I used to answer forum posts quite a lot, and I eventually realized something similar: If the person doesn't tell you what they've already done to try to resol

I used to answer forum posts quite a lot, and I eventually realized something similar: If the person doesn't tell you what they've already done to try to resolve their issue, they probably didn't do anything. And it's a waste of my time to try to answer them. That isn't always true. Sometimes they're just too lazy to type it all out, but that's another uphill battle. It's not my job as a random forum viewer to pull all that information out of them. It's their job to provide it if they want help. I answer a lot fewer questions now, but I'm a lot more satisfied with the results.