Wikipedia:WikiProject Iceland/Style advice

Purpose

The purpose of this manual is to create style guidelines for editing Iceland-related articles in the English Wikipedia to conform to a neutral encyclopedic standard, as well as to make things easier to read by following a consistent format. The following rules do not claim to be the last word. One way is often as good as another, but if everyone follows standards, Wikipedia will be easier to read, use, write and edit. This manual is open to all proposals.

For more general guidance on editing conventions, see the (general) Manual of Style and also, where applicable:

• Manual of Style (biographies)
• Manual of Style (history)

Spellings of names

In accordance with the Manual of Style and article titles policy, Wikipedia should use the name most commonly used in English-language sources. This may differ from the Icelandic name, e.g. Westfjords rather than Vestfirðir and Left-Green Movement rather than Vinstrihreyfingin - grænt framboð; but it may also be the Icelandic name, e.g. Vestmannaeyjar rather than Westman Islands and rímur rather than rhymes (Iceland) or the like.

According to the Article titles policy, names not originally in a Latin alphabet must be transliterated into letters that typical readers of English are likely to recognize. This includes all Runic letters, like 'þ' (thorn). The use of non-Runic Icelandic characters like 'æ', 'ö', 'ð' is sometimes controversial and their frequency of use in printed text is hard to determine due to OCR errors. In practice many articles on Icelandic subjects do use Icelandic characters, but it is still advisable to tread lightly when moving pages.

If an article has a name with one or more characters not used in modern English, diacritics, or both, remember to create redirects from other likely spellings. For example, Súðavík needs a redirect from Sudavik, and probably also from Súdavík since some texts may keep accent marks on vowels but change 'ð' to 'd'.

Icelanders' names

As explained in Icelandic name, Icelanders do not have patrilineal surnames; the commonest pattern is instead for the personal name of the father to become the patronymic of his children. There are varieties on this, but no matter what the sources are of their names, Icelanders are, with very few exceptions, referred to either by full or by personal name.

Therefore an article about, say, Trausti Valsson should refer to him not as "Valsson" but as "Trausti".

There are a very small number of exceptions to this rule. If in doubt, please ask at the talk page of WikiProject Iceland.

Sorting

Icelandic names are normally sorted as they are written, just as any other patronymic name. On English Wikipedia, per WP:SUR and a discussion on WikiProject Iceland, an Icelandic category's sort value follows that convention, with the first name first and the patronymic afterwards. However, the DEFAULTSORT value is in Western order, treating the patronymic as a surname.

For the listas= parameter in project templates on article talk pages use the DEFAULTSORT value (since it mainly categorises in non-Icelandic categories).

Per WP:MCSTJR, only the standard 26 English letters should be used in sorting. Sort keys should use ae for 'æ', o for 'ö', th for 'þ' and 'd' for 'ð'.

Example for Arnaldur Indriðason:

• {{DEFAULTSORT:Indridason, Arnaldur}}

• [[Category:Icelandic photographers|Arnaldur Indridason]]

• | listas = Indridason, Arnaldur