap between speed-runners and newer folks?