For myself (for what it's worth), I no longer care whether I get thanked or even acknowledged, so long as I learn something interesting (I frequently do) from finding the answer to a question. I regularly criticise people for asking questions without telling us what they already know, and make no apology for that. Learning to ask a question intelligently is the first step toward getting the answer you actually want, rather than the random guesses that often appear, and saves time for those of us who are doing the work.

People who ask questions that have already been answered (sometimes several times) annoy me rather more. The first thing I did when I discovered this place (six years ago) was learn how to use the search engine. It was a bit clunky in those days compared to what we have now (you could only search thread titles, not bodies, for one thing); nowadays finding material here is really quite easy if people bother to spend a little time over it. I was an internet newbie when I started, and I don't see why other people can't make the small effort required to learn as I did. They would discover a lot of interesting peripheral stuff at the same time, for one thing.

However, there will always be idiots. I've only once, I think, emailed a reply to somebody (I was in a very good mood). Anybody who is sufficiently interested to ask a question should be sufficiently interested to come back to see if there is an answer. If they don't it's their loss; and ours, of course, if they come back a week later and, because they can't see their thread any more, start a new one. That happened to me with the first thread I ever started here. I spotted the "filter" option and found it again, though. Anybody of moderate intelligence can do the same.

Mind you, I forgot all about it afterwards, and never thanked the people who had provided information. We all make mistakes.