I'm surprised that no one has posted the following response yet:

Post a question on MO asking what is known about your problem.

I'm curious to hear people's opinions about this.  Is this within the intended purpose of MO?  In a sense, this is certainly a "research-level question".  Some people may be more cautious about broadcasting what they're working on, so as to avoid attracting others to the problem.  But we certainly have a large community of active mathematicians here, and one might gain a lot of insight from the answers to such a question.