Do you feel this forum has a "don't ask for help attitude"?
The aim and main attitude of this site is " be friendly and helpful".
I would like to copy Jim's opinion on this topic:
I have been with this forum for a few years now. Lately I must say it seems a little more unfriendly then what it used to be. Yes we should all try as much as we can on our own. Using the site itself is a learning process. I find some of the answers these days cold and indifferent. I have also noticed the threads have lost a lot of their interesting input because of this "don't ask for help attitude"
Do you feel this way? Why?
I think we have a great crowd on this site and don't know why anybody should think this way, however, I would like to hear your opinion on this.
I have seen answers on here that would have turned me away had I received them. - Seitheach
I would also like to know why you said this Phil
37 Answers
I believe members who have been here awhile tend to (probably unintentionally) forget why they're here. I see brand new people who have probably read briefly about the other tools available but would prefer that personal touch, you know the human aspect the tools and machines can't give, when they're searching for an answer. I want to take this moment to say it is ok to ask a question without using the tools occasionally. I mean if you ask simple questions that are no brainers and can be solved more easily than posting a question, then you should expect resentment, and definently if you ask redundant questions that shouldn't be asked, that's where hostility should typically be expected. But I do think we as a educational community need to rethink our purpose and how we treat new-comers and our strategy for helping them. If you're going to correct someone or tell them the "procedures", put yourself in there shoes, and think how you would feel if you had a passion to learn spanish and were truly befuddled by such a mass amount of free tools to educate yourself, yet when you asked a question because you weren't sure where to start first, someone answered in hostility. That not only makes that hostile person look like a culero (and an insensitive, ignorant one at that), but also makes SpanishDict look bad because we as the spanish-speakers of the community represent a live learning tool to the new-comers. This is just a small piece of my mind on the issue that i've generally stayed quite about, and I applaud Heidita for addressing it. Let's give advice and help, not embarrassment and punishment. 
And any new users who feel intimidated or like they still can't ask other members, please feel free to contact me and i'll give you an answer, if not find it for you.
Hello everyone!
I am pretty new to this site, and I have to say, I have been somewhat intimidated by all of the rules and demands / requests that we follow them.
There have been times when I have started to answer a question, and then thought, "No, I might get in trouble for that. Someone will say that I shouldn't do the homework for them. And so on."
I have been studying Spanish for 3 years now, and there are still times when I can't think of something very simple. I just don't remember. So I understand when newbies ask what seem to be ridiculous questions. That's me sometimes!
But my online tutor and my in-class teacher never shame me or make me feel bad for asking. They kindly answer me and then remind me of a way to remember the next time. Or they refresh my memory on where to look for the answer.
So when a student is asking brusquely about an answer they need, I don't see the harm in kindly helping them and then reminding them of all the convenient SpanishDict places to look for the answer. They may be feeling frantic and thinking "I just can't do this!" If we give them a little boost to get started... well, that seems good to me.
In my opinion, we should wait until a person has at least 100 rep before we reprimand them for not following the rules. Give them time to get used to us and learn the ropes. That's a much more friendly way to go about life.
If a person doesn't want to read the questions from newbies, they can just skip over those. You can tell who is new by the points on their icon.
I really like this site, but I don't answer many of the questions that I could, due to fear of the rules. I usually only feel qualified to answer the easier questions, the ones that may be homework (and I'm in trouble) or the ones by someone who doesn't have a clue what they're asking (it's all too new to them). I would be happy to be "bothered" by these questions.
That's enough for now. I do like this site and will keep coming back. Thanks for listening!
Alicia
I am glad this question has been asked. I am all for the rules and regulations, but no ruling of rules without discretion. At least that is how I feel.
Most of the time people are friendly and helpful, but I have noticed a few people who are very quick to point out the mistakes of others - in an unfriendly way.
I believe this should be a learning site, and you must tolerate some mistakes and unintentional breaking of the rules. That`s how we all learn, by making mistakes!
Also: do not forget that some of us in here neither have english or spanish as our native language. We do our best!
If you see a post which you for whatever reason do not like: ignore it, instead of pointing out mistakes in an unfriendly way. You can get away with a lot, if you point out things in the right way - the positive way!
Keep up the good work!
Another thing I’d like to point out is; Why do we get upset at kids? For whatever reason, because they want help with their homework? We will never be able to tell what kind of home some of these children come from. They might be rejected and neglected in their house and then when they come here looking for help they find more rejection. If you are a teacher then become their friend, walking through the answers until they are able to find it for themselves, but don’t shut the door. You might be hurting a young mind that needs help beyond a simple grammar question. I agree that kids can be very manipulative, but those are the skills that human beings learn for survival. There was a teacher once that said that if you scold a child don’t lose your perspective. Do it with the sole purpose of teaching. When you let anger rise to the surface the message won’t reach home. It will turn into a duel that could hurt you physically and emotionally and when you finally recover from your anger you won’t even remember why you got angry in the first place and neither will the child. Bottom line is we are grown ups and we got to be smarter and it’s our duty to help the next generation because they will also be the peers of your sons and daughters and grandchildren for most of us. There’s nothing wrong here, it is all attitude.
Being somewhat of an aged technological midget, I accidentally stumbled on this forum after I had exhausted all my usual sources for a definition of "arraigar" in connection with narco arrests in Mexico.
Speaking as a "newbie" to the world of forums, but an "oldbie" to Spanish, I find this forum a fascinating mixture of all ages, all interests, and all levels of Spanish. I have learned a lot of misc. vocab (such as "micropinza", "pasar como una tromba", "no me pierde ojo", etc.), and I have thoroughly enjoyed trying to clarify points of grammar to principiantes.
On the other hand, I am sensitive - maybe too sensitive at times. If I were younger and not very confident about my Spanish ability, I would have been scared to death by some of the abrupt replies.
Helping with homework? Sometimes it's quite obvious that someone wants Spanishdict to do their homework for him. Posts such as: "Write 3 sentences for me that have the word 'nadie' in them" are justifiably discouraged. On the other hand, sometimes a student will post something like: "Can someone explain to me how the -ar endings work?" I know that Spanishdict has an excellent instructional component, but it's possible that the student has already tried an instructional component and did not understand it. As a Spanish teacher, it has been my experience that some students need a little extra personal attention either to clarify a question or just to boost their level of self confidence.
Anyway, those are my thoughts. If you took the time to read through all of this, I humbly thank you.
Atte., SSS, Mountaingirl123
The problem with any written communication is that the subtle nuances are lost.
When I am trying to help someone in the "flesh and blood" world, a lot of the meaning behind the words is conveyed, or augmented, by gestures, facial expressions and tone of voice. All this is lost on an answers forum and, without it, the actual words can often seem abrupt.
I think this is why the younger generation have developed a virtual second language, with "smileys" 
and abbreviations (LOL) - to try to put back some of this background communication.
The impersonality is a by-product of the way we communicate nowadays, and I don't know what the answer to it is - except to read everything we post twice, and try to imagine how it might sound to someone who doesn't know how very nice we really are!
I think it is ok to help people to the dictionary or translator. I hope my dry statements don't look unfriendly. Also the rule about grammar and punctuation is imperitive since there needs to be a model to learn from.When I get to edit I may just correct and point it out.
I think it is ok for people to ask questions in general discussion about subjects that may not be available in the site archives or may be in the archives but bring up an interesting point of discussion with new players.
The knowledge base available in this forum is as broad as the sum of the mental capabilities of the participants.This is an international forum open to anyone.Even when the same general knowledge is bantered about again, it gives an opportunity for someone to exercise their skills that may not have been present before.The perspective might be different or the skill level employed may be the variable. Every new person has to learn the difference between ser and estar for example.It is reasonable to direct them to a lesson if they haven't done so but sometimes the process of banter even if redundant will gel something in someone's mind.
How many times have you entertained a discussion of a sports or political event until you laid it down? All I can say is if a question has been asked ad nauseum maybe people of intermediate skill will enjoy the challenge of explaining and those who are far beyond that can move on to the next question.
There does seem to be a stern attitude conveyed at times that could be softened a bit.
Yes- this is definately an issue for Spanish Dict users! It is okay to correct someone in a nice way, just helping them learn; but sometimes people forget that the website is mostly for people who are learning. Little comments and posts on "Lazy Spanish Dict users" who "are to lazy to do their homework" are actually quite mean and alot of people don't realize that they weren't born perfect- everyone has to learn!!! Please realize that it could be you (and probably was not long ago) asking what sounds like a dumb question- but I know from my own experience that Spanish isn't easy Oh, and remember to smile- it's not that hard
I want to say first that I love this site and I never want to leave it. And although I have been here for a very short time, I have noticed some sort of shift. But as I said earlier, there is so much lost when we type instead of speak on a more personal basis.
I am a smart person, I like to think, but it did take me (is taking me) a bit to catch on to just how things should be done. But getting there put me in tears one night.
To be blunt, I think Moe's comments were a bit harsh in the beginning, buy I also think he has started to soften them a bit
I guess I tend to overdo the smiley faces 
I just want to say a nice word to the many people who respond to new users in the nicest and most diplomatic way. I am not going to name them here as they know who they are! I have read some very good and friendly replies to "first-time posters".
I used to play a lot of chess at ICC (internet chessclub), there they have this thing called RoboAdmin that will scold you whenever you screwup. People didn't take offense at a robot so it didn't make anyone angry. Of course we still need people to take care of other things that machines can't. Having a crew of human admins that follow the same protocol is very helpful. Keeps everyone on the same page. If someone new posts his first thread, then roboadmin automatically should greet him and correct anything the person is doing wrong. Poping up the rules when someone makes a mistake is a good way to keep people out of it, this way nobody gets offended. You can't police every harsh word that is written here, they way they used to handle this at ICC with their 300+ chat channels from all over the world was to have one admin in charge of each channel. Here we don't have that volume of people but giving power to everybody to scold and take points away by flagging someone or editing the posts at will I don't think is a good idea. There are a lot of friendly and responsible people on this site that can do this but you all need to get on the same page about how to treat people and be ready to intervene whenever someone is acting improperly or being improperly treated.
Hi Guys,
I think I've arrived a little late to this family discussion. But better late than never. Heidi, I think the fact that you are taking the time to even address this issue speaks volumes. You are truly concerned about the welfare of the site and about the people on it. Because of that, we may drift off course a bit, but you and Eddy always bring us back to where we need to be.
Because of modern technology, we are having to address things that were never even dealt with ten-fifteen years ago. For the first time in history (unless I'm forgetting something) our peers are no longer students in our classroom who are the same age or friends from a soccer team or even co-workers. Our peers on this site range in ages from childhood to senior citizen. So with that in mind, there will be difficulties in maintaining a balance between rules and love. I myself on any given day fluctuate between total frustration at poor grammar and sympathy for a child who seems to be lacking attention in the home. This is not easy, but I am so happy to see that everyone is willing to be honest and discuss the issue. Everyone seems to be generally concerned with the welfare of this site.
We are all just people with different personalities. Just as we have to deal with that off line, we have to deal with it here. I think we can continue to improve on what we have here. We should probably do what we can to make people feel welcome when they are new. Wisdom should be applied when we notice a young child who is posting non-stop, seeking attention. We shouldn't be sarcastic with people we don't really know yet. This is all just common sense that we would apply in our everyday worlds and I think we should apply it here as well. But overall, this is a friendly, fun place to be, and learning Spanish is a very enjoyable experience here. I know Phil was joking about it the other night, but there really are people here who I would love to have over for dinner. Keep up the good work Heidi, because you are first on my guest list.
I think that this forum is really good- and friendly! But sometimes someone gets their post closed straightaway just because they have spelt something a little bit wrong, while others get lots of warnings. 
Me gusta que muchos estudiantes han escrito sus opiniones. Mis dos pesos:
Hay un momento cuando el sitio ha cambiado un poquito, para mi. Fue (o era?) más fácil para mí a charlar en el sitio cuando las lecciones, y la progresión de las clases, no fue llenando la parte de la página a la derecha. Por que...
Cuando había muchas preguntas y comienzos de conversasiones allí, me encantaba saltar en una conversación. Ahora, con la progresión de clases de cada persona y todos los puntos, parecen a mí más como la escuela y un poco menos divertido. Y la escuela quizas es mas frio y menos carino que un grupo de personas tratando aprender y hablar juntos.
Teniendo dicho esto, este sitio me ha dado mucho ayuda y también la valentía para hablar y expresarme. Gracias a todos, de verdad, mucho, absolutamente.
Las respuestas a mis preguntas (y poesia) han sido rápidas y a menudo muy ... como se dice, endearing? - y dulce. Frio? No. Encouraging? Sí, mucho.
Arriba!
Hi robertico
You have brought up some interesting points. The revamp of this site was initially viewed by myself and I suspect also by Heidi, with some scepticism. Before the revamp we had total control but also an incredible amount of work. Devolving some of these responsibilities has by and large worked well, with many "merited" forers editing and hopefully guiding new members along the right path. If I have one gripe with the new system it is that Heidi or I cannot remove a flag which we feel is unwarranted without the penalty of 10 points still remaining. I think this is unfair.
Continuing on from other members comments, yes, the written word is sometimes hard to convey without appearing to be agressive or condescending. For this reason I try to convey my mood by selecting an appropriate moticon.
Finally, If any member is upset by anything I say, then feel free to contact me by the "Private Message" system where we can discuss any problems.
