How to get the most from your HelpDesk experience.

First off, we want to say hello. We've never had the chance to formally say our greetings. So hello from us! The Help Desk you'll meet at DA are +amolerouth,+randomcasualty or myself -- +phae. But it's not too rare you'll encounter some gallery directors or other helpful admins.

Since the new and improved HelpDesk / FAQ have been up and running for a while, it’s a good time to help you to help us, with this handy guide about submitting helpdesk tickets.

General tips

Only deviantART related issues are to be sent via the helpdesk, any software enquires must be taken to the appropriate forum(s).

Read the System Status Forum often.

If your first language isn’t English – don't worry! Just try your best and we’ll do our best to bridge the language gap.

However, we have little tolerance for people who can't take the time to type coherently. Typing the entire message in ‘txt msg hi how r u? Idun no how 2 do this’ format, or in ‘l33t sp33k’ is the fastest way for us to not respond quickly if at all!

Additionally, simply typing one word queries, in ALL CAPS, demands, or abuse won’t go down well either.

Our best tip simply requires searching and reading the FAQ first. We don't answer information already covered by the FAQ. If you can’t find your answer, or you don’t understand the answer given, continue down to the helpdesk window where we’ll happy to help.

Error and bug reporting

Remember to detail. We don't want a 10 page essay, just the facts – what you’re trying to do, what isn’t working, what’s happening instead, what error message you get... etc.

If something is only happening on a certain browser or computer, what kind of browser or computer are you using? Remember, we can be pretty darn intuitive at times, but we’re not telepathic!

Also, the best thing to do before submitting a ticket is to take a trip to the System Status Forum, and check whether your problem is already being dealt with, since there’s no point informing us of a problem that we already know exists, and are working on.

Harrasment and policy violation reporting

For this we just need to know who is causing you a problem (so the username, or link to their userpage), along with links to particular cases of misconduct – since when we then contact the policy violation team, they’ll require that proof to act.

Deviation deletion enquiries

The main thing we need for this is just a link to the deviation that was removed, or the title. If you honestly think there was some kind of error, state clearly what you think that error was, and we’ll have the administrator who removed the item review the deletion. We can also help to advise on relocating section violations.

Ban enquiries

Firstly – don’t get angry at us! We incredibly rarely ban anyone at the helpdesk, so it’s *highly* unlikely that it was us, personally, who banned you. So, if you want help from us, stay calm, state your case clearly, and we’ll assure that your case and argument for un-banning is made to the correct admin. We can’t promise you’ll be un-banned mind you. We can also let you know the length of temporary bans.

Rip reports and deviation violations

In most cases, single deviation problems can be reported via the “report deviation” button located beneath the image. If however you find an entire gallery of PVs, then you can report that to us with a link to the gallery. For potential rip cases, we need to know who you think the ripper is, and links to the original sources of the images – please don’t use the rip forum for these kind of reports.

Subscription enquiries

If you think something has gone wrong while purchasing a subscription, or that you’re not sure if a transaction went through. Tell us what you’ve done, who the sub was intended for, and what you think the error was. Then we can contact accounts with those details and sort any mistakes out quickly.

Prints enquiries

We no longer deal with prints enquiries, since that was inefficient, and all that ended up happening was that we’d pass the cases to the prints staff via notes. So instead you can direct all concerns, questions and comments about the prints service to prints-help@deviantart.com

Additional

If you find errors in our FAQ, or think there is something missing, then note one of us or submit a ticket with your idea and we’ll definately take your idea into consideration. We want the FAQ to be as complete and accurate as possible.

Also, if you have suggestions for deviantART, then you can state those too, and we’ll make sure the right people see them and have your ideas for consideration.

And lastly, please be patient. Only submit one ticket at a time. We will try to get to you as soon as we can!

Thank you for reading this public service announcement,

+phae and the helpdesk team.

(Thanks to ^inennui for editorial revisions)