Justin at Sperry

October 2015

Hello, and welcome to Wikipedia. This is a message letting you know that one or more of your recent edits to Sperry Top-Sider has been undone by an automated computer program called ClueBot NG.

• ClueBot NG makes very few mistakes, but it does happen. If you believe the change you made was constructive, please read about it, report it here, remove this message from your talk page, and then make the edit again.
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• The following is the log entry regarding this message: Sperry Top-Sider was changed by Sperrytopsider1935 (u) (t) ANN scored at 0.960483 on 2015-10-14T16:52:08+00:00 .

Thank you. ClueBot NG (talk) 16:52, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

Sperrytopsider1935, you are invited on a Wikipedia Adventure!

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Hi Sperrytopsider1935!! You're invited: learn how to edit Wikipedia in under an hour. I hope to see you there! Ocaasi Play The Wikipedia Adventure This message was delivered by HostBot (talk) 17:31, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

Your Files for Upload request

Hello, and thank you for your request at Files for Upload! The file has been uploaded. Regards, Finnusertop (talk | guestbook | contribs) 16:01, 21 December 2015 (UTC)

Your username

Welcome to Wikipedia. I saw that you edited or created Sperry Top-Sider, and I noticed that your username, "Sperrytopsider1935", may not comply with our username policy. Please note that you may not use a username that represents the name of a company, group, organization, product, or website. Examples of usernames that are not allowed include "XYZ Company", "MyWidgetsUSA.com", and "Trammel Museum of Art". However, you are invited to use a username that contains such a name if it identifies you personally, such as "Mark at WidgetsUSA", "Jack Smith at the XY Foundation", and "WidgetFan87".

Please also note that Wikipedia does not allow accounts to be shared by multiple people, and that you may not advocate for or promote any company, group, organization, product, or website, regardless of your username. Moreover, I recommend that you read our conflict of interest guideline. If you are a single individual and are willing to contribute to Wikipedia in an unbiased manner, please create a new account or request a change of username, by completing this form, that complies with our username policy. If you believe that your username does not violate our policy, please leave a note here explaining why. Thank you. Finnusertop (talk | guestbook | contribs) 16:03, 21 December 2015 (UTC)

Hello and thanks for changing the username. One more thing: If you are paid employee of Sperry, our terms of service require that you explicitly disclose that relationship. Please see Wikipedia:Paid-contribution disclosure. The easiest way to do this is by adding the following code to your user page: {{paid|employer=Sperry}} (see Template:paid). Thank you. Finnusertop (talk | guestbook | contribs) 21:32, 21 December 2015 (UTC)

Thank you for your cooperation. Finnusertop (talk | guestbook | contribs) 21:42, 21 December 2015 (UTC)

Replaceable fair use File:Sperry retail store in Natick, MA.jpeg

Thanks for uploading File:Sperry retail store in Natick, MA.jpeg. I noticed that this file is being used under a claim of fair use. However, I think that the way it is being used fails the first non-free content criterion. This criterion states that files used under claims of fair use may have no free equivalent; in other words, if the file could be adequately covered by a freely-licensed file or by text alone, then it may not be used on Wikipedia. If you believe this file is not replaceable, please:

1. Go to the file description page and add the text {{di-replaceable fair use disputed|<your reason>}} below the original replaceable fair use template, replacing <your reason> with a short explanation of why the file is not replaceable.
2. On the file discussion page, write a full explanation of why you believe the file is not replaceable.

Alternatively, you can also choose to replace this non-free media item by finding freely licensed media of the same subject, requesting that the copyright holder release this (or similar) media under a free license, or by creating new media yourself (for example, by taking your own photograph of the subject).

If you have uploaded other non-free media, consider checking that you have specified how these media fully satisfy our non-free content criteria. You can find a list of description pages you have edited by clicking on this link. Note that even if you follow steps 1 and 2 above, non-free media which could be replaced by freely licensed alternatives will be deleted 2 days after this notification (7 days if uploaded before 13 July 2006), per the non-free content policy. If you have any questions, please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you. Eeekster (talk) 20:47, 21 December 2015 (UTC)

Orphaned non-free image File:Stride Rite Logo.png

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Thanks for uploading File:Stride Rite Logo.png. The image description page currently specifies that the image is non-free and may only be used on Wikipedia under a claim of fair use. However, the image is currently not used in any articles on Wikipedia. If the image was previously in an article, please go to the article and see why it was removed. You may add it back if you think that that will be useful. However, please note that images for which a replacement could be created are not acceptable for use on Wikipedia (see our policy for non-free media).

Note that any non-free images not used in any articles will be deleted after seven days, as described in the criteria for speedy deletion. Thank you. Blake Gripling (talk) 10:30, 25 February 2016 (UTC)

Re: Stride Rite logo

I actually replaced the logo (which I noticed that it was taken off your employers' website) with a vector version of it uploaded on Commons. The latter accepts company logos for as long as either they are simple text logos (and thus fall below the threshold of originality) or if your employers gave you permission to contribute to Commons under an OTRS process. Blake Gripling (talk) 23:19, 25 February 2016 (UTC)

December 2016

Hi, I'm BlackcurrantTea. A couple of things: 1. Several IP users have repeatedly added a promotional paragraph to the Sperry Top-Sider article, most recently on November 29 [1]. This violates WP:NPOV (plus it sounds really cheesy). At my request the page was temporarily protected [2]; that protection has now expired. You might want to keep an eye on it to help us make sure the paragraph doesn't return, and revert the edit if it does.

2. I noticed you added a bunch of new information to Noah Gundersen. Thanks - it makes the article a lot more interesting. A couple of bits match the No Depression article exactly, though [3], and that's not good. Wikipedia's serious about copyright, and articles need to be written by paraphrasing rather than using the exact wording from a source. The guide on close paraphrasing may help. Thanks. BlackcurrantTea (talk) 05:31, 8 December 2016 (UTC)

Hi BlackcurrantTea, thanks for your comments. I appreciate you calling this out! I was not aware that promotional paragraphs were being added to the Sperry Top-Sider article. As an employee of the brand, I occasionally go in to make edits to our brand's page and to related pages (i.e. Paul A. Sperry or Wolverine World Wide) but I do not log in using any other accounts, so edits of that nature are likely coming from another user. I will be certain to keep an eye out for any edits from other users that may include promotional language and I will be sure to adhere to these guidelines myself.

BlackcurrantTea, thank you for also pointing out the issues with the Noah Gundersen edits. I'm glad to hear that the edits helped to improve the page and apologize for my errors. I will review the guide you shared and will make edits to paraphrase the lines from the No Depression article. My understanding before was that if the source was cited, this would be adequate, however I can see now just in a brief reading of the guide on close paraphrasing that my assumption was incorrect. I am a rookie user so it seems like I have a lot to learn! Thank you very much for your assistance. Justin at Sperry (talk) 14:23, 8 December 2016 (UTC)

You're welcome! Thank you for clearly stating you don't edit under other accounts or when logged out, and that you didn't add the promotional paragraph to the Top-Sider article. I didn't think you did; it didn't fit with things like your willingness to change your username and post the paid editing notice. Still, it's good to be on the record about it. I hope you'll enjoy editing Wikipedia and stick around. BlackcurrantTea (talk) 06:03, 9 December 2016 (UTC)

March 2017

Hi, Justin. The anonymous editors adding promotional text to Sperry Top-Sider are back. I looked at the IPs from the revision history since January 2016 and they're all in Houston using AT&T Broadband. Some of them have also added similar content to Keds (shoes), another Wolverine brand. It's likely a fan rather than anyone working for your company, but is there any chance Sperry/Wolverine have an over-enthusiastic marketing or PR person there? It would be nice to put a stop to this if possible. Thanks. BlackcurrantTea (talk) 05:24, 24 March 2017 (UTC)

Hi BlackcurrantTea - that's annoying, so sorry to hear that. I don't know of anyone from Wolverine based out of Houston - our marketing teams are primarily Boston and Michigan based, and Sperry's PR team is based in NYC. Not sure about Keds' PR team though. It could be a fan, though it's odd that they would continually be making changes to two of our brands' pages. Many customers/fans don't know that the Wolverine brands are all related to one another. I'm wondering if maybe it is someone from an SEO agency, though unfortunately that would even be tough for me to track down given the size of our company. Is there any kind of warning message that you could post to the top of the page to try to prevent the editor from continuing to add promo text? Or can you block edits from users that are not logged in to an account? Justin at Sperry (talk) 13:27, 24 March 2017 (UTC)

My thought about the fan was that maybe they're fond of casual/sporty shoes that were big in the 80s - on the Keds page they keep mentioning 'slouch socks' and talking about outfits. If they had a static IP address we could block that, but it keeps changing. I'm not aware of any warning messages for the pages that address this behaviour. If I run across one I'll add it.

Page protection's a short-term option for when things get worse. It keeps anyone who's not logged in (aka IP editors) from changing the page. Since many IP editors are helpful and contribute in a positive way, long-term protection's reserved for things like Arab-Israeli relations and biographies of controversial people. If you ever want to request it temporarily, go to RFPP. You'll need to show that the problems are recent, have happened repeatedly, and are continuing. We did that back in November for the Top-Sider page.

Oh well. It's annoying but relatively benign. We'll deal with it when it comes up. Thanks. BlackcurrantTea (talk) 04:54, 25 March 2017 (UTC)

Orphaned non-free image File:PRO-Keds Logo.jpeg

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Thanks for uploading File:PRO-Keds Logo.jpeg. The image description page currently specifies that the image is non-free and may only be used on Wikipedia under a claim of fair use. However, the image is currently not used in any articles on Wikipedia. If the image was previously in an article, please go to the article and see why it was removed. You may add it back if you think that that will be useful. However, please note that images for which a replacement could be created are not acceptable for use on Wikipedia (see our policy for non-free media).

Note that any non-free images not used in any articles will be deleted after seven days, as described in section F5 of the criteria for speedy deletion. Thank you. --B-bot (talk) 18:19, 9 December 2022 (UTC)