Problem

Solution

You can often resolve these issues yourself. You may also e-mail us with details. Your e-mail will be answered by a small group of trustworthy volunteers. It will never be made public without your explicit consent.

First point of contact

Always start at Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons/Help. This will tell you:

• how biographical article correction works;
• how to get help from the editing community;
• our expectations for biographical articles.

Many problems with biographical articles can be fixed with the information on that page.

If that page was not sufficient, e-mail contact with a volunteer may help.

Email

Before you e-mail

• Please note: Wikipedia has no editorial board. Revisions are not reviewed before they appear on the site. Content is not the result of an editorial decision by the Wikimedia Foundation or its staff. (You can see the author list in the page history.)

• If the error is minor — e.g. an incorrect date or spelling — then please feel free to fix it yourself. Be sure to note your changes on the article's Talk page, noting who you are and that you made them. If you're uncomfortable fixing it yourself, then just leave a brief note on the Talk page.

• If the problem is vandalism — nonsense, bad language, insults, or other grossly inappropriate content — then please see our page on article vandalism.

• If your problem is that there is no article about you, see Wikipedia:Contact us/Article problem/No article. Please note that we strongly discourage people from creating articles on themselves, their company, their projects or their clients.

• This address does not reach the entire community of volunteers — it goes to a small group, trusted to keep confidentiality. To contact a specific editor, see Wikipedia:Contact us/Contact a user. To contact the editors who monitor a particular article, post on that article's Talk page.

What we cannot or will not handle through e-mail

• We will not prevent other users from editing the article on you. We can temporarily protect articles to halt vandalism or to end a content dispute, but we will not do it to enforce your preferred version. This is in accordance with our neutral point of view policy.

• We will not delete or replace an entire article on demand. Instead, please tell us what exactly is wrong with the article. We can then attempt to resolve the problem in the most appropriate manner.

• We will not add content through e-mail. Additions should go through the normal editing route.

• We cannot remove specific revisions from article history on demand. Our volunteers are technically unable to do this, and in many situations this also violates our license. However, if the revision contains nonpublic personal information or blatant libel, then a different set of volunteers may be able to help; please see Wikipedia:Oversight for further details.

• We will not handle requests related to articles that have been deleted or refused by Wikipedia users and which you think should be reinstated. Our email volunteers do not act as an appellate body for such issues.

• We cannot reveal private information, such as the IP addresses of registered Wikipedia users, except when mandated by law. This is in accordance with our privacy policy.

• We will not phone you back to hear your problem, even if you ask. Please state your concerns directly in your email.

• We can only fix problems on sites maintained by the Wikimedia Foundation. We have no control over any other sites, even if the other site is also a wiki. You can see a complete list of Wikimedia Foundation projects here.

How to e-mail us

• Please copy and paste the exact URL of the article that you're discussing into the email; this is shown by your web browser as http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... We have millions of articles. Being specific avoids any confusion.
  • Please do not alter the URL. Copy and paste it exactly. Be sure that you have not left any characters out.

• Please copy and paste the exact sentences that you think are wrong or unsuitable. Please explain why you think they are wrong or unsuitable while keeping specific and to the point. Try to avoid discussing larger issues or controversies, as this will delay response.

• The volunteers who will answer your email are most likely unfamiliar with the article that you are discussing. Please do not assume prior knowledge of the subject of the article, surrounding controversies, and article history.

• If you have specific legal concerns about the article, then please put "Legal concerns" in the subject line. This may delay response, though, because we may have to show them to legal staff first.

• Please do not include general remarks, suggestions for Wikipedia, etc.; these just get in the way of your message. See our other contact pages if you wish to discuss these issues with us.

• Please do not send email to other addresses. This will only delay the processing of your request.

• Send your e-mail to info-en-q@wikimedia.org .
  • Please stick to plain text. Our system does not show boldface, italics, different colors, or any other formatting. Please do not send Microsoft Word attachments, not all of our volunteers' systems can display all kinds of Word files.
  • Please do not write in ALL CAPITALS; this is rude and hinders reading.
  • Please do not provide your password. The volunteer response team can conduct all enquiries without logging in to your Wikipedia account. Please keep your passwords secure, as it poses an account security risk.
  • If you have a spam filter, please be sure it is set so that you can receive our reply. Some spam filters make us jump through hoops, or even simply trash our answer.