User:Yatalu/help

Some tips to asking help in Community Central chat!

1. Write what you need help with Why? Because users who can help, instantly know what you need help with. This will get you helped faster.

2. Big explanations

If your question or problem is really big and needs a lot of explanation (code, background on how the template works, screenshots, etc.) you might want to try Special:Forum instead of chat. After that, you can still come to chat and link the thread to ask if anyone knows a solution.

Why? Because if the other person has to leave halfway helping you, your problem hasn't been solved yet and you've explained for nothing.

3. Patience balance

A good balance to repeating your question:
 * 1) Unless your question is really really urgent, waiting a few minutes before asking again should be okay
 * 2) After a few minutes, if you haven't gotten an answer yet, you could try ping (= mention the username of) people who you think might be able to help, such as chat moderators
 * 3) If no one was able to help, you could also
 * 4) * stay in chat and ask again e.g. an hour later, when different people are in chat
 * 5) * leave chat and come back later to ask again
 * 6) * go to Special:Forum and start a thread there about your question/problem

4. Provide a link

When someone has started helping you, give them a link to the page where an error/etc is occurring, or to the wiki you are talking about. (However, please do not directly link chats.)

Why? Even if you describe the problem, it might help for others to be able to see what's going wrong. Also, it saves them the time of asking.