This social group (indeed, all of the social groups) has been rather quiet lately. Let's see if this makes things more active!

How common are reading/writing as skills in Azeroth?

If you interpret it as a basically medieval world, it would follow that literacy is the exclusive province of the elite. Written language may still have some religious or cultural qualities that limit its spread (reserved for wizards, priests, what have you). Books are probably relatively hard to make, especially in a subsistence economy.

This would be the obvious interpretation up through Warcraft 2. However, the first mission of 3 (if I remember correctly) involves you retrieving a clerk's book or ledger or something, indicating that there are literate middle class specialists. This fits with the more advanced technology seen in that game.

As of WoW, it seems like every human household has at least one shelf that's completely packed with books. This suggests that literacy is quite common, at least among the Alliance and a few of the Horde races. Human towns also have schoolhouses.

This presents a world far more literate than pre-industrial Earth (and also supports the fact that technology seems relatively common). Thus, I assume that at the very least, middle class Alliance citizens are generally literate. It may be a bit different for orcs, trolls, and tauren, however, since they come from a more pre-industrial background. Forsaken presumably retain their literacy, while the goblins and blood elves are more similar to the Alliance races in terms of technology and economic development.

What do you all think?

We know by TotA that Taretha Foxton learned how to write/read because she stayed under Blackmoore's control. But in the alternate universe, AltTaretha is iliterate.

Anyway, maybe there was a literacy expansion after the Second War?

That's a definite possibility. You can see the Second War allowing for a major governmental expansion which eventually translates into more widespread education (the US had this after World War 2). Maybe not so much for Stormwind and Stromgarde (since they were rebuilding), but I don't think the Horde got very far into Lordaeron.

So far, most times when we've gotten an item written by a common orc the writing was rough, indecipherable or the handwritting was atrocious. The goblins are even surprised that orcs can write. Sure, that part is mostly a joke, but it still seems to be implied that the orcs that are able to write, in many cases, do so clumsily.

Literacy among the non-nobles would spread among the class that actually needs it - administration. Like, clerks, casttellans, majordomos etc.

Among the orcs we have the written word considered "less worhy", if Urok Scratcher's backstory is of any indication (so a writer would also have to prove themself as a masterful ass-kicking spellcaster for their word to have any merit)

I think it is important to consider that magic is a reliable technology in warcraft. To understand it or even just to utilize magitech devices one would probably need literacy.

This could account for increased need for literacy in a pre-industrial society (since magic makes them modern already).

That's always been my understanding (and the basis for my argument that WoW is fundamentally a modern world masquerading as a medieval one—for something actually medieval you'd need to go to Warhammer Fantasy or Game of Thrones).

Absolutely, the people have modern sensibilities, most have modern amenities, they throw around modern societal concepts left and right... all that is holding WoW back from a proper Dieselpunk setting is the sword and axe fetish the Cdev have.

WoW is whatever kind of setting it wants to be at the moment, but for the most part it's what we usually call either Late Medieval or Early Modern. Which would include the strangely out-of-place/"anachronistic" technology (check both Renaissance AND the 18th century, you'll find out a lot of wacky projects befitting gnomes and goblins), the screwed-up morality that both tries to act all modern, yet tolerates stuff like torture (at the court of the fairest king of all people), has a less restricted nobility system, in which rich or able can attain roughly the same societal status as the feudal lords...

The class system and the administration/governing are mostly Classic Medieval, except for Dalaran (which is fantasy-unique) and Stormwind (which apparently has powerful nobles that we never see... but also free farmers instead of peasants... and also the king has absolute power over all regions... Yeah, kinda more like pre-Revolution England, but with an even better status for the farming folk). Even stuff full of modern life references, like the goblin city-states can be easily classified as merchant republics and early capitalist administrative republics. Voila!

What I'm saying is, if you both stop demonizing Medieval too much, AND accept the Annals School's concept of "The Long Medieval", the world stop being so "non-Medieval". It's just a need to broaden horizons and understand that the Medieval period intricated all levels of western society for a VERY long time (with remnants of it surviving up to the beginning of XXth century), and didn't just spontaneously "end" everywhere with Renaissance/AoD/Constantinople/English Revolution. Neither truly changed all of society to the core).

But all of that can be related mostly to EK. Other societies are still on Early Medieval Cuman/Mongol level (the centaur tribes, Non-Durotar orcs, thq quillboar), or even on ancient despotic one (night elves, naga, quiraji - basically, all long-lived Kalimdor civilizations).

But that, too, is fine. It's exactly what happened in the east when Europe was rapidly moving to industry and the capitalistic formation. Mongol tribes continued their quasi-feudalism until the socialist ideas came in (and even then made the progression almost painlessly). China and Japan continued conservating the old way. Central Asia especially was a long-surviving artifact of medieval times all the way until the Revolution.

Aside from blantant modern references, I've never had immersion dissonance with Warcraft's presumed "anachronism".

A lot of the Kalimdor civilizations seem more like being in some loose equivalent of a post-colonial stage, as they have very suddenly been exposed to more massive levels of technology and are adapting to it as best they can (granted, the context is quite different, as Kalimdor was never really colonized).

You're completely correct when you say that the Medieval period was much more nuanced than it's often made out to be, but the sheer ubiquity of the technology really makes it hard to buy as a medieval setting. It's one thing to have the Renaissance-era tech projects among the gnomes and goblins, but quite another when pretty much everyone is able to build them without too great of an investment.

The ease of transportation is another quality that strikes me as more modern. With this comes larger amounts of trade goods, which may reduce the amount of scarcity. They're not even close to post-scarcity, but most Azerothians are far from subsistence farmers.

Furthermore, the inhabitants of Azeroth appear to have a much more scientific mindset in that they believe everything is explainable. Magic, here, is basically treated as a science with its own rules and consistent results. There is relatively little of the sense of mystery in the world (at least in the EK—the Kalimdor Horde races may still have this). This also ties into the fact that religion honestly doesn't seem like that big of a deal.

People in the EK also seem to have a great deal of personal freedom, which was not the case in feudal societies (or even industrialized societies like Meiji Japan). A lot of this, of course, ties into the fact that WoW was made by Americans, and I don't think most Americans can construct a believably medieval setting. Still, it's something to keep in mind.

Fundamentally though, all my mental gymnastics are unimportant. When I see a setting where people can build personal airplanes without too much difficulty, fully understanding the principles behind the engine, wings, etc, and able to obtain rare materials through a market that's touched every corner of two worlds, I just can't see it as medieval. I'm also someone who tries to reconcile the game mechanics (like the auction house, absurdly high number of enchanted items) with the setting whenever possible, so that's going to have a pretty big influence on how I see it. If you try to keep them separate, I can see a more medieval setting being believable.