Wikipedia:Contact us/Warning messages

What's the problem?

You are creating or editing an article about yourself or your own business, and you're getting messages that it might be summarily deleted, or that it looks like the writer has a conflict of interest.
Your additions get deleted, your changes get "reverted".
You are getting warnings that your edits are inappropriate for Wikipedia.

Important facts

The messages that you see are sent by other users, not by "Wikipedia management".

First of all, there is no "Wikipedia management" — unlike newspapers and other similarly organized media, there is no "editor in chief", no "editorial committee", in short no centralized editorial authority.

Wikimedia Foundation, the nonprofit foundation hosting the Wikipedia site, does not monitor edits, neither does it evaluate whether such or such edit or message is appropriate. It is therefore not useful to contact Wikimedia Foundation to inquire or protest about such messages.

Instead, these messages are sent to you by other users, perhaps more experienced in the ways of the site. You are cordially invited to debate the issue with them in a civil and considerate way. If this is not sufficient, there are dispute resolution processes available through the site.

Neither Wikimedia Foundation employees, officers, board members, nor the volunteers at the email help desk, will arbitrate editing decisions.

The email help desk frequently receives complaints from users that start an autobiography, or a biography of a relative, or a description of their company, product or project, and who consequently get messages that their article does not explain well enough the importance the subject of the article, uses non-neutral expressions, contains unattributed opinion, and passes judgment on the subject. Occasionally, these users may point to articles on subjects that they feel are comparably relevant, whereas some other users claim the contrary. However, each article stands on its own merits and there are very likely to be other reasons and circumstances why one article is acceptable and another is not. Again, the email help desk does not arbitrate content disputes.

Years of experience at Wikipedia have demonstrated to us that in almost all cases, it is a very bad idea for people to write articles about themselves, their company, or product. Such articles are likely to get flagged as "lacking sources", lacking neutrality of tone, and so on, and to get deleted, sometimes after a public discussion. Much grief is saved for everybody involved just by abstaining from writing about oneself, one's company, or one's product.

If you're not logged in

If you are not logged in, you may get warning messages which are intended for other users who share the same IP address as you. This is particularly common for users of AOL. This is because our system uses IP addresses to identify edits from users who are not logged in. If you get a message saying you vandalized an article you never heard about, this is probably the cause. To resolve the issue, login or create an account (creating an account is free and you do not have to give any personal information, not even your email address).

What to do

Read important policies pages, such as the prohibition of personal, original research, the obligation to maintain a neutral point of view, the criteria for biographies, and what Wikipedia is not.
Discuss the matter on the discussion page associated with the article.
Contact the other users involved through their discussion pages.
Stay civil. Please refrain from accusations, name-calling, and legal threats. Not only may such actions get you banned from editing Wikipedia, but they also prevent any quick and efficient resolution of your problem.

What not to do

Please, no online drama. However infuriating the actions or reactions of other users might be, the situation can only be made worse if tempers are allowed to flare. Please do not start accusing other users of wrongdoings, at least unless you have a clear-headed understanding of the situation. Keep in mind that all messages that you post on Wikipedia, including in discussion pages, are indexed by search engines such as Google. You do not want to write things that you would not be comfortable for all the world to see.
If tempted to write to the email help desk:
- Please do not send angry emails to the Wikipedia help-desk. The volunteers at the help desk did not post the messages that you are disagreeing with.
- Please do not ask the help desk volunteers to enter a Wikipedia discussion on your behalf. If you wish to discuss the issues, please do it yourself, our volunteers cannot act as a proxy.
- Our help desk volunteers are not an appellate body for reviewing "bad" editing decisions by other users. You may strongly believe that other users have forced the article into The Wrong Version™, but our volunteers cannot and will not reverse these actions.
- As a consequence, any emails sent to the help desk demanding that the help desk reverse editing decisions by fiat will get a boilerplate answer.
Neither Jimmy Wales, nor the members of the board of the Wikimedia Foundation, nor the press contact, will review your claims. They will just forward your email or phone call to the email help desk volunteers, who will answer with a boilerplate answer.

How to contact us

Having read all of this, if you wish to contact the email help-desk, the address is info-en-owikimedia.org.
- Please include the exact name or internet address of the page where the messages in question appear. The help desk volunteers are not familiar with your case.
- We will not call you back to hear your problem, even if you ask. Please state your issues directly in your email.
- Please stick to plain text; bold, underline, and colors are stripped out by our email system.
- Please do not send Microsoft Word attachments. Some of our volunteers' systems cannot handle them. If you require to send a screenshot, please use an image file.