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People in general are more willing to be helpful when they feel some  effort has been invested prior to asking other people for help, because  no matter how politely this is done there is an inherent rudeness at  work; you are claiming that your time not looking (again, sticky, you  could at least ask the question in the right place) is worth more then  the time of whoever might answer your question.

Nice try, but this is bull. Obviously, this thread shows that either more people don't mind answering even when the OP didn't seem to have searched enough for you, or that more people simply didn't take it to this ridiculously petty and paranoid level.

Only when he's confident his informatino cannot be found elsewhere should he have come here to ask about it.

And how do we determine if he's justifiably confident in his efforts? Do we quiz him? Is he supposed to jot down in his OP everything he did prior to finally breaking down and posting his question?

Since ettiquette was mentioned, here's how anyone should go about this in the future: answer the question if you know it, and provide a link to the information and/or a more appropriate thread/forum if necessary. Feel free to explain what the Ask a Simple Question thread is about, or the stickies at the top of the Forum. But this doesn't require being an ass.

Someone coming here asking a question doesn't need to be lectured about his 'independence' or told that generally, if he didn't find the sticky then he's probably lazy.