The Help Desk: a year in review

DeviantART's Community Operations department aims to foster an environment where deviants can come together and be empowered within, and by, the community.  By providing an organized, motivated, accountable, and effective department, we are leading the way for deviants to participate in a manner where they feel listened to, valued, and inspired.  2011 was an amazing year for Community Operations and we wanted to share a few of the highlights!



The Community Operations department is comprised of both the Copyright & Etiquette Administration and Help Desk teams.


Copyright & Etiquette Administration


Help Desk


dAmn & Forums





Over the course of 2011 Community Operations solved:


For comparison, in 2010 we solved:





The deviantART Help Desk is home to three teams:

1. The main Help Desk team, in charge of answering tickets related to General Help, Bug Reports, and Chat/Forum Inquiries;
2. The Copyright and Etiquette Administration, responsible for Abuse Reports, Account Ban Appeals, Policy Inquiries, COPPA Reports, DMCA Reports, and Spammer Reports;
3. The Retail Customer Care department, which handles all retail-oriented inquiries.

The Help Desk is open Monday through Friday. Most issues, aside from CEA matters, are able to be resolved within four days -- and often, much quicker.  Due to their nature, CEA-related tickets require more time for investigation, and as such, the response time is greater.  



We've been using Zendesk to run the Help Desk since September 2009, and it's greatly improved our ability to provide the best assistance possible.  Over the course of 2011, we were able to add several new features to the Help Desk, including:

1. Two CEA ticket sections -- COPPA Reports and Spammer Reports -- that allow us to better monitor these types of situations.
2. Additional requirements for filing Abuse Reports: name of offender and direct links to the abuse. These requirements have greatly reduced the amount of time it takes to make sure these situations are handled as diligently as possible.
3. Ban Appeals are now exclusive to only deviants who are banned and need to appeal their ban. An amazing 49% of all tickets submitted to this category prior to the change had nothing to do with appealing a ban. The change allowed us to make sure that all Ban Appeals are truly banned deviants seeking to appeal their ban.
4. "Satisfaction," a tool to help gain feedback on the satisfaction of the tickets we handle. When tickets are solved, deviants are able to vote either "Good Satisfaction" or "Bad Satisfaction" and can optionally leave a response stating why the satisfaction rating was given.

* Please note that the Help Desk only includes tickets submitted via the Help Desk Contact Form. This does not include all reports made by using the report violation button on deviations which are submitted to the Moderation Desk.




We began using the Satisfaction feature in April, and have maintained a positive rating of 83% across the entire Help Desk. This includes all departments within Community Operations, as well as our Retail department (which handles all tickets relating to deviantWEAR, Prints, Points, AdCast, and payment support for Premium Memberships).  Each department also has its own rating over the past 60 days.




As 2012 marches on, it's the aim of all Community Operations to:

1. Respond to deviants as soon as possible, given the current volume of deviants in need of assistance.
2. Respond with a positive friendly attitude.
3. Respect and treat you as we would want to be treated.
4. Guide you in the right direction.

It was a pleasure to help everyone last year! We look forward to serving you this coming year and hope to provide all deviants with the best Help Desk experience possible.