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.