User talk:Martina Moreau

Hello, Martina Moreau, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are some pages that you might find helpful:

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You choose to start your Wikipedia experience from injecting your original definitions of Western and Central Europe to articles. This will not pass unchallenged. Do you have a sufficient expertise in geography? Incnis Mrsi (talk) 15:24, 13 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I have studied the topic and I know that this is one of the common mistakes, so it seems like an easy start for beginners. Europe's landmass is a lot bigger than people actually tend to think- it finishes where the Ural Mountains and the Caucasus Mountains are. The centre of Europe is located in Lithuania. Still, there are adjusted cultural boundaries - for example Central Europe tends to be expanded to Luxembourg and Switzerland culturally, but generally not include Belarus and Ukraine. Simple? Yes. Ignored? All the time!

There are a lot of misconceptions. Number one - people confuse the European Union with Europe which are not the same. Western Europe (geographical term written with a miniscule) Western Bloc with Western Europe (relating to Western European Union, a military alliance now defunct). Eastern Bloc is being confused with eastern Europe (which is a sore point in Central Europe, which suffered a lot from the USSR (located in eastern Europe). The term Eastern Europe was created to respond to the Western Europe. That meant that Eastern Europe was about... 60% of Europe? In fact, cultural eastern Europe is occupied by only one country-Russia, which territory in Europe (called European Russia) is already about 40% of all Europe and adding, leaving little room for other regions, like southern Europe).

In addition, the terms Eastern Europe and Western Europe are quite controversial to use, since they relate to the Cold War, and are relegating. Above all, they are vague and geographically incorrect, so wherever it is possible, it is necessary to change it to a geographical or cultural term; not only due to political correctness but because of a more geographical and/or cultural terminology being available. What do you mean by original definitions? --Martina Moreau (talk) 15:30, 13 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I mean that Wikipedia will not accept your original researches. Nobody cares that Czech Republic is situated thousands km to southwest from your "centre of the continent" – it is Central Europe. No political geographer cares about the "centre of the continent" at all – there is an established classification, different from calculating an (unweighted) average point of the landmass. And it is reasonable for political and economical geography: France and Low Countries are very densely populated, while most of large territories east of Vologda (in Russia) up to Urals constitute a wilderness. There is no controversy: Poles do not claim that they live in "Midwestern Europe" and Czechs do not want to be classified as "Southwestern Europe". Incnis Mrsi (talk) 16:25, 13 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, so this is what you mean. Well, it is just a geographical fact that the centre of Europe's gravity is in Lithuania, according to the most established definition of Europe (Ural-Caucasus line). Therefore, central European countries are Lithuania, Belarus and so on; still Central European countries are countries in western Europe that have Central European identity (hence the capital letter-it is non-geographic). It is rather simple and I am conscious of that. You seem to be quite knowledgeable about the topic. Some people would say that the Czech Republic is in Eastern Europe, which is a little bit of a mistake. The term is a source of controversy, quite rightly. It was a confusion with Eastern Bloc (an entity during the Cold War), as opposed to Western Europe (from Western European Union, now defunct; or Western Bloc). It seems to be used nowadays and I have an impression people in Central Europe tend to hate it, while central Europeans, at least Belarussians, tend to consider themselves as eastern Europeans. I am glad to see some progress in the European society. Economy is changing, therefore I wonder whether basing human knowledge on vague terms is a good idea, but certainly, you are right. The additional problem is, however, that there are more geographers in Europe than people living in the continent and everyone has own division. I hope I didn't disturb anyone by just adding the image of Europe's midpoint where it is relevant. It is very perplexing.--Martina Moreau (talk) 17:20, 14 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for the message that you left on eight users' talk pages including mine.[1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8] I know from personal experience that there are frustrations dealing with Wikipedia, and I would be happy to help and advise you, if you need it. But you probably do not need all eight of us to be helping you about the same issues at the same time. So next time, please just message one or two editors.

You will be pleased to know that I have examined some of the edits you complained about, and they are not vandalism as you suspected.

What User:Arcillaroja is doing is trying to help you. You evidently misunderstood him/her.

• [9] He/she said in his/her edit summary: "rev. NonRef POV statement = Pic". That is very helpful to you. It tells you that the image you tried to put in the article is expressing a point of view - and it is not a neutral point of view. I looked at the image and found that you created it. Wikipedia is written from a neutral point of view. So whose point of view is being expressed in [:File:GeographiccentreofEurope.jpg|your image]]? If it is your personal point of view - then this is not the right place to express it. But if it is the point of view expressed by a notable politician, religious leader or academic, then you need to add some citations so we know where it comes from - this is called verifiability.
• [10] He/she said in his/her edit summary: "Rv controversial statement with no refs. and no connection to the rest of the article." I hope you can see that he/se is trying to be helpful. The statements he/she removed need proper citations.

Actually quite a lot of the statements in the article on Western_Europe need citations. I would think that with your background, you are ideally placed to try to find the missing citations and correct some of the errors.--Toddy1 (talk) 00:11, 23 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, Toby. I will try my best, but it appears every person in this continent sees Europe differently. There are no major definitions and the only thing we could do is to indicate countries that are always associated with a region, and divide the article into the following section: geographical definition, floral definition, historical definition, UN Statistics definition and so on. There are many but now I am probably the most busy woman in the universe :) --Martina Moreau (talk) 19:22, 29 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

In short, the consensus on these things is impossible. There will be always people disagreeing. I know it from experience. The best idea is to determine it either by giving numerous definitions in the political, cultural and economical sections, and/or determine it by going from country to country and see what the identity of the country is, ask what the people think. It is a rather complicated task.

Hi Martina Moreau! Thanks for contributing to Wikipedia. Be our guest at the Teahouse! The Teahouse is a friendly space where new editors can ask questions about contributing to Wikipedia and get help from peers and experienced editors. I hope to see you there! Osarius (I'm a Teahouse host) Visit the Teahouse This message was delivered automatically by your robot friend, HostBot (talk) 01:15, 14 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Hello, Martina Moreau. Your question has been answered at the Teahouse Q&A board. Feel free to reply there!
Please note that all old questions are archived after 2-3 days of inactivity. Message added by Gtwfan52 (talk) 17:30, 14 January 2013 (UTC). (You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{teahouse talkback}} template).[reply]

Hello. You have another answer at WP:Teahouse/Questions's talk page.

Hello, Martina Moreau. Your question has been answered at the Teahouse Q&A board. Feel free to reply there!
Please note that all old questions are archived after 2-3 days of inactivity. Message added by GaramondLethe 16:15, 21 January 2013 (UTC). (You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{teahouse talkback}} template).[reply]

Hi Martina. If you suspect systemic disruption, please report the user to AN/I with referrals to his history. And/or seek assistance from experienced users. Welcome to WP at its most hardcore. ᴳᴿᴲᴳᴼᴿᴵᴷ☺ᶤᶯᵈᶸᶩᶢᵉ 09:29, 23 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Who is an experienced user, then?--Martina Moreau (talk) 19:07, 29 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

It's been an exciting year for the Teahouse and you were a part of it. Thanks so much for visiting, asking questions, sharing answers, being friendly and helpful, and just keeping Teahouse an awesome place. You can read more about the impact we're having and the reflections of other guests and hosts like you. Please come by the Teahouse to celebrate with us, and enjoy this sparkly cupcake badge as our way of saying thank you. And, Happy Birthday!

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at Architectural style. Einar aka Carptrash (talk) 16:13, 16 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks :) --Martina Moreau (talk) 16:14, 16 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Hello, I'm BracketBot. I have automatically detected that your edit to History of the Jews in Galicia (central Europe) may have broken the syntax by modifying 1 "()"s. If you have, don't worry: just edit the page again to fix it. If I misunderstood what happened, or if you have any questions, you can leave a message on my operator's talk page.

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• are a subdivision of the [[Ashkenazim]] geographically originating from [[Galicia central Europe)|Galicia]], from western [[Ukraine]] (current [[Lvivska|Lviv]], [[Ivano-Frankivska|Ivano-Frankivsk]]

Thanks, BracketBot (talk) 18:59, 16 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

So far as I can tell, there was no consensus for you to create Category:History of Galicia (central Europe) and move all the entries from Category:History of Galicia (Eastern Europe). Obviously, your creation doesn't match WP:NC. Just because you have an opinion on how things should be (Galicia being considered in Central Europe versus Eastern Europe) does not mean you have any right to unilaterally change it. Please revert yourself. Chris Troutman (talk) 21:03, 16 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I did it in good faith. I've been sitting on it all my afternoon. I thought it is absolutely all right to do so, because the articles on wikipedia seemed to be falling in two directions - Galicia as central Europe and as eastern Europe, so I made it compatible with other versions of Wikipedia, which consider it central European. This designation is justified by the geography, culture, religious situation, history and other factors.--Martina Moreau (talk) 21:08, 16 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Category:History of Galicia (central Europe), which you created, has been nominated for possible deletion, merging, or renaming. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments at the category's entry on the Categories for discussion page. Thank you. Chris Troutman (talk) 21:08, 16 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]