Further to discussion here, this form of words is offered for use when a question on the reference desks has gone unanswered for three or more days.
Thank you for your question! Wikipedia celebrates curiosity. We are sorry that you haven't received a reply, but these reference desks are staffed by volunteers. Apparently, none of our current staff feel they have the expertise or knowledge to answer your question.
You may find answers elsewhere. One excellent resource is a real-life reference desk, staffed by professional librarians. There may be one in your area, often at a central branch of a public library system. In addition, your national library (e.g. the British Library) may allow online reference requests. An alternative is the New York Public Library's ASK service, which operates by text-chat and telephone. Here's a news article explaining how they work, which describes them as a "human Google".
Please feel free to ask us another question in the future, or indeed to re-post your original question (perhaps re-wording it) after a week or so, as there may be a different set of volunteer editors reading the page then. We apologize for not being able to help you at this time.
If you use this canned reply, please sign as normal, as you would for any answer you provide.
This can now be invoked by typing
{{refdesk-sorry}}
Talk pages are where people discuss how to make content on Wikipedia the best that it can be. You can use this page to start a discussion with others about how to improve the "Wikipedia:Reference desk/Sorry template" page.
