[About XDA developers] cajunflavoredbob:
Let me begin by saying that I'm not attacking you or anyone else personally in this reply. My intention is to illustrate the other side of this argument. You see useless members starting flame wars; I see members protecting other users from potentially bricking their devices, teaching them manners, and upholding the sanctity of our developer forums.

I can assure you that the majority of the time, the person in which the flame is directed did not use the search feature. If they did, then common sense would dictate that you give the most amount of information relevant to your problem in order for someone else to help. We are not mind readers. If the majority of the problems that are posted about here could have been answered by the simple use of the search feature, and that person did not use it, well, it gets extraordinarily annoying after a time. In any case, if they did search, but didn't provide that bit of information in their post, then you can't get mad at us for not being mind readers.

This is an issue which is always in a bit of flux here. You have to understand that this isn't a support website. This website is dedicated to development. As such, developers on this website come first and foremost. If you or anyone else decide to clutter up the development forums, which are provided as a haven for our developers, with inane posts about simple things that could have been answered with the search feature or should have simply been posted in the proper forum, this too gets very old very quickly. I'm not condoning the flaming, but you have to accept that there is just cause for the disdain on this topic.

First off, as a mod, tracking down these people should not be your primary concern. There are far more pressing matters to attend to than this select group of people. Besides, pointing out the obvious isn't against the rules. :p Cross posting, however, is against the rules. The bottom line for the time-sensitive posts is that it is a risk you take by flashing a custom ROM, or doing something the manufacturer didn't intend. It comes back around to my point about us not being a support website. If someone has the spare time to get you an answer, then good for you, but it is never something that anyone should expect here.

More likely than not, you simply need to change your search terms. If you aren't able to find your answer by searching, then make a post about it letting us know what exactly you searched for that garnered no results.

This does two things:

1) It narrows down our search criteria to exclude the terms you have already exhausted.

2) It shows us that you didn't come here just to leach an answer from the community, but also put in some effort at troubleshooting your own issue.

This happens because most of the senior members here, including myself, feel that anyone with half a brain should be able to tell that questions go in the question and answers fora. They are labeled like that for a reason. If you didn't create something developmental, then there isn't a reason to post a thread in the development fora.

Just because people know about Google doesn't mean they've actually used it. It is far more rare to come across a user asking a question who has done a search first than not.

The problem isn't so much about people asking questions. The problem lies a bit deeper now. Things used to be different here, indeed. I've personally been a registered XDA user for 6 years now. Things were more development focused back in the old WM days. It was normally only those of us who were looking for ways to get more out of our Pocket PCs that would frequent the forum. This mentality you are describing wasn't any different then from what it is today. The only difference is that now that Android has flooded the market that Apple made popular, we have a different set of users who are looking for a different type of development.

When I was a noob here, the flaming for not searching and doing the work myself was what eventually taught me how to find my own answers and not rely on others to support my device. I learned how to search, compose a proper post, and ask for help in a way that showed I wasn't trying to be a leach but had legitimately tried to solve my issue and failed.

The other big difference at the time was the age difference between WM users and the current generation of Android and iOS users. Back then, WM users were generally in their 20s or older. Most of the people using it, such as myself, needed it as a professional portable workstation. We had a more mature mentality towards our precious piece of technology. There were few times where you could get one of these Pocket PCs for under $400, so we valued what we had spent our money on, since insurance claims on them were all but nonexistent at the time. If we did something wrong, then there was a good chance that our expensive gadget would be just another paperweight. Since a fair portion of us needed these devices for a daily job, there was more caution thrown towards modding, flashing, or installing software.

Now, our devices are known as smartphones, and our users are mostly teenagers to whom their device was given by their parents. They don't have the same sense of worth towards their devices that used to be present since they didn't pay anything for it, or paid very little.

These users aren't taught that respect needs to be show if you want to receive it. I know it may seem as though they didn't say anything warranting a flame war, but by not showing other members of this community who donate their time to it enough respect to out line their problem and how they tried to solve it, all it sounds like to us is, "Here, I broke this. You need to fix it for me for free."

I hope that this has shown you the other side of the coin.