Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2010 May 5

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May 5

In Puerto Rico: A red oval poison worm with about 50 claw legs

Please help me find out more of this worm and the name of it with a picture of it please? [email address removed] —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.42.14.37 (talk) 01:11, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

This question belongs on Wikipedia:Reference desk/Science. In the meantime, you can read Fauna of Puerto Rico#Invertebrates and Centipede. I doubt the creature you are looking for is actually a worm if it has many pairs of legs; it may be a centipede or a millipede. If you have actually seen the animal you are trying to identify, please give as much information as you can about it: size, color, where you found it (precise geographic coordinates would be best), the time of day when you observed it, what it was doing, whether it was feeding and if so, on what, what sort of environment was it in (on the forest floor, or up in a tree, under water, etc.), how big your arm swelled up after it stung or bit you, etc. If you are in Puerto Rico you should contact your local university with a biology department and ask them. The local biologists will be familiar with almost every local species of macroscopic life. --Teratornis (talk) 01:39, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

Also note the distinction between poisonous and venomous. The former means something that can kill or sicken you if you eat it; the latter means something that can attack you with venom, such as a spider or snake. --Teratornis (talk) 01:43, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

Maybe you found an Annelid. --Teratornis (talk) 01:55, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

Slightly off-topic, but annelid worms do not have legs. Intelligentsium 02:00, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

Some have parapodia which might conceivably be consistent with the original poster's mention of "claw legs" although the "claw" bit makes it seem unlikely. --Teratornis (talk) 18:23, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

Most likely this is scolopendra sp. crudelis, apparently sometimes called the Puerto Rico giant centipede. See middle of the page. Better information here, though the picture is much weaker.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 02:10, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

Typing special characters

While using MS Word, I can type the character Á by hitting Ctrl+' and then A; Œ with Ctrl+& and then O; and analogously many more letters. Is there a similar way of typing these while editing Wikipedia or do I always have to copy and paste them? Thanks. --Магьосник (talk) 01:45, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

I'm not absolutely sure that this is the easiest way; but when you're on the edit screen for an article, below the edit window and the edit summary field and the "Save page", "Show preview", and "Show changes" buttons, there is a drop-down menu that may have the default setting of "Insert". If you change that to "Latin", you will find Á and Œ and many other characters, clicking on one of which will insert the character wherever your cursor is positioned in the edit window. Other characters are available from the other choices in the drop-down menu. Deor (talk) 02:02, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the response, Deor. The drop-down menu that I can see does have the "Latin", "Cyrillic", "IPA" and all the others settings, but I believe I will continue doing it the hard way - by copying and pasting. Thus I can be absolutely sure what I type; when I select the characters from a list of many, I may for example confuse eth, D with stroke, and African D, because their uppercase forms look identical. Anyway, cheers! --Магьосник (talk) 02:17, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

If you switch the windows language from US English to English (International), you can do this. For instance, to type a Â, you would type a ^ (caret), and then A. It works basically how you described. Riffraffselbow (talk) 04:37, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

Upload

Whenever I click on the upload button after filling proper license and details, it doesn't upload. While other things in wiki work properly. What's the problem?? --Extra 999 (Contact ^me + _contribs) 02:27, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

Do you press the "Upload file" button at the bottom? Do you get an error message, no reaction at all, or something else when you press the button? Is the file on your hard disk? Do you see and use the "Browse..." button described at Wikipedia:Uploading images#Procedure to upload. What is your browser and operating system? PrimeHunter (talk) 03:05, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

Yes I do all the above but no reaction comes. Browser- Mozilla Firefox, Operating system- Windows XP Professional --Extra 999 (Contact ^me + _contribs) 05:31, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

Do you get a dialog that shows "Upload in progress"? Check Special:Preferences → Gadgets → Add mwEmbed support for video playback, Firefogg uploading and the "Add-Media-Wizard". If it is enabled, disable it. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 12:35, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

commons:User:Extra999 has uploaded files to commons. Is that you? Can you still upload at commons? Or is it commons you are reporting problems with here? PrimeHunter (talk) 13:42, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

Yes, earlier it used to be but not now. --Extra 999 (Contact ^me + _contribs) 13:06, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

Do you mean that earlier you could upload to commons but not now? Is it commons or the English Wikipedia you are trying to upload to now? Can you try another browser? PrimeHunter (talk) 12:46, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

question about Vitamin

I don't know where else to look and I want to know the differenc between

potassium Chloride 20meq (Klor-Con)

and Potassium Gluconate 550mg.

Can the be used for the same thing?

Thank ou soooo much. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.79.3.189 (talk) 03:04, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

As stated on the edit screen: "This page is only for questions about using Wikipedia, not for general knowledge questions. If you have any factual questions please use the search box or post them on the Reference desk. caknuck _° needs to be running more often 04:35, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

But neither of these is a vitamin (they are both salts, one inorganic and the other organic). If you are asking about medical uses, then the answer is that we cannot give medical advice. --ColinFine (talk) 22:09, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

Palm Centro

I have a Palm Centro Smart Phone - CENTRO690p I don't have a users manual and don't know how to download photographs from my phone to my laptop. Could you please provide me with some detailed information on how to do this. If at all possible I would like to know where I can download a manual for future reference. I thank you in advance for your consideration regarding this matter. Regards Norbert Fischer —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.156.153.213 (talk) 04:13, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

As stated on the edit screen: "This page is only for questions about using Wikipedia, not for general knowledge questions. If you have any factual questions please use the search box or post them on the Reference desk. caknuck _° needs to be running more often 04:35, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

But if you enter "Palm Centro" into the search box, it will take you to Palm Centro, from which you can find the company's website, which is where you are likely to find the information you are seeking. --ColinFine (talk) 22:12, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

Page view tool not working

Today I was attempting to access http://stats.grok.se/en/201004/Scarlett_Johansson and the page keeps jumping to http://stats.grok.se/en/201004/Scarlett_Johansson%E2%80%8E in Firefox. It works fine in Chrom. The operator of the tool, Henrik (talk · contribs) has not edited on wikipedia since 13:07, 26 March 2010, so I don't think leaving a note on his talk page would get me a quick explanation.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 06:29, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

I use Firefox, and it works just fine. I have no idea what the problem is. Goodvac (talk) 06:35, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

Yes it is working right now. I don't know what happened for a minute.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 06:40, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

Mobile

Hi I have accidentally pressed the 'permanently disable mobile layout' link. How do I get to surf wikipedia in the mobile format back again? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.116.22.139 (talk) 07:37, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

You can try this link. Goodvac (talk) 07:42, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

If you go to Wikipedia:Enable mobile version on your mobile device and click on the link contained there, you should re-enable it -- PhantomSteve/talk|contribs\ 10:19, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

Infobox error

Hi, there's something missing from the infobox on this article. It's at the top. Can anyone help me? I would like to know what is wrong with the tag as it is, and if possible help to fix it. Thanks. Chevymontecarlo. 11:50, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

PrimeHunter has fixed up the infobox (and cleaned up the mess I was making of it). It looks like someone accidentally deleted the first line from the infobox. TNXMan 11:59, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

The page was vandalized earlier today in [1]. That edit had to be reverted which I did. If a page is so blatantly wrong then it's often due to vandalism and it's best to check the page history since other parts may also have been vandalized and there may be a good version to revert to. PrimeHunter (talk) 12:01, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

Ok, thanks for doing that for me and for the tip. Chevymontecarlo. 12:08, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

There is something odd. I noticed a stray name at the bottom and saw in the page history it was added in [2]. Clicking "undo" at that edit produces the normal message "The edit can be undone. Please check the comparison below to verify that this is what you want to do, then save the changes below to finish undoing the edit." But the edit is *not* undone! The comparison diff is blank, the name is still in the edit window, and clicking Save gives an unrecorded null edit (I tested that). The name had moved up some lines since it was added but MediaWiki should either say it cannot be undone, or remove the line wherever it now is. The name can of course be removed manually but I didn't in case others want to test this apparent bug. PrimeHunter (talk) 12:23, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

On second thought, this looks like intentional behaviour by undo. The name is probably considered part of a source paragraph that no longer contains the name, and undo only tries to undo the name from that source paragraph, resulting in no change there from the current version. Undo doesn't care that the line is currently just before the source paragraph and that the article is rendered the same whether the name is before or at the end of the source paragraph which only contains interlanguage links. PrimeHunter (talk) 12:31, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

Pictures

Resolved

 –  – ukexpat (talk) 17:51, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

Are pictures supposed to have references? Should I add a references section or just remove them - The file that I am asking about is here. Thanks. Chevymontecarlo. 12:06, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

References have been put into the file's description and because there's no reflist tag in place to display them it's coming up with an error and appearing in this category, just to add a bit of extra information. Chevymontecarlo. 12:10, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

You could add {{reflist}} to show the references, but there is no real need to do it that way. I recommend you remove the <ref>...</ref> tags and move the reference to the source field. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 12:28, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

Thank you! Chevymontecarlo. 16:06, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

WIKI TO HTML

I want to exactly duplicate a Mediawiki page for display in HTML. Is there a simple converter I can use? 71.100.1.71 (talk) 12:17, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure I understand - Mediawiki renders HTML. What you see in your browser is HTML - you should just be able to select "File" -> "Save as HTML page" from your browser's menu. Or am I misunderstanding? Cheers, TFOWR^{This flag once was red} 12:25, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

I have no idea of how well this program works (or that it's virus free) but quick search found wiki2xhtml.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 12:26, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

You can also try the links at Wikipedia:Tools#Export: Conversion to other formats. The html source of a rendered Wikipedia page may rely on other files at Wikipedia and not display properly by itself. PrimeHunter (talk) 12:40, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

You can also view the HTML source of any page. For Internet Explorer, it's "View->Source" or "Page->View Source". For Firefox, it's "View->Page Source". —MC10 (T•C•GB•L) 03:37, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

Blocked Crats able to access User Rights control panel

I was experimenting with blocked Bureaucrats on my own personal wiki, and found out blocked Bureaucrats can access the User Rights Manager and change user rights, is this possible on wikipedia or is there settings that need configuring to prevent this. Paul2387 12:41, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

Admins can unblock themselves and this is known and apparently deliberate. I assume bureaucrats also can, so it may not be so important which other things they can do before unblocking themselves. If you want to remove powers from admins or bureaucrats then get somebody with ability to remove their user rights and don't just block them. I haven't heard of a bureaucrat going rogue at Wikipedia but it has happened to admins who had to be emergency desysopped to prevent them from unblocking themselves and continue their rampage (for example deleting the main page). PrimeHunter (talk) 12:51, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

Going to create a report on User Rights based on my research using my personal wiki (Which I set up for this purpose) and put in my userspace so if anyone wants to comment feel free to post messages on the talk page when I post the link. Thanks. Paul2387 13:09, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

Bear in mind that your private Wiki may not be set up exactly the same as Wikipedia. I have a friend who has a private Wiki who found that the 'crats there did not have admin rights (like protect and delete) - also, the Village Pump might be a more appropriate venue to discuss this! -- PhantomSteve/talk|contribs\ 13:17, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

And note that the ability of blocked admins to unblock themselves has been discussed in the past with no consensus to change it. One of the arguments was that a rogue admin might block all active admins before they realized what was going on. And getting somebody to emergency desysop a rogue admin doesn't take that long. See also Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Procedures#Temporary removal of permissions. PrimeHunter (talk) 13:37, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

Granted, that's more of a problem with some of the smaller projects where there might only be a dozen or so admins (or fewer) - but it's still a useful feature in that instance. UltraExactZZ ^Said ~ Did 14:15, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

There could be a situation where a rogue Global Steward blocks every Steward and goes on to Blocking every crat on wikipedia and every admin as well, meaning they would be the only one with Full Power, making getting rid of the mess virtually impossible.

It could be possible for this to happen similar to the other scenarios that have been discussed. Paul2387 14:39, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

I'm almost certain it's the same for Wikipedia. If a 'crat needs blocking, I would assume a Steward would also remove their sysop and bureaucrat bits.--Unionhawk ^{Talk E-mail} 15:01, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

In your hypothetical scenario, the rogue steward could also have removed so many user rights that it would be hard to find somebody able to block. There are developers with direct database access. But before you go on to speculate about a rogue developer removing all user rights from everybody and physically lock out other developers from server rooms and so on, note that the expression "a solution looking for a problem" is often used to shoot down suggested features which appear unneeded. PrimeHunter (talk) 16:32, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

I should also point out that unlike admins and 'crats, stewards have to identify themselves personally to the Wikimedia Foundation office and supply proof of their age and real-life identity. A steward going rogue would have the 'disadvantage' that the Foundation know exactly who they are and where they are. Your scenarios are unlikely to happen. Incidently, have we ever had a rogue admin or 'crat who went on a desysop rampage - and if so, how many desysops did they do before they were stopped? -- PhantomSteve/talk|contribs\ 17:45, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

What if Jimbo goes rogue? --Teratornis (talk) 18:18, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

'Crats can only give sysop, not remove it. Stewards can both. Admins can neither. See Wikipedia:User access levels#Table. PrimeHunter (talk) 19:30, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, not concentrating... I meant to ask Incidently, have we ever had a rogue admin or 'crat who went on a admin/'crat-blocking rampage - and if so, how many admin/'crat-blocks did they do before they were stopped? -- PhantomSteve/talk|contribs\ 20:09, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

Admins can unblock themselves. I'm serious. (not meaning to pick on MuZemike here...) Check out MuZemike's block log.--Unionhawk ^{Talk E-mail} 20:43, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

*cough* Admins can unblock themselves and this is known is right in the first reply in this thread *cough* -- PhantomSteve/talk|contribs\ 20:51, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

...just making sure. An admin blocking other admins on purpose would be the epitome of stupidity (or a compromised account... but still really stupid)--Unionhawk ^{Talk E-mail} 20:54, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

There have been rampage incidents. See Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2007-04-23/Robdurbar. Nyttend (talk) 13:40, 8 May 2010 (UTC)

Vandalism from my school's IP

Would it be a wise idea for me to collect data on vandalism from my school's IP addresses and present it to the district's technology people, or would this be more likely to get the entire site blocked? Also, if I were to collect this, how would I collect enough information for them to figure out who was causing the vandalism without checkuser? I really would like all the vandalism (it's quite a hefty amount) from my school district to stop, but I don't want to get caught in it as collateral damage when if I report it to them. Also, I considered posting this to WP:RD/C and WP:VP/M before deciding on here, so if this isn't the correct place of the three, feel free to move it to the proper place and drop me a note on my talk page saying where it was placed. Thanks in advance, Ks0stm ^(T•C•G) 14:49, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

It's probably not worth it... It would be nearly impossible to track down who was vandalizing and when, consider most schools share an IP over hundreds of computers.--Unionhawk ^{Talk E-mail} 14:59, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

Well, except for a little talk I witnessed where a computer lab teacher was having a talk with a student because MIS (the technology people) had discovered he was on inappropriate websites. Apparently, MIS knows who is on what sites and when, which is why I started signing on secure server when I'm on wikipedia (not that it does much good, most likely). Ks0stm ^(T•C•G) 15:17, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

On a side note, the networking people at my school know what sites we've been on by keeping history and cookie details - you cannot delete them - along with the filtering. So even if you use the secure sever, they'll still probably find out what sites you've been on, if the setup at your school is anything like the one at mine. If you are the only person really in the school editing using the system - like me - it's unlikely they'll take action unless you attempt to access some really 'dodgy' articles....I am sure you know what I mean by this :D Chevymontecarlo. 16:05, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

Ah, well, it would only be possible per policy to track anonymous vandalism, since checkuser is not for fishing (as in, they won't check on just a hunch or "I think this guy...") School administration can subscribe to the RSS feed of the school's IP talk page, that way, they can see every warning as it's posted. Just go to the IP talk page, click "History" and look for the word "Atom" in the sidebar. That's where the feed is. If they want to look into it, cool, if not, oh well.--Unionhawk ^{Talk E-mail} 18:41, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

At any school I have taught at in the past 10 years, students have login names which they are required to use before accessing computers at the school. Furthermore, student's website access was carefully logged; students accessing inappropriate material could have their logins revoked, even well after the fact, if it was discovered they were using the internet inappropriately. If I believed, but did not directly see, that a student was doing something inappropriate on the internet, the school's IT staff could quickly bring up everything the student did while logged in. If there was something inappropriate, they would revoke the student's access, and also send an email to all teachers detailing exactly what the student did wrong and why their access was revoked. While it may not be a guarantee that your schools' IT department ran like that, it is quite techinically feasible to find out what students were vandalising Wikipedia, even well after the fact. It only requires the willpower to a) implement a system which could track students internet access (if its not already done) and b) enforce discipline on students that use the internet inappropriately, including vandalizing Wikipedia. --Jayron32 19:09, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps the question should be one of how to turn student vandalism into "teachable moments". Perhaps to show students that anonymous acts on the net are illusory? LeadSongDog come howl 04:20, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

I don't think it would be wise, especially if the users are editing from accounts. Our culture regarding routine vandalism is to revert it and shrug it off. If it persists, we block the offender and shrug it off. We're not into hunting people down and it's frankly creepy for the school to be monitoring internet access that closely. If webcamgate is any indication, schools have absolutely terrible judgment about what kinds of monitoring are acceptable. They may or may not have enough sense to avoid monitoring students' conversations on school phones, but they don't seem to have figured out that monitoring internet usage is about the same thing. While there's some disclosure inherent in editing wikipedia, there should be none attached to reading it, and it sounds like the monitoring regime may enable exactly that. 69.228.170.24 (talk) 07:41, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

finding a product

Where can I find your Banquet Crock-Pot Classics Thank you Mary —Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.93.215.30 (talk) 15:24, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

Hello. I suspect, based on your question, that you found one of our roughly three million articles, and thought that we were directly affiliated in some way with that subject. Please note that you are at Wikipedia, the free online encyclopedia that anyone can edit, and this page is a help desk for asking questions related to using the encyclopedia. Thus, we have no inside track on the subject of your question. You can, however, search our vast catalogue of articles by typing a subject into the search field on the left hand side of your screen. If you cannot find what you are looking for, we have a reference desk, divided into various subject areas, where asking knowledge questions is welcome. Best of luck. -- PhantomSteve/talk|contribs\ 15:29, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

Why won't an image caption show up?

I've added an image to Apollo 1#Scapegoats and it isn't displaying correctly. The box around the image and the caption won't appear. I've checked the syntax multiple times and I believe I have it right (modeled after other uses in the same article.) I thought it might be the length of my caption, but I've shortened it as much as possible and it still doesn't work. JustinTime55 (talk) 16:44, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

You left out the magic word "thumb". :) The thumbnail format is what makes the box, allowing for a caption. I fixed it. Deor (talk) 17:01, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

Friedrich Gerstacker

can i get actual excerpts from poems, books or any works by the author Friedrich Gerstacker. Bammons (talk) 17:24, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

At the bottom of the Friedrich Gerstacker article, in the External links, there is a link to Project Gutenberg, which has some of his work. You might also try the German Wikisource's Friedrich Gerstäcker page -- PhantomSteve/talk|contribs\ 17:56, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

The German Wikipedia article (here) also has other weblinks, which may or may not be useful (I can't read German, I'm afraid) -- PhantomSteve/talk|contribs\ 17:58, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

Eddie Snyder

My Mom's first cousin is a famous songwriter named Eddie Snyder.

He is still alive at 91, and lives in Lakeland Florida.

He wrote "Strangers In The Night", "Spanish Eyes", "A Hundred Pounds OF Clay", "What Will My Mary Say", and "a Time For Us".

You reference his name but have no profile on him.

How do I go about getting him on Wikipedia?

Steven Amster —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.126.139.239 (talk) 18:21, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

Make a request at Wikipedia:Requested articles/music/Performers and bands#1950s-1960s. --Orange Mike | Talk 18:34, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

I would like to add that you exercise caution if you edit the page yourself. Be sure to read about Wikipedia's conflict of interest guidelines so as to avoid any problems. Thanks, and good luck! GorillaWarfare ^talk 00:57, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

peppo biscarini

I have seen a bio in Italian for this. How cold it be reported in english as well? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.1.233.250 (talk) 19:10, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Translation. CHeers! --Jayron32 19:21, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I assume you mean the Italian Wikipedia article here? The article does not have any reliable references that I can see (only his official website and the Via Veritas website, which from what I gather is his official "religious" website). For a biographical article of a living person to have an article on the English Wikipedia, reliable independent sources of information are required, per the Biographies of living persons policy. If you have any such sources, and can show that he meets Wikipedia's Notability guidelines (or Wikipedia's notability guidelines for biographies or notability guidelines for athletes), then you have a few choices:

1. make a request (giving the sources, and indicating how he meets the notability criteria) at Requested articles;
2. create an account and then read "Your first article" and follow the instructions there;
3. create an account and then use the Article Wizard which will guide you step by step in creating an article.

I hope this helps -- PhantomSteve/talk|contribs\ 19:29, 5 May 2010 (UTC)