Weekly Help Desk Updates - March 22nd, 2008

Introduction

Welcome to the weekly Help Desk Updates. In these weekly updates we will attempt to bring you the most up to date news concerning the Help Desk & FAQ, as well as provide some helpful hints for super duper deviantART fun.

Hexe's Corner

Over the years we've always attempted to be responsive to feedback concerning the efficiency and helpfulness of our beloved Help Desk. To this end we will read journals, emails, forum threads and other sources of opinion so that we will be better able to assist you.

Among the feedback have been some complaints concerning the speed at which we respond to your issues.

Today I would like to address the reason for why the Help Desk can appear slow to respond, because to be quite honest recently there have been quite the handful of complaints about delays.

So what is the major cause for these delays you ask? The answer is simple and that answer is deviants submitting multiple inquiries.

So what types of situations typically result in multiple inquiries?

Well......

There are some who believe that their issue is so important that it trumps everybody else's problem and so they submit multiple inquiries believing that this will get them more attention faster. Unfortunately every user submitting an inquiry is usually doing so for a very important reason, but only a small number will submit multiple inquiries in hopes of getting their issue resolved quicker.

Some deviants fail to realize that there are more than 5 million users along with them on the site and so when they submit their inquiry they honestly believe they will have an answer immediately. When a reply doesn't appear in under 5 minutes they flood the desk believing they have been overlooked or ignored. Please do not do this it's not only rude but unfair.

Banned deviants often become frustrated at being banned and submit a small novel spread across several tickets. This really is not going to look good to the reviewing parties and often only serves to clutter up the waiting queue and confuse the issue.

Bug reports can also result in panicky floods of the Help Desk as instead of waiting for the Help Desk Team to answer those plagued by errors or bugs submit several more reports with more and more details. Please file only one report and be prepared to provide the additional details when asked instead of filing numerous other reports which only scatter the information.

Harassment is another issue where delays are seldom tolerated, so often the victim along with numerous of his closest friends submit multiple reports on the issue and these reports are 100% identical, being copied and pasted from a suggested "template" prepared by someone. Being harassed sucks, it has or will happen to all of us at one point or another sadly, hell even I have been harassed, but flooding the Help Desk about the situation only results in having to wait ages for staff to take care of the it because you and others have submitted enough tickets to double the number in the waiting queue.

--


Now that I know the major cause for delays what can I do to help?

I'm glad you ask! I would like to request that after you have read this update that you help put an end to this madness by creating a journal or stamp of your choice (or use the one below) and link back to this article with it, because there is no better way to get a message across on an issue like this than word of mouth.

Stamps:

y2jenn's Corner

What can you do if you've updated your avatar but deviantART is still displaying the old one? If this happens it's most likely due to a caching issue. All browsers cache images. This acts as a memory of sorts, making pages you've already visited load a little faster. The images on this cache includes your user avatar. Rest assured, if you didn't receive an error while uploading your avatar it has indeed been updated. However, there are a couple of things you can do to make sure your avatar was updated successfully.

Pressing CTRL + F5 on your keyboard forces your page to refresh. More often than not this will scare your new avatar out of hiding. If it doesn't work, load the following URL into your browser's address bar.

http://a.deviantart.com/avatars/*/**/your username.***

Replace the * with the first letter of your username.
Replace the ** with the second letter of your username.
Replace the "your username" with your actual username.
And replace the *** with your avatar's file format (gif, jpeg or png).
So, for example, mine would look like http://a.deviantart.com/avatars/y/2/y2jenn.gif.

The cached avatar will load immediately on your browser. Once there click the refresh button on your browser and your new avatar should be displayed!

But what happens when you've done these things and deviantART still displays the old avatar? This is caused by server lag. Your new avatar will display properly as soon as our servers catch up. We kindly ask that you not write the Help Desk about if if this happens, as we will gently prod you in the direction of the FAQ in response. Hang in there, deviants! If you didn't get an error your avatar will update on its own.

Weekly Tip

Did you ever wonder if it is possible to display an email address on your userpage? Well it is! For information on how, please click here.

Top 10 Of The Week

FAQ #568: I tried to create an account, but it says i am banned. Why?
FAQ #81: How can I make links to other deviants, deviations, or websites?
FAQ #113: Can I delete my deviantART account?
FAQ #831: Why can't just anyone submit film?
FAQ #88: How do I add images to my Journal?
FAQ #716: I was told to make sure I have Javascript enabled. How do I do this?
FAQ #104: What HTML formatting can we use on deviantART? And what is the format for these codes?
FAQ #634: Why was my deviation relocated or moved?
FAQ #168: How do I add a deviantID to my devious information? What is the recommended size of a deviantID?
FAQ #106: What are the symbols in front of each deviants nickname?

Recently Revised Or New Entries

Revised -

FAQ #6: What is the Collections Feature and how do I use it?
FAQ #233: How do I enable or disable the recent visitors feature?
FAQ #649: I have yet to receive my Verify email. What can I do?

Important News Articles this Week

Artist Relations Newsletter - March 19, 2008
Get Sprung!
Get Sprung Egg Design
Celebrity Egg Heads Contest 2008

Help Desk Guides

How To Guides:

How to: Submit a Help Desk inquiry
How to: Submit a Bug Report
How to: Submit a Chat Inquiry
How to: Submit a General Help Inquiry
How to: Submit a Subscription Inquiry
How to: Submit a Ban Inquiry
How to: Submit a Policy Inquiry
How to: Submit a Harassment Report


Hey Hexe:

Hey Hexe! Installment #1
Hey Hexe! Installment #2
Hey Hexe! Installment #3
Hey Hexe! Installment #4
Hey Hexe! Installment #5
Hey Hexe! Installment #6
Hey Hexe! Installment #7







( If you have concerns over a bug you are experiencing, please direct your attention to the Status Forum, if you do not see your bug listed there, please direct questions to the Help Desk and do not post them in response to this article as they may not be seen right away. Thank you!)