User:JzG/help

You have come here because you need help, probably because I left you a comment that you find puzzling. Please note that this is not the place for messages to me, for that you need my talk page.

First: Don't panic! Wikipedia is not on a deadline. There are few things that can't be fixed by a dose of calmness and reasoned debate. If something looks wrong to you, instead of demanding it be fixed, try asking nicely why it was done. You'd be amazed how much more effective that is.

Here are some useful places to go:

• I'm confused! → Wikipedia:Help, the ever helpful help page.
• I'm being attacked! → Drop me a note and I'll see if I can help, but bear in mind that if I find a school-yard fight I will drag the warring parties apart and actively not care who started it.
• My article got deleted! → Wikipedia:Why was my article deleted?; consider deletion review (please ensure that you bring credible arguments for restoration and resist the temptation to overdramatise the importance of the issue)
• I've been blocked! → edit your user talk page and add {{unblock|reason}} (that's a double curly-brace, the template name unblock, in lowercase, then a pipe character and the text of your request)
• My article is being vandalised! → you can request page protection, but remember that it's not actually your article.
• No, it's the article about me! → That's a big, serious problem. Go to Wikipedia:Contact us/Article problem/Factual error (from subject) and send email.
• ZOMG! Rouge admin abuse! → If you genuinely think an administrator has abused their powers, you need dispute resolution.
• I need an admin! → There's not much an admin can do that a regular user can't. We can delete articles (but only under limited circumstances), we can delete edits from history (but for permanent deletion of personal info or libel you need oversight, not a regular admin), we can protect and unprotect articles and we can block users. We block for:

• breaking the three-revert rule (report this at WP:AN/3RR)
• credible threats of harm (report this at the incident noticeboard)
• making substantive legal threats (this can go to the incident board as well)
• tendentious editing (but please, please go to dispute resolution first).

• Yebbut, I need actual help! → Well why didn't you say! :-) You can ask the members' assistance team, add {{helpme}} to your user talk page or try the help desk, it's only a click away...

If you feel an admin has done you wrong, try talking to them. Nicely. We are only human, we are janitors not policemen, and we are not paid for what we do. Almost all admins are reachable by email. Visit their user page and click the "email this user" link. Leave a message on their user Talk page. And above all, never assume malice when it could be a simple misunderstanding. It's almost certainly not personal - we tend not to give adminship to people who are likely to make random personal attacks and harbour grudges, some of us are really quite nice people and good to our mothers. Remember, too, that admins often have many, many articles on their watchlist, while you may have rather fewer, so it's easy for us to miss an edit in a watched article or Talk page, and we might see patterns of editing which you do not - or indeed you might be right, and pointing it out politely could be very welcome. Above all if an admin says there is a policy or guideline reason for including or excluding something, they are quite likely right, or at least offering a valid interpretation of policy. We are supposed to know that stuff -we are not omniscient, but we have been around a bit.