User talk:Silver8irch

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July 2025

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Hello Silver8irch. The nature of your edits, such as the one you made to User:Silver8irch/sandbox, gives the impression you have an undisclosed financial stake in promoting a topic, but 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 employed (or being compensated in any way) by a person, group, company or organization to promote their interests. Paid advocacy on Wikipedia must be disclosed even if you have not specifically been asked to edit Wikipedia. Undisclosed paid advocacy is prohibited by our policies on neutral point of view and what Wikipedia is not and is an especially serious type of COI; the Wikimedia Foundation regards it as a "black hat" practice akin to black-hat search-engine optimization.

Paid advocates are strongly discouraged from direct article editing and should instead propose changes on the talk page of the article in question if an article exists. If the article does not exist, paid advocates are strongly discouraged 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:Silver8irch. The template {{Paid}} can be used for this purpose – e.g. in the form: {{paid|user=Silver8irch|employer=InsertName|client=InsertName}}. 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, do not edit further until you answer this message. Nobody (talk) 15:21, 31 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Nobody
The COI declaration is on both my User page here and on the Gordon's Talk page.
Best wishes
Silver8irch Silver8irch (talk) 15:28, 31 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
To clarify, the COI declartions have been on both pages since May 2025.
It would be great if you could consider reviewing the proposed new article in my Sandbox.
Best wishes
Silver8irch Silver8irch (talk) 15:32, 31 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Looks like i missed the declaration, sorry. As for your proposed changes: The wikitable on top of the article should be replaced with a Infobox ( {{Infobox school}} ). The formatting needs to be improved, sentences don't need to start at a new line. There are also many sentences that are unsourced. Nobody (talk) 15:53, 31 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you.
I'll address these points (the sentences on new lines are simply to aid clarity at sandbox stage while we request input). And I'll ensure everything has an clear citation.
Did you have any comments on the content itself? Silver8irch (talk) 16:26, 31 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Linking to discussion at User talk:Lottiegordons#Notice of Conflict of interest noticeboard discussion. Tacyarg (talk) 19:12, 31 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Tacyarg,
My COI statement is on the Gordon's School Talk page.
It is also on my user page here, as per COI guidelines. Both statements ave been there since May 2025.
We are endevouring to correct the page, removing all marketing speak and concerning content, providing comprehensive citations and bringing it in line with Wikipedia standards.
The draft of the new Gordon's School page is in my Sandbox here
Here's the link: User:Silver8irch/sandbox
Please have a look and comment
Many thanks
Silver8irch (talk) 19:23, 31 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Hi, Silver8irch. Yes, I saw your coi disclosure and your sandbox before commenting at the link above. Tacyarg (talk) 19:37, 31 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Welcome!

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Hello and welcome to Wikipedia. Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. The following links will help you begin editing on Wikipedia:

Please bear these points in mind while editing Wikipedia:

The Wikipedia tutorial is a good place to start learning about Wikipedia. If you have any questions, see the help pages, add a question to the village pump or ask me on my talk page. By the way, you can sign your name on Talk and discussion pages using four tildes, like this: ~~~~ (the software will replace them with your signature and the date). Again, welcome! Tacyarg (talk) 19:56, 31 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for this. I am aware of how the system works and am endeavouring to follow all the rules and guidance. Hence the use of the sandbox for the major rewrite for which I had been hoping to get feedback. Silver8irch (talk) 11:22, 1 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Clarification of paid editing status

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Hi Silver8irch. Are you an employee of Gordon's School, a free-lancer who was contracted directly by the school or working for some company that was contracted by the school? You should try to be as clear as you can about your situation in the declaration you added to your user page per WP:PAID?. -- Marchjuly (talk) 01:58, 1 August 2025 (UTC); post editid. -- 21:10, 1 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The COI declaration is on my user page and also on the Gordon's School user page. It has been there since May COI Silver8irch (talk) 11:19, 1 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
My apologies if my OP was confusing. For some odd reason, I ended my post with a question mark by mistake. I did see the declaration on your user page and for the most part it's fine; however, it's not clear who your employer is (i.e., who's compensating you), and this is something Wikipedia wants to know (it's specifically asked for at the very top of WP:PAID). If you're directly working for or are a contractee for some firm that is compensating you for updating the Wikipedia article about the school (i.e. one of its clients), then that firm is your "employer" and the school is your firm's "client". If, on the other hand, you're self-employed and are being compensted by the school as part of some contractural agreement, then the school is considered by Wikipedia to be both your "employer" and "client". Perhaps if you take a look at Template:Paid, the distinction I'm trying to make will be easier to understand. -- Marchjuly (talk) 21:10, 1 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I've amended my statement to make clear I am freelance. However your message above makes the same point twice about being an employer and client so I'm not quite clear what you are trying to say. Silver8irch (talk) 10:03, 4 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
My apologies if what I posted was unclear. Since you're self-employed and are being compensated by the school, they are in a sense both your employer and client; in such a case, declaring the school as either your employer or your client would work. If, however, you were working for a PR firm that was compensating you to update the school's article, you would need to declare the PR firm as your employer and the school as your client. -- Marchjuly (talk) 10:58, 4 August 2025 (UTC); post edited to add some missing words. -- 00:49, 5 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you. Silver8irch (talk) 11:22, 4 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Your submission at Articles for creation: Gordon's School (August 1)

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Your recent article submission to Articles for Creation has been reviewed. Unfortunately, it has not been accepted at this time. The reason left by Robert McClenon was:
Thank you for your submission, but the subject of this article already exists in Wikipedia. You can find it and improve it at Gordon's School instead.
 The comment the reviewer left was:
This appears to be an attempt to rewrite the existing article on Gordon's School via the Articles for Creation process. That is not how the Articles for Creation process is used. It is used to review drafts of proposed new articles. Existing articles should be updated or rewritten by the normal editing process. I see that considerable effort has gone into this draft, but it cannot be considered for replacement of the existing article. It will be tagged to be merged into the existing article.
Please check the submission for any additional comments left by the reviewer. You are encouraged to edit the submission to address the issues raised and resubmit after they have been resolved.
Robert McClenon (talk) 02:33, 1 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
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Hello, Silver8irch! Having an article draft declined at Articles for Creation can be disappointing. If you are wondering why your article submission was declined, please post a question at the Articles for creation help desk. If you have any other questions about your editing experience, we'd love to help you at the Teahouse, a friendly space on Wikipedia where experienced editors lend a hand to help new editors like yourself! See you there! Robert McClenon (talk) 02:33, 1 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]