Easy translations in the forum
Many words in Spanish (and English) have many meanings and uses, so it is far from surprising that people struggle to understand how they are used in a sentence, especially in idiomatic or complex sentences. For example, "dejar(se) de molestar" and "dejar molestar" are difficult sentences to understand just by checking the meaning of the individual words.
However, a lot of people simply come to the forum and ask "How do you say 'ladrillo' in Spanish?", which is something you can find in any dictionary, no matter how bad or basic, and you only get one answer all the time (not like other words, where all the different options make you wonder which one is best). This site (and many others) have dictionaries and translators that can provide a quick and easy answer to something like this. Why bringing this to a forum? So 5 people can say "ladrillo" to you? Even worse: it takes a lot longer to write the question in the forum than to actually type "ladrillo" in a dictionary and get an instant answer... instead of waiting for others to give you the same answer. These people are wasting their time... and ours, in my opinion, If you ask me, this should be systematically discouraged. Unless someone says something like "I have checked the dictionary, but...", I would personally just delete the post.
Sorry for being so aggressive.
20 Answers
Could this problem be the result of having this form on the dictionary results page:
Have a Spanish question? Get help from experts!
This form is out of context. When I first saw it, I had no idea it was a "back door" to a full featured forum filled with fantastic friendly folks.
I would have guessed it wouldn't care if I wrote "What's hot, babe?" or "Kick me"... 
I'm all for an admin deleting posts with an automated response email explaining the basic rule violations and/or simple dictionary advice. I'm not an admin, though if I were, I might have zapped about 20 accounts this year alone.
I am completely behind you in your tirade, but others may say, are we here to encourage or discourage? Even the fledging Spanish learner may start out with such rudimentary queries, but once they become familiar with the site, it is hoped they will go from crawling to walking, más o menos...
Thanks Cristalino, this is exactly what we are here for.
I just deleted a member whose only aim in life seemed to be to fool around, ok, he can do that elsewhere. However, a question like what is ladrillo...is reasonable, especially considering that not everybody knows how to use a dictionary, something we might find very basic and elementary but it is a fact that not everybody knows.
I remember a very popular member who wanted to come on skype, so I asked her for her skype ID, and she sent me her email address, then I said, hey no, the skype username...so she sent me her full name in real life
We often think, hey, this is so basic....but others simply haven't got a clue.
I do delete questions when the member overdoes it or simply wants an answer to a homework question. But we think it is better and kinder to send the newbie to the dictionary and not just delete the thread without any further thought.
I have always admired the way that people are guided, with kindness, to find their answers here. Even when the entire forum group refuses to do someone's homework or provides a link rather than an answer...that is teaching.
No one is born with an instinctive knowledge of how SpanishDict is supposed to work and some people learn faster than others!
I sympathize with our esteemed moderators. Some questions are asked repeatedly, others are simplistic...it would try the patience of a saint! Still, I'm grateful for answers or direction and I know others are too.
Keep up the good (and hard!) work!
For me, the problem with that kind of question is that we don't know how many invisible-potential members come to the forum, have a look at three or four of those, and leave with a wrong impression, because they don't find it interesting.
Also, many members might find it a bit annoying and end up leaving, bored. You can always ignore them, of course, but there is something... when the answers section gets packed with those questions, there is something that puts you off to participate.
Some would say it's a matter of "prestige". I really don't know if I agree.
Sorry for being so aggressive.
You're being so kind and gentle.
I wanted to say something like that but I simply chose not to answer such questions at all. What bothers me most that those posters are so ill-mannered, they don't even ask for help in a polite and civilized way. They would only drop a word or a simple sentence as it is without modifying it with the six-letterd please.
P.S. Gee, am I really a popular member?? Like ... wow ... can I quote you on that? - territurtle
You most certainly can, impostor turtle, but ...it was not you I was talking about, jeje, the member was from Spain, she simply had not clue about Internet or anything at all.
In any case, I am with my compi Yesero.
We normally tolerate a first question, then another one...if the member refuses to cooperate, we send him elsewhere
Apart from that, don't think those questions don't annoy me or I don't find them silly, but the whole idea of this forum is to be friendly and all questions except sexually based ones are allowed, stupid ones included.
The idea of directly deleting badly spelled messages or deleting threads that are not "prestigious" enough, as our good friend Cogumela said, is done on other forums, like WR, but of course, it is not a learning site, we are a learning site and we should be able to give some allowance to silly questions.
The whole idea of this site is : helpful, friendly, welcoming.
So, we do delete threads as yesero said, third strike offenders, but we won't go to how other forum's manage those threads.
In any case, if somebody is not interested , please ignore those threads, rude answers will not be tolerated. Thanks.
Having read all the replies so far, this is my two penneth.....
In real terms, what is this website all about? Money! Of course it is, the web owners sell advertising space etc based primarily on the number of hits the site receives. Start overtly dissuading this type of user and the hits go down. Most of the regulars on here will post anyway - regardless of the types of questions - but of course we can choose what we respond to, or even read! Anyway, who knows what goes on behind the scenes. I spent a good 2 months or so participating on this website and reading the forum before I posted a questions. My 'hits' will have all been registered by the Web\Application Server which hosts the site.
Also, don't forget that the internet is largely unpoliced and is like the old wild west! We can fool ourselves thinking that people have been banned but if they really wanted to all they have to do is changed their ISP and get another IP address. We can block Domains, but again this is easily by passed by a user with a little bit of Internet nous.
In my humble opinion, if we wanted to be a little more restrictive on what sort of things appear on the forum, we could introduce a sort of merit system. It would need thinking through, but, something like, you can't post a question until you have say 10k points via the lessons or flash cards. Anybody who is even semi serious about learning Spanish\English would visit the excellent learning resources we have here before even considering posting a question. I guess this might put off the more advanced users, but then again, they wouldn't be posting the type of question that Lazarus mentioned. So, perhaps, in order to encourage and support this type of person, we could introduce a system where say if you don't have 10k points you have to answer 3 questions before you are allowed to post a question of your own.
Sorry for the ramble lol, these are just brain dumps really - nothing has been properly thought through. Right I'll go back to scratching my head about the uses of para and por
Aaaa, ¿qué es un ladrillo? No, just kidding! I am completely behind you in your tirade, but others may say, are we here to encourage or discourage? Even the fledging fledgling Spanish learner may start out with such rudimentary queries, but once they become familiar with the site, it is hoped they will go from crawling to walking, más o menos... so while I concur wholeheartedly, I think we have enough participants on here that, depending on their respective levels, will feel like answering "easy" questions is a form of advancement for them, maybe? I dunno (sic)... a veces me siento como tengo un chorro de ladrillos en mis hombros! Cheers....
Edit: Left out an "l" and was losing sleep over it! jeje
Consider the word comer. When conjugated in the yo form, it's como, which looks a lot like cómo, and if someone (perhaps a newbie such as myself) puts the wrong word into the dictionary, they'll be pretty confused. For this and other words that look like other words I think you guys should be lenient. I joined this site last night, and I'm sure I'll be asking a lot of questions you guys think are dumb or lazy. But really, I'm just trying to learn this Spanish thing, just like you guys.
There may be one important item we are missing here. Let's take Lazarus's example of "ladrillo". It may well be that the "poster" has already looked up the word and now knows the English meaning, however, many questions ask how to "SAY" the word. New members may not realise that there is a "pronunciation" facility on our dictionary section and have researched the word elsewhere which doesn't have our facility.
I kind of like the 3 strike system. The first strike is a semi freebee, you get welcomed to the forum and warned at the same time. If you can't figure out what the site is about after that then the second time you get chastised and handed over to the administration. The third time it is bye bye.
I have mixed feelings on this issue.
I like to be helpful, friendly and encouraging, but still when I look at the latest/hot questions I can't help but think "For goodness' sake, where are the worthwhile questions!" I'm 52, and have had dealings with computers for less than a decade, but I can work out the difference between a dictionary and a forum.
I think Cogu's point was very valid, yes, I do sometimes think "Do I have time to trawl through all of the 'unecessary/silly' questions on SD?" and I might go elsewhere instead, as my time is more limited now.
I also wonder if some of my own questions, which I've often put a lot of time and effort into, get subsumed under these others and not seen.
At one point I had a little list of the names of people's profiles I'd check for new posts, those I thought made good points, and of good threads to check for (for example, Heidi's Pensamientos was on my list, but then I forgot to keep checking and inevitably I missed them!)
Overall, I think I agree with the idea of 3 strikes. People should be welcomed, directed to the dictionary or translator if needed, reminded to use appropriate grammar and punctuation to the best of their ability, and take it from there.
.....However, a question like what is ladrillo...is reasonable, especially considering that not everybody knows how to use a dictionary, something we might find very basic and elementary but it is a fact that not everybody knows.........
We often think, hey, this is so basic....but others simply haven't got a clue.
Sorry, Heidi, I'm not with you on this. This is exactly the spoon-feeding education that's turning the new generation into useless brats.
We're not talking about a 10 kg hard copy dictionary -where you literally need to dig up the meaning- it's simple, just type (or copy & paste) the word and press enter. They sign up just to ask for the meaning of a word. They are just too lazy to do a little search and only want others to do that for them.
When I see that the poster has even one learning point and their question is valid, I'm ready to go the extra mile to help them.
I do agree, these questions are very annoying, and as a (self-proclaimed) intermediate.....these questions are senseless. Especially the 10 questions a day asking - How do I say I love you? - BUT....
When members come, they really don't know any better, they don't know how the forum works, they are just looking for help. They see the "Ask the Experts" button, so they try it, they have no idea what happens next.
Now, for all of us experienced users, the easy thing to do is to have an Admin immediately delete the post, BUT....
What if they are just looking for help, and if they get help from the kind people at SD, thiey will learn something, and maybe they will come back, and become good contributing members of SpanishDict.
That's something that would have never happened if an Admin had just deleted the post...
I don't think that you are being aggressive Lazarus.. just practical! I can feel and share some of your fustration concerning the repeated posting of questions asking about individual words There is a need for questioners to make some effort to reserach the information they are trying to seek ; (ie: look for0 as we do not provide either a free translation service at SpanishDict nor a homework service 
Yes, I agree that taking into account the time it takes to write out the question sometimes the questioner could have perhaps found out the answer in half the time it takes to write out the question simply by taking the trouble to looking in a dictionary either a hard copy (tangible) or an online electronic copy of one.
