Quote Originally Posted by quzah
your time isn't any more wasted than if someone here beats you to a post.
Generally, when providing help, I try to see what help has already been rendered, and follow up from there. Time is wasted in the case where a suitable answer has already been given, and then because I was not aware of that, I went ahead with a similiar reply. This is not a race condition because I should have detected the existing post at time of check.

This problem can be mitigated by disclosure, i.e., the user states that he/she is also posting the question on such and such other forum. Unfortunately, some forum communities may only be viewed by members, and then even if they are viewable by all, maintaining parallel threads of discussion may be more troublesome.

My recommendation is to post the question in a single forum. If after some time there is no satisfactory response, post in another forum, and inform both forum communities that you are doing so. Although this would still be technically cross posting, I see no harm in it. It is unreasonable to expect that a user will always receive a satisfactory response in the first forum he/she chooses.

Quote Originally Posted by quzah
Saying it's OK for you to post on multiple forums, and saying it's not OK for someone else to do so, is hypocritical. Everyone says it is wrong for someone to ask on multiple forums for help, that actually offers help on multiple forums, is a hypocrite.
That reasoning is flawed because when I post on multiple forums, I do not post the same question, and it is the posting of the same question in multiple forums that I am against, with the exception I outlined earlier in my recommendation. When I find that someone has asked the same question on multiple forums, I answer in only one forum (typically the one with the most traction thus far), then link the other(s) that I know of to where I answered.