Those who seek help must first learn to help them self.
Some of the questions from newbies just seem to have no for thought. It makes people wonder if they are even serious. When schools stress to students how important communication skills are, they mean it. Reading posts on this forum (or most forums, comment areas, etc.) shows exactly why good communication skills are very important. When you see someone asking a question that's just hard to read and understand, it's a turn off to even start a dialog to help them.
Also, the point that others have raised about "so many views, but no one posting answers" really being just a situation of many guest views and not many members viewing it is very true. And even for the members, they don't necessarily know the answer. On a good number of posts that I answer, I don't know the answer coming into the thread. I have spent over half an hour tracking down answers for people, which they could have done on their own. What thread creators don't realize is how much time a answerer might take to find their answer, it just shows up in the thread.
I do agree that posters should try to provide a link to a repeating thread, but I know I don't always have the time to do so. And, since it's not my problem, I don't feel it should be my priority to go out of my way to answer a question that has several answers already in place. I also admit that using Google is a bit of an art. I've become very adept at that art and as a result, of the 3200+ posts I've had, I've only started maybe 5 threads, some of which I ended up answering myself. I know not everyone can develop that art though just like not everyone can draw well.
In conclusion, my best advice is to lead by example.
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