User talk:Sarah Gowans

May 2017
Welcome to Wikipedia. Although everyone is welcome to contribute constructively to the encyclopedia, your addition of one or more external links to the page Bishop's Stortford College has been reverted. Your edit here to Bishop's Stortford College was reverted by an automated bot that attempts to remove links which are discouraged per our external links guideline. The external link(s) you added or changed (https://twitter.com/BSCollege) is/are on my list of links to remove and probably shouldn't be included in Wikipedia. If the external link you inserted or changed was to a blog, forum, free web hosting service, fansite, or similar site (see 'Links to avoid', #11), then please check the information on the external site thoroughly. Note that such sites should probably not be linked to if they contain information that is in violation of the creator's copyright (see Linking to copyrighted works), or they are not written by a recognised, reliable source. Linking to sites that you are involved with is also strongly discouraged (see conflict of interest). If you were trying to insert an external link that does comply with our policies and guidelines, then please accept my creator's apologies and feel free to undo the bot's revert. However, if the link does not comply with our policies and guidelines, but your edit included other, constructive, changes to the article, feel free to make those changes again without re-adding the link. Please read Wikipedia's external links guideline for more information, and consult my list of frequently-reverted sites. For more information about me, see my FAQ page. Thanks! --XLinkBot (talk) 09:32, 9 May 2017 (UTC)

October 2017
Hello Sarah Gowans. The nature of your edits gives the impression you have an undisclosed financial stake in promoting a topic, such as the edit you made to Bishop's Stortford College, and that you have not complied with Wikipedia's mandatory paid editing disclosure requirements. Paid advocacy is a category of conflict of interest (COI) editing that involves being compensated by a person, group, company or organization to use Wikipedia to promote their interests. Undisclosed paid advocacy is prohibited by our policies on neutral point of view and what Wikipedia is not, and is an especially egregious type of COI; the Wikimedia Foundation regards it as a "black hat" practice akin to Black hat SEO. Paid advocates are very strongly discouraged from direct article editing, and should instead propose changes on the talk page of the article in question if an article exists, and if it does not, from attempting to write an article at all. At best, any proposed article creation should be submitted through the articles for creation process, rather than directly. Regardless, if you are receiving or expect to receive compensation for your edits, broadly construed, you are  required by the Wikimedia Terms of Use to disclose your employer, client and affiliation. You can post such a mandatory disclosure to your user page at User:Sarah Gowans. The template Paid can be used for this purpose – e.g. in the form:. If I am mistaken – you are not being directly or indirectly compensated for your edits – please state that in response to this message. Otherwise, please provide the required disclosure. In either case, please do not edit further until you answer this message. SovalValtos (talk) 15:02, 19 October 2017 (UTC)

November 2017
As previously advised, your edits give the impression you have a financial stake in promoting a topic, such as the edit you made to Bishop's Stortford College, but you have not complied with Wikipedia's mandatory paid editing disclosure requirements. You were asked to cease editing until you responded by either stating that you are not being directly or indirectly compensated for your edits, or by complying with the mandatory requirements under the Wikimedia Terms of Use that you disclose your employer, client and affiliation. Again, you can post such a disclosure on your user page at User:Sarah Gowans, and the template Paid can be used for this purpose – e.g. in the form:. Please respond before making any other edits to Wikipedia. Being a marketing manager for the college would likely require disclosure.SovalValtos (talk) 17:35, 13 November 2017 (UTC)

April 2019
You still have not responded or taken action to the inquiry regarding your appearance as an undisclosed paid editor. If you make any additional edits without complying you may be blocked from editing. SovalValtos (talk) 13:57, 16 April 2019 (UTC)


 * I have reverted your edits on Template:Paid/doc as the template should be used on and the college article's talk page, not on the template's article.  Tony Holkham   (Talk)  09:16, 17 April 2019 (UTC)


 * I have added a template to Talk:Bishop's Stortford College. You need to follow the advice from on your own user page. Please ask for help if needed. Thanks.  Tony Holkham   (Talk)  10:18, 17 April 2019 (UTC)


 * Further to the message you left on my talk page, please read the above. You open your user page (by clicking on this:, and add   This ensures compliance with Wikipedia policy. Let me know if this is not clear. Any other paid editor of the College article needs to do the same on their user page.  Tony Holkham   (Talk)  16:11, 17 April 2019 (UTC)

October 2019
You may be blocked from editing without further warning if you make any further edits without responding to the inquiry you received regarding undisclosed paid editing. SovalValtos (talk) 10:59, 29 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Examples of employment positions that might be relevant are those involving promotion or marketing for Bishop's Stortford College. I strongly advise you comply with the request. SovalValtos (talk) 11:09, 29 October 2019 (UTC)
 * , left me a message, puzzled about this warning. She seems to have complied with this in her user page. Can you clarify for her? T.  Tony Holkham   (Talk)  12:09, 29 October 2019 (UTC)

Your addition to Bishop's Stortford College has been removed in whole or in part, as it appears to have added copyrighted material to Wikipedia without evidence of permission from the copyright holder. If you are the copyright holder, please read Donating copyrighted materials for more information on uploading your material to Wikipedia. For legal reasons, Wikipedia cannot accept copyrighted material, including text or images from print publications or from other websites, without an appropriate and verifiable license. All such contributions will be deleted. You may use external websites or publications as a source of information, but not as a source of content, such as sentences or images&mdash;you must write using your own words. Wikipedia takes copyright very seriously and persistent violators of our copyright policy will be blocked from editing. See Copying text from other sources for more information. Yunshui 雲 水 12:40, 29 October 2019 (UTC)


 * - nothing has been permanently deleted; everything is preserved in the page history. A major issue is that large parts of the article's content are unsourced inline, or copyright (as noted above), and they are likely to be removed for this reason. Wikipedia is not the place for promoting the school, but is an encyclopaedia. If you want to make changes, there is no reason why they cannot be discussed on the article's talk page prior to insertion. I understand the frustration, but spreading the discussion on to other editors' talk pages only confuses. I hope this is helpful.  Tony Holkham   (Talk)  12:46, 29 October 2019 (UTC)


 * Sorry Sarah Gowans I used the wrong warning at the top of this section so I am striking it through.SovalValtos (talk) 17:32, 29 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Please do not refer to the Bishop's Stortford College article as "our page", which implies ownership of the page, as you did on my talk page. You have been directed to WP:CoI behavioral guideline where there is much relevant to you as a paid editor with which you are not in compliance. Please comply in future rather than edit disruptively. I see no reason why us volunteer editors should spend time helping you earn your living if you do not follow advice.SovalValtos (talk) 17:50, 29 October 2019 (UTC)


 * How can we see what we wrote earlier, that was removed? We can then work out how and where we seem to be in breach of copyright. We are doing our very best to comply but it is not clear how we can move forward. If we add anything we risk having it removed again. I can't see on the history page what I added to the page before. Many thanks. Sarah Gowans (talk) 10:01, 28 November 2019 (UTC)


 * U|Sarah Gowans - As has been said already, the place for this discussion is on the article's talk page, not this page, as it might not be noticed by editors interested in the article. All previous versions of the article are in the article's page history - just select the date and (curr) and scroll down to see that version. By selecting "next edit" or "previous edit", you can compare sequential edits. If this is still not clear, I suggest you ask for help at the teahouse (see invitation above). Please - any further discussion on the article should be on the article's talk page. Thanks.  Tony Holkham   (Talk)  23:36, 28 November 2019 (UTC)