Talk:Thingeyri

Requested move, 2007

The following is a closed discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the proposal was Failed --Woohookitty^Woohoo! 05:13, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Þingeyri → Thingeyri — Thingeyri is the most common name in English. Þingeyri is totally foreign to an English speaker, due to the Icelandic letter "Þ" —Russavia 13:00, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Survey

Feel free to state your position on the renaming proposal by beginning a new line in this section with *'''Support''' or *'''Oppose''', then sign your comment with ~~~~. Since polling is not a substitute for discussion, please explain your reasons, taking into account Wikipedia's naming conventions.

• Oppose Apparantly almost all Icelandic geographical placename articles utilise the Icelandic alphabet, anything from Reykjavík to Vestur-Skaftafellssýsla. Wikipedia:Naming conventions (geographic names) states that "frequently, English usage does include the local diacritics, as with Besançon." Thingeyri produces 36,600 google search results[1] while Þingeyri produces 283,000[2]. Kindly demonstrate obvious notability of Thingeyri as claimed.--Huaiwei 13:23, 9 October 2007 (UTC)
  • That does not attest English usage; it attests the nationalism of Icelandic editors. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 05:07, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

These Google results are thoroughly misleading since they include non-English-language pages. See my comment below under "Discussion". Noel S McFerran 03:37, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

• Oppose The name with the letter "Þ" is perfectly acceptable to include in a text written in English, a language which even used to have it among its alphabet. But by all means, a mention to "Thingeyri" should be included for those readers unfamiliar with "Þ".--Húsönd 15:02, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

The operative term there is "used to". A mention of Þingeyri as the Icelandic spelling in the text would be acceptable. Gene Nygaard 13:53, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

N.B. Thyngyri does not appear in the article at the present time. Just one of the aspects of that ongoing disrespect for the English language. Gene Nygaard 14:42, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

Furthermore, it is not a mere error of omission. Rather, it is an intentional error of commission, by none other than User:Husond, putting the lie to his own comment above that "But by all means, a mention to "Thingeyri" should be included". Gene Nygaard 14:53, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

• Support standard English-language use. Noel S McFerran 03:37, 10 October 2007 (UTC)
• Strong Support per Noel. Careless treatment of Google is most deplorable; WP:NCGN strongly suggests using Google Scholar and looking at the results: 4 for Þingeyri, one of them the abstract of a paper in Icelandic, 9 for Thingeyri; the second result includes articles actually written by anglophones, as well as three Icelanders. For Google Books, there are still only 4 hits for Þingeyri and Iceland; and all four cases are false positives: the actual text for the hit is Icelandic. There are 76 hits for Thingeyri and Iceland. It's how English spells it. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 05:07, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
  • Comment Google searches are of course just a guide, no matter how well they are executed. This still dosent detract from my main point for opposing this move - and that is the need to maintain consistency within each country. Changing the form of one placename will entail changing all the rest. Is there community concensus to do this now?--Huaiwei 11:24, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
    • Comment Wikipedia:Naming conventions (geographic names) states: The title: When a widely accepted English name, in a modern context, exists for a place, we should use it.. The concensus is not only there, it is the first part of the naming convetion for geographic placenames. --Russavia 11:43, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
      • Comment The beauty of wikipedia, and the only way it remains sane, is that you wont apply all rules to the last bit in every single article. Signs of inconsistency is everywhere, even in Wikipedia:Naming conventions (geographic names) itself, which does allow for exceptions, as does Wikipedia:Naming_conventions_(places)#Use_English_but_foreign_and_historical_names_can_be_acceptable_in_some_cases, and this inconsistency is required to some degree, simply because the World is a plural entity and often times inconsistent itself. People are prone to using verses in the Bible to counter another verse just to justify a certain POV, even thou the entire bible is actually the word of one God. I won't expect more from wikipedia in this regard, but as my church discourages "verse warring", I do hope some wikipedians here wont constantly degrade themselves engaging in "policy warring" almost all the time!--Huaiwei 11:54, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
        • The section that Huaiwei cites actually says: . Historical names or names in other languages can be used in the lead if they are frequently used and important enough to be valuable to readers, and should be used in articles with caution. (emphasis added). As it happens, I fully agree with this; the Icelandic spelling should be mentioned in the lead; so should the airport. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 16:51, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
• Support as nominator --Russavia 11:43, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
  • Comment Er...the nominator is already counted as a default vote. I would have thought you will know this basic fact by now? ;)--Huaiwei 11:46, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
    • And the nominator usually !votes anyway, identifying himself, to avoid confusion. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 16:51, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
      • Common practices are not neccesary by default correct. Anyhow, it is fair less common for nominators to vote three days after a nomination, especially when the vote count appears to be at a criticial tipping point (two support, two oppose, excluding his nomination at the time of his "vote"). Perhaps it is Russavia who needs to be reminded once again that Wikipedia is not a democracy.--Huaiwei 13:22, 13 October 2007 (UTC)
        • Don't worry Huaiwei, as an admin who closes move discussions, I can assure you that I'm not counting "!votes" and won't be fooled by a nominator including a "Support" comment. There is no "critical tipping point" because this is not a vote. -GTBacchus^(talk) 17:58, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
          • Thanks for the reassurance, but I would just like to remind Russavia to at least do what he preaches.--Huaiwei 04:13, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
• Note I have inserted a notification message on this move request at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Iceland#Requested_name_change. Also note the existance of Wikipedia:Manual of Style (Iceland-related articles), in particular the spelling of Icelanding names.--Huaiwei 12:07, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
  • Yes, a page of that name does exist; it was written by a grand total of two editors, and was "promoted" to guideline by an act of boldness, without any discussion, notification or consensus. I like Hoary, but his page has all the authority of the electrons it is written on. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 16:57, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
• Oppose — Icelandic spelling conventions should be respected. In any case, it is simple just to create a redirect from "Thingeyri" to "Þingeyri". This is already done for other articles with titles with Icelandic words, such as "Garðar Thór Cortes" ("Gardar Thor Cortes" redirects to it). Cheers, Jacklee 12:36, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
• Strong Oppose per Jacklee. Careless treatment of Icelandic names is most deplorable [gnashes teeth]. -- Hoary 13:10, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
• Strong Support per Septronialis. Careless disrespect for the English language is most diplorable [gnashes teeth]. Gene Nygaard 13:21, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
• Oppose. It's hard to do frequency estimates for thorn because the OCR software at Google Books almost invariably gets it wrong. From experience I know that to find Þingeyri you'll be well-advised to search for "Pingeyri" or "Ingeyri" and, indeed, both "Pingeyri Iceland" and "Ingeyri Iceland" give us a decent number of hits (33 and 18, respectively). All sorts of other OCR-errors will also be represented, e.g. "Mngeyri" (3 hits) and "Bingeyri" (2 hits) but I don't have the time to do an exhaustive search. Searching just for "(Pingeyri OR Ingeyri) Iceland" gives me 43 hits - very decent competition for the 81 hits of "Thingeyri Iceland". That's still too many books for me to do an analysis of so I'll limit the search to books published in the last 10 years - those should be more relevant than older books for seeing what's current usage in English.

• Using that restriction and eliminating pages where both versions occur I get four books for "(Pingeyri OR Ingeyri -Thingeyri) date:1997-2007" and two books for "Iceland Thingeyri -Pingeyri -Ingeyri -Þingeyri date:1997-2007".

• The four books which have Pingeyri/Ingeyri (i.e. Þingeyri) are all recent English-language books on Iceland. None of them is written by an Icelander. All of them contain substantial information about Þingeyri (and, incidentally, would make good sources for our article). The two recent books which use Thingeyri only have a passing mention of the place. This makes a strong argument for Þingeyri being the appropriate spelling for an English-language article on the town. Haukur 13:47, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

Comment It should be noted that the official Thingeyri website English section uses Thingeyri, (quote: Always ask about hiking conditions at the nearest information centre in Thingeyri or Isafjordur). The Isafjordur website English section also uses Thingeyri, (quote:which also includes the villages Hnifsdalur, Sudureyri, Flateyri and Thingeyri). Additionally, the query which sent me here was Thingeyri Airport, finding that does not exist, I remove the airport, and that still did not exist, doing a google search lead me to this article; the ICAO in English refers to the town and airport as Thingeyri. The only google news results are for Thingeyri. --Russavia 18:29, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

• Oppose—Hello? What is more quintessentially English than thorn? Tony (talk) 14:30, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
  • <chuckle> But we have a perfectly good Anglo-Saxon Wikipedia; for the twenty-first century reader this English WP is intended to communicate with, thorn is - how do I put it? - somewhat tinged with archaism. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 16:25, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

The coomb? a coomb, dry; this last term being ancient and little used. --U.S. Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson, 1790.

Yet it still gets mention on Wikipedia. Gene Nygaard 15:02, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

Maybe Tony is trying to tell us that it should be moved to Yingeyri? Gene Nygaard 06:50, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

• Strong oppose. This has been discussed many times before. The Icelandic language uses the Latin alphabet, like English Wikipedia. The thorn letter is also a traditional English letter so there is little basis in Wikipedia policy for any move.--Berig 08:39, 13 October 2007 (UTC)
  • English, however, does not use the Icelandic alphabet, and has not for centuries; less than we use aesc and not more than yogh. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 01:21, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
    • If your point is that you want to remove letters that are unusual in English books, there are many many precedents against your point of view in articles like Aßlar, Orléans, Peñón de Vélez de la Gomera, and Västerås.--Berig 01:48, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
      • There is also another precedence which is 100% relevant to this discussion, that being Wikipedia:Naming conventions, in particular Generally, article naming should prefer what the majority of English speakers would most easily recognize, with a reasonable minimum of ambiguity, while at the same time making linking to those articles easy and second nature. which is justified by Names of Wikipedia articles should be optimized for readers over editors; and for a general audience over specialists. The average Joe Bloggs in the Australian outback isn't going to have a clue what Þingeyri is, and it is also likely they wouldn't know what Thingeyri is, but at least it will be recognisable to them as it is in English. --Russavia 03:46, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
        • Yes, the question at hand generally concerns what name an article should have if there are several names, or forms, to choose between, see e.g. Suiones. IMHO, it does not matter what name the article has, as long as other forms of the name like Thingeyri are mentioned in the lead. Redirects take care of all the practical problems. However, since Icelandic English speakers are vastly more likely to write and read about Þingeyri than Joe Bloggs in Australia, I do think that Þingeyri is to prefer as the main form. A long time ago, someone (User:Sam Spade, IIRC) said that we "should leave the naming decisions to those who actually write the articles" and I think that statement is worth considering.--Berig 06:21, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
          • Sam Spade's position, like most of his positions, is a violation of WP:OWN, which is policy. Icelanders should surely first read the Icelandic WP; that's why it exists. This English Wikipedia is intended for bewildered Australians (and other English-speakers) who for some reason want to know about Thingeyri; the article should therefore be in the spelling they are most likely to have met, so they can be sure they are reading the right page. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:21, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
            • I fail to understand why is a "bewildered Australian" supposed to search for "Thingeyri" (which would redirect him/her to this article anyway) instead of searching for "Þingeyri". As an English speaker, I also wonder who ruled that we English speakers are meant to be unaware of the existence of letters such as "Þ". Many may indeed be unaware, but if you're using that kind of argument to justify why should this article be "Thingeyri" instead of "Þingeyri", then please consider speaking for yourself only (not for the "other English-speakers"). Húsönd 22:42, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
              • The "rule of thumb" at work here is the "principle of least astonishment". What are English speakers, coming to the article to find information, least likely to be surprised by? What are they likely to have read in some English language source prompting them to look this city up in the first place? If the bewildered Australian has been reading other sources in English, which are they more likely to have seen? -GTBacchus^(talk) 22:48, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
                • I don't know what are English speakers going to do, that's why I can only speak for myself. How does one determine the "principle of least astonishment"? How does one even measure "astonishment"? Húsönd 23:18, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
                  • That's why it's a rule of thumb. We try to determine which spelling is more commonly used in English language sources that we can find. We assume that the spelling being used in most other sources is most likely to be the spelling that readers of English are most familiar with, and hence the least astonished to see here. -GTBacchus^(talk) 23:21, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
                    • Frankly, I'd rather assume that the extremely low percentage of English speakers who ever heard of Þingeyri (likely the ones who are interested in Iceland or have actually been in Þingeyri) are familiar with the name written with a thorn. Anyway, let's not forget the best rule around here: "Wikipedia is an encyclopedia". Even if most English speakers were unfamiliar with the letter "Þ", it's our duty to be as accurate as possible. Húsönd 23:31, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
                      • I'm not disagreeing with you regarding which name is more widely recognized. I actually have no idea at all on that subject. I wouldn't agree however that either suggestion involves being "inaccurate". Both spellings are correct enough in the proper context. Both are used in reliable sources. The article will surely contain both spellings in the lead, whichever we use as the title. Thus, readers unfamiliar with the thorn will learn about it, as you wish, either way. -GTBacchus^(talk) 01:15, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
• Support all titles should try to be in ASCII 132.205.44.5 23:10, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
• Oppose The simple redirect of Thingeyri to the properly named article should suffice. --Stalfur 10:15, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
• Oppose "Þ" is a perfectly valid letter in the Latin alphabet, and has historically been used in the English language. If "being in ASCII" was a requirement for article titles, vast numbers of other articles would need to be renamed. This is not a case like Peking/Beijing or Bombay/Mumbai, where there is a customary English-language alternative; rather, it is like the case of Münster, where the alternative spelling of "Muenster" would only be used if the character "ü" was unavailable. This is not the case. Since Wikipedia's software explicitly uses Unicode as its character set, and Unicode is sufficiently well-supported on all major computing and typograhical platforms, this is non-issue.-- The Anome 12:52, 17 October 2007 (UTC)
• Strong oppose The goal of an encyclopedia is to educate, and it demonstrates nicely the peculiarities of the Icelandic alphabet. At least one thing that one can learn from that article is that there is a letter such as thorn, and that's more likely to stick if it's in the title. What's more important here, sticking to WP:SOMEPOLICY or increasing people's knowledge?--victor falk 12:40, 17 October 2007 (UTC)
• Support - how the hell are we supposed to type the title into the search box? Translated name should be used, with the Icelandic name mentioned in the lead paragraph. --GW_Simulations_{User Page | Talk} 18:27, 17 October 2007 (UTC)
  • That's not an issue, a redirect will automatically take you to Þingeyri if you type Thingeyri. Húsönd 22:19, 17 October 2007 (UTC)
    • Yes, it is an issue; not necessarily a decisive one. The convenience of readers includes not having to go through redirects when avoidable. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:11, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
      • How could going through a redirect possibly represent any inconvenience? Húsönd 20:57, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
• Support. No evidence that thorn is current English usage in this context. I quote our article: Thorn in the form of a Y survives to this day in pseudo-archaic usages, particularly the stock prefix Ye olde. The definite article spelled with Y for thorn is often jocularly or mistakenly pronounced /ji/ or mistaken for the archaic nominative case of you, written ye. It is used infrequently in some modern English word games to replace the th with a single letter. No support for using it in this article title there. Andrewa 02:48, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

• Yes, there is evidence and I present some in my post above. Haukur 07:27, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
• If we can only use the current Enlish alphabet, then we would also have to get rid of every accent, cedilla, tilde and umlaut in every article title, wouldn't we?--victor falk 20:58, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Discussion

Any additional comments:

Comment Huaiwei above claims that Þ is a diacritic. It is not a diacritic, it is a letter in the Icelandic alphabet, which in English is equivalent to th. We have articles at Samara, not Самара. Google searches by Huaiwei are also flawed, as it does not separate English from Icelandic language usage. On the English version of the official website, it uses Thingeyri (quote: Always ask about hiking conditions at the nearest information centre in Thingeyri or Isafjordur). --Russavia 14:44, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Additional comment: Merriam-Webster has a map of Iceland on their website, which is copyrighted to Encyclopædia Britannica, which shows Thingeyri. The US Army also uses Thingeyri. Another map which also uses Thingeyri. The ICAO also uses Thingeyri in relation to the town and Thingeyri Airport --Russavia 14:57, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Comment: I fear that the poor old US army still uses feet and inches. Anyway, the readability/typability demands of invasion forces, check-in clerks and so forth aren't the same as those of encyclopedia users. -- Hoary 13:08, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

Nice of you to display such a total misunderstanding of the U.S. Army. They almost always use meters and kilometers and the like, and have done so for years. Quantities other than length are not as likely to be metric, but in mapping and the like it always is.

But more disturbing is that it is a total non sequitur to make that point here, even if it had been true. It has nothing to do with normal English language usage, and Russavia has provided us with several well-documented examples of that usage by reputable sources. So stop the red herring, unwarranted and irrelevant personal (or institutional in this case) attacks. Gene Nygaard 13:27, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

My most abject apologies to anyone in the US Army whose sensibilities have been offended. If they don't like herrings, can I give them a squid as a token of my apology? Hmm, if the US Army really does use the metric system, can en:WP dispense with all the tedious translations into quaint units? -- Hoary 13:55, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

No. The Icelanders still use feet for Thyngeyri Airport.[3] Gene Nygaard 14:10, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

This does indeed suggest that Icelanders (or some of them) are battier than the US Army. Perhaps I'll send them a jellyfish. -- Hoary 14:17, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

In aviation, feet are used for altitude. In Iceland just like anywhere else. --Bjarki 14:04, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

Comment The Google results cited by Huaiwei above are thouroughly misleading since they include non-English-language pages. Here are the accurate numbers for English-language Google hits: 617 for Thingeyri [4] and 711 for Þingeyri [5]. The results from Google Books are perhaps more useful since they represent what is published in scholarly works (as opposed to webpages): 123 for Thingeryi [6] and 27 for Þingeyri [7] - not one of which is from an English-language work. There really is no doubt that Thingeryi is more common in English. Noel S McFerran 03:37, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

And the Google Books results are even more decisive than they appear. Actually looking at the hits shows that there are only 12 for the spelling with thorn, and all of them are actually hits on Icelandic text. This is why I include Iceland above. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 05:10, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

Comment. Two related problems. One of the biggest problems with article creators with no respect for the English language is illustrated in the fact that this four-month old article sat here for the first 3½ months being missorted in its categories.

A second problem manifests itself in the fact that a Google search for "Thyngyri" and "slave" on site:en.wiki.x.io comes up empty.[8] You can check out the corrolary results yourself. Gene Nygaard 14:02, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

• Try Thingeyri, which gets all of one hit. This being Iceland, the ground may tremble at the news. ;> Septentrionalis PMAnderson 16:32, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

Gene, have you dropped messages in the talk pages of the creators of the article, mentioning that you're charging them here of having "no respect for the English language"? -- Hoary 14:16, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

The article creator is part of this discussion, and may be presumed to have seen Gene's conclusion; I regret that it is supported by evidence. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 16:32, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

No it isn't. That's an absurd and uncivil claim. The fact that someone uses a non-English letter and doesn't know about sort keys is hardly conclusive evidence that they have "no respect for the English language". That's a ridiculous and unhelpful conclusion to jump to. -GTBacchus^(talk) 18:18, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

Gene, try that search with the correct spelling ("Thingeyri"), please. It does find Vilborg Davíðsdóttir. As does this search with Þingeyri. Google is smart enough to find "Thingeyri" when you look for "Þingeyri" and vice versa. So, what was your corollary? Lupo 16:44, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

Okay,I guess I didn't exactly further my cause by getting that wrong. But while it might be true that Google has equated "Thingeyri" and "Þingeyri" as synonyms (and possibly even learned it from our searches), that is merely a synonym for one particular combination of letters. That Google would treat Þ as equivalent to Th isn't something you can count on aas a general rule.

For example, try this search:[9]

Thrymheimr apples site:en.wiki.x.io [no hits]

and contrast it with this:[10]

Þrymheimr apples site:en.wiki.x.io [7 hits]

Do you get the same results I did this time? Gene Nygaard 18:04, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

And, if you replace site:en.wiki.x.io with -Wikipedia, you get[11]

Þrymheimr apples -Wikipedia [17 hits]

but if you change to "Th" and drop the final "r", you get[12]

Thrymheim apples -Wikipedia [324 hits]

That's pretty instructive, too. Gene Nygaard 18:22, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

Comment: I support using Þ when English does, or when the subject is so obscure that it is not used in English. (Are these last notable, þough?). English will use thorn sometimes, although I see that Garðar Thór Cortes, for example, chooses to use edh and avoid thorn. This is probably sensible on his part. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 03:43, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

That's a bit different, though. He is actually named Thór and not Þór. It's pronounced with a /t/. Haukur 07:07, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

Comment It is amusing to see someone accusing those writing articles on the english wikipedia of having no respect for the language. It is hardly a scientific fact, it is an opinion which is used as a scientific weapon and unbecoming of anyone who so much as pretends to think of the wikipedia project as something more than a bag of hot air. Include the deity-like adherence to Google search results as an arbiter of naming conventions also seems like a folly. OCR is haphazardous, unreliable and never right, it is an approximation. Quoting searches in OCR results as the holy truth and then claiming that using the proper name of a place, probably none of those who want the name changed have heard of before is, is not right is simply a farce. --Stalfur 10:23, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

• Furthermore, most of the supporters don't seem to be able to see the rule that is in place. Rome is known by most english speakers, thus it is used as the title of the article about the city of Roma. Same for Venice and Genoa, however lesser known places like Lavagna do not have a corresponding english variant. Þingeyri is a Lavagna place, the number of native english speakers who have heard of it has probably doubled with the ASCII movement flocking onto this article demanding it to be moved to Thingeyri. The simple redirect of Thingeyri suffices those who search for it on Wikipedia, the lack of Þ-key on the map of the cartographer is not of any concern to an encyclopedia. The Icelandic wikipedia uses the same rule as the english one in this matter, our article about the city of Roma is at Róm, although we do not have London down as Lundúnir, only mentioning our native name for that city in the article. So far the only arguments given have been that "the author of the article hates english" and "Þ is not in the ASCII alphabet". The first one is easily thrown out as a banal statement not based on fact and thus not worthy of consideration, the second one would mean that every single article with a header containing áàåäâéèëê.. (etc etc) will have to be moved. Þingeyri is not a Rome, it is a Lavagna. Thus there is no reason for moving the article and the redirect in the other way suffices. --Stalfur 15:21, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The airport

Annoyingly I can't find a source saying when an airport was first established at Þingeyri. A 1964 advertisement in Morgunblaðið provides a terminus ante quem and World War II provides a terminus post quem since I know that no airports were built in Iceland until then. Maybe it was built by the Allies during the occupation. All I can find out is that planned flights stopped in 1996. In 2006 the airport was extensively renovated and now serves as a backup airport for flights to Ísafjörður. Haukur 22:35, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

This issue of Morgunblaðið from 12 November, 1957 has an article (Sjúkraflugvöllur tekinn í notkun á Þingeyri) about the first plane landing at Þingeyri Airport on 2 November. The runway was rather small though (300x20 meters) and I'm not sure if the current airport is still the same one on the same site. It is most likely the case though. --Bjarki 00:07, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

Well done! We should update the article. Haukur 07:47, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

Today the runway seems to be a bit larger: 980×30 m.[13] Lupo 07:58, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

Ah, the plot thickens. In 1971 a new runway was completed, measuring 1100×50 meters.[14] But this 2005 article gives the size of the runway as 950×30 meters but says that planned renovations will bring it to 1084×30 meters.[15] There seems to be a missing link here. Haukur 08:13, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

Sounds like the edge of the tarmac crumbled, but it would be worth checking the direction of the various runways to see if they can be the same. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:41, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

Local politics

Okay, this may be a bit crazy but I've dug up the results of elections for the local council from 1962 to 1994. After 1994, Þingeyri (or Þingeyrarhreppur) was not a separate municipality and before 1962 elections for local councils were typically not political. The council consisted of five elected representatives. In the table below I've lumped various permutations of independents, liberals, leftists and workers together.

Party	1994	1990	1986	1982	1978	1974	1970	1966	1962
B (Framsóknarflokkurinn)	1	1	2	2	2	-	1	2	2
D (Sjálfstæðisflokkurinn)	2	2	1	2	1	1	2	1	2
Others	2	2	2	1	2	4	2	2	1

Sources:

[16] [17] [18] [19] [20] [21] [22] [23] [24]

Haukur 18:07, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

Awesome! This should definately be added to the article. Unless we want to make Þingeyrarhreppur a separate article? --Bjarki 00:11, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

We wouldn't add it to any other town of this size elsewhere in the world. Why here? (Nothing would be wrong with generalization that the council has been divided and a note on the exceptional election of 1974 - especially if it reflects national trends.) Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:57, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

The 1974 election is indeed interesting though it doesn't seem to reflect a national trend - the big national left trend came only in the 1978 elections. The Progressive Party didn't offer a separate list so I assume they joined forces in a leftist front. The "D-list of the Independence Party and their supporters" got 48 votes and 1 councilman, the "V-list of leftists" got 98 votes and 3 councilmen and the "I-list of independents" got 54 votes and 1 councilman. My guess is that the Progressive Party was part of this V-list, but Morgunblaðið doesn't quite spell it out. Now, going out on a limb here I think the reason we don't usually have information like this for towns of this size is because it's usually rather difficult to find. User:Stalfur has been pioneering this type of information on the Icelandic Wikipedia, see e.g. is:Hreppsnefndarkosningar á Seltjarnarnesi. Now, I think having a separate article here for the election information would not be appropriate. Nor do I think that providing the names of the councilmen is necessarily the thing to do. But I do think a table and/or a graph with a few explanatory sentences could be interesting. Haukur 20:01, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

I'm curious, you wouldn't add it to any other town you say *of this size*. Would it be because you want ALL or NONE to have election results (even this rough overview) or does the political history not matter at all or only for towns *over a specific size* or? I'm trying to see the reasoning for election results not belonging in the article. --Stalfur 15:10, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Thingeyri has a population of 450. This means, first of all, that election results are as likely as not to be decided by the random shifts and personal dislikes of a handful of people. More importantly, why are these encyclopedic? The elections of Mexico City or New York City or Jerusalem may be of world importance. Why are the elections of Thingeyri, or, say, Yonkers, New York, which is much larger? Yet the election results of Yonkers are almost certainly available on line, since the New York Times is, and are certainly available in print. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:07, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Þingeyri, of course, isn't of world importance at all. Nothing in an article about the town can be expected to be of world importance. The election results do not, perhaps, say very much in themselves but they are interesting to compare with those of other municipalities and the results of national elections. Haukur 22:30, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

If someone would go through the trouble of compiling a basic overview of election results for Yonkers for the last decades, wouldn't that be a nice addition to that article? I would certainly think so. That nobody has bothered to do it yet does not mean that it should never be done. --Bjarki 02:30, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

My point exactly. Earlier this year we compiled election results for a couple municipalities on the Icelandic wikipedia. Given enough time we might likely expand it to cover everything we can get data over. I would think that the election results are no less of an encyclopedic material than 2 pages about a singer in a band which had a single hit song and was never seen again, just to refer to some of the more banal side of Wikipedia. --Stalfur 11:06, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Requested move 2009

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was page moved per the points made in the discussion. Vegaswikian (talk) 02:53, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

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Please participate in centralised discussion at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Countering_systemic_bias --Espoo (talk) 14:00, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

Þingeyri → Thingeyri — 1) Spelling used in English by the town itself. The town does not use Þingeyri in English. 2) The official website of the town of Isafjordur, to which Thingeyri belongs, also uses only the spelling Thingeyri in English. 3) Þingeyri incomprehensible to almost all Wikipedia users. Probably 99% of WP users read it as Pingeyri or Dingeyri. 4) The article should mention Þingeyri once in the lede: "Thingeyri or Þingeyri (original spelling) is a settlement in the municipality of ..." 5) (This is a completely different problem from accents or umlauts, which do not need to be ignored or changed to oe etc. because they do not make the words incomprehensible i.e. unreadable to WP users.)--Espoo (talk) 21:27, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

• Strong Support. Despite the wishes of some Icelandic editors, Thingeyri is the English form; we are not here to reform the English language. For more, see Noel McFerran's comments the last requested move. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 21:39, 14 November 2009 (UTC)
• Oppose. This was proposed two years ago and discussed at great length then. Espoo's request now brings no new information to light. The reason he's requesting this move now, out of the blue, on an article he's never edited and never shown any interest in is that I mentioned it in a comment yesterday.[25] I guess the WP:BEANS are on me here. Haukur (talk) 22:00, 14 November 2009 (UTC)
  • Ad hominem arguments should really be below an admin's dignity and shed further doubt on your suitability as an admin. It's completely irrelevant why i started proposing this and other similar changes and does nothing to reduce the validity of my argument nor reduce the need to get rid of spellings in lemmas that are incomprehensible to most WP users. In addition, i have thought about proposing the changes for German lemmas with ß for many years, long before you mentioned the nonsense of Þ in the lemma Þingeyri.
  • In addition, you know very well that i was arguing against use of Þ in the very discussion you linked to above before you even mentioned Þingeyri. My comments about Urðarbrunnr, Njörðr, Þorgerðr Hölgabrúðr and Irpa, Lóðurr, Nīþ are above that. You're trying to discredit me and my argument with incorrect claims and childish methods.
  • The old discussion above did not stress the importance of self-designation, and in any case it is not forbidden to rediscuss things on WP, as all admins should know. The old discussion also did not mention that the official website of the town of Isafjordur, to which Thingeyri belongs, also uses only the spelling Thingeyri in English. --Espoo (talk) 22:51, 14 November 2009 (UTC)
    • Russavia, who initiated the old request, did give your self-designation argument. I've made no personal attacks on you, I was just pointing to the discussion that spurred you to make this move. If you have some problem with some action I have taken as an admin then please come and discuss it with me frankly rather than continuing to make these vague allusions to alleged misconduct. Haukur (talk) 22:58, 14 November 2009 (UTC)
      • More precisely, the self-designation argument was made in this edit about 25 months ago. -- Hoary (talk) 23:40, 14 November 2009 (UTC)
        • Yes, the self-designation argument was made, but the importance of self-designation for deciding lemmas was not stressed in that discussion, which was my point. --Espoo (talk) 00:07, 15 November 2009 (UTC)
• Comment I'm fascinated by the assertion above that Þingeyri incomprehensible to almost all Wikipedia users. Probably 99% of WP users read it as Pingeyri or Dingeyri. I don't overestimate the intellectual powers or perceptiveness of Wikipedia's editors, but such a description of people choosing to use Wikipedia as a tool to find information about Iceland surprises me. Do we have a reliable source for it? -- Hoary (talk) 23:40, 14 November 2009 (UTC)
• Argument. Well, let's take a look at this once more. To see what current English usage is I tend to search for recent English-language sources on the topic in question on Google Books. Unfortunately, the Google OCR apparatus almost universally misreads 'þ' so it's hard to find everything we'd like to see. But since I know a bit from experience what kind of OCR errors tend to happen I know that I will get a significant subset of texts containing Þingeyri by searching for "Pingeyri" or "Ingeyri". If you do that and restrict the results to English-language books published in the last 10 years you get the result below: [26] That's not a lot of results, of course, but it's pretty good for an obscure Icelandic town - remember that we're just looking at books from the last ten years. This demonstrates that a number of recent English-language authors have found "Þingeyri" to be an acceptable form to use in English-language texts. It's not some sort of Wikipedia-only eccentricity or anything like that. In fact, if you look at the references used in the article, they all use the form "Þingeyri". It seems natural that a Wikipedia article should use the same form of the name as the English sources used to write it. Haukur (talk) 00:01, 15 November 2009 (UTC)
  • Fraudulent. A goodly percentage of those results aren't even in English, even on the first page.Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:17, 15 November 2009 (UTC)
    • Oh, come on. Yes, Google's language distinction is far from perfect - you can say the data here is insufficient or hard to evaluate or even (though I would disagree) misleading. But fraudulent implies that there is some sort of intentional deception going on and that's absurd. I'm not cooking the books here and Google isn't either, we're just working with what we've got. It's not like I even said "there are X results in English" - I saw myself that you'd have to sort out the chaff before giving a number so I just gave the link where everyone can evaluate the results for themselves. Anyone can see that some of the results are not, in fact, in English - there's no deception going on here. Haukur (talk) 20:23, 15 November 2009 (UTC)
      • Not at all "hard to evaluate". The same Icelandic Google Books gives three times as many hits for the normal English spelling (under the same limitations) as for the Icelandic. All Haukur has done is to promote the spelling with thorn from something unheard of in English to a markedly minority spelling (and one nearly confined to guidebooks at that); from something we should under no conditions use to something we are merely agreed not to use. Ignore nationalist special pleading. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:40, 15 November 2009 (UTC)
        • Yes, it has quite hard to evaluate - it's impossible to completely get around the OCR problem and some of the books that use the Þingeyri spelling also have the string thingeyri (e.g. when citing the town website). But in any case you have an absurdly high opinion of me if you think the presence of thorn in all those recent English-language books is somehow due to my pernicious influence. And you know very well that I don't do any "nationalist special pleading". I'm as comfortable with Sḵwx̱wú7mesh and Voßstraße as I am with Þingeyri or Garðabær. Haukur (talk) 21:08, 15 November 2009 (UTC)
          • Thank you; that's disrupting Wikipedia to make a point. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 21:20, 15 November 2009 (UTC)
            • Now you've lost me completely. What do you mean? Haukur (talk) 21:27, 15 November 2009 (UTC)
            • Better go easy on charges of disruptiveness, Pmanderson. Your own innuendo that a preference for Þingeyri indicates "nationalist special pleading" strongly suggests failure to AGF and could easily be interpreted as a personal attack. -- Hoary (talk) 00:57, 16 November 2009 (UTC)
              • Yes, as always: those who cannot provide evidence for their position charge personal attacks; the self-pitying dress themselves up in arguments as fine-spun as the Emperor's New Clothes, and then decry the observation that they are imperfectly clad. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 06:24, 16 November 2009 (UTC)
• Support per town's own English usage, that the requested title is in ASCII, and the fact that monoglot anglophones, and non-European polyglot anglophones will not recognize a thorn. 76.66.197.2 (talk) 06:32, 15 November 2009 (UTC)
• Oppose - no reason to follow the usage of one website. To follow just one source entirely misses the point of WP:NAME, where we look at the usage of reliable English-language sources taken as a whole. WP:OFFICIALNAMES, although not policy, is a pretty accurate picture of Wikipedia's use of "official" names - we consider them, but do not automatically prefer them. The rest of the rationale about how readers pronounce the name to themselves is pure irrelevant speculation. There's precious few English people who can correctly pronounce Hódmezővásárhely or Chkhorotsqu either - picking out ß or þ for extinction does precious little for anybody in that regard. It's not worth losing the consistency of naming when redirects from the alternatives exist, and making the change helps no-one. This is a non-starter. Knepflerle (talk) 12:36, 15 November 2009 (UTC)
  • • WP:NAME has several points; among them to use what anglophones will "most easily recognize", which we generally conclude from what English books most commonly use. This has not been addressed here at all; Espoo has, however, answered the usual response of nationalist bigots, who would gleefully accuse us of racism and anglocentrism if the website were the other way.
    • One would expect that Þingeyri would be less common that Chkhorotsqu; the former is less recognizable. The latter is a tongue-twister, but it is at least made up of English letters. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:17, 15 November 2009 (UTC)
      • Perhaps you would either (a) identify the "nationalist bigots" here, (b) state that you are not referring to any participant in this discussion, or (c) strike through this bizarre comment of yours. -- Hoary (talk) 01:04, 16 November 2009 (UTC)
        • Or (d) let the reader make her own decisions, based on the arguments made here. I observed a good part of the Macedonia debacle (including the FA that came out of the middle of it); there is a definite resemblance so far, which I trust will not continue. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 03:54, 16 November 2009 (UTC)
          • I'm unfamiliar with any Macedonia debacle in Wikipedia but in view of the degree of gruesomely archaic institutionalized silliness deftly related within Macedonia naming dispute would not be surprised to hear that there was one and that nationalism and bigotry were factors in it. By contrast, as I read Foreign relations of Iceland I see no mention of millions or even tens of thousands of either Icelanders demonstrating against one or more foreign powers or non-Icelanders demonstrating against Iceland. I have yet to see any evidence for nationalist bigotry here. Your reasoned arguments are welcome, your continuing innuendo is not. -- Hoary (talk) 10:04, 16 November 2009 (UTC)
            • Oh, we have our little mobs and riots over here. And every few decades we seem to run into trouble with our good friends to the south, the British. Currently it's the Icesave dispute, before that the Cod Wars and before that oh, I can't remember.... Of course, none of this has anything to do with thorn or Þingeyri but my fellow editors sometimes feel like passing their time with speculation about my internal workings.[27] For the record, I don't think, and have never suggested that PMAnderson is a racist, a xenophobe, an Anglocentric bigot or anything like that. I think he just disagrees with me about this stuff. And, hey, sometimes he makes good points. Haukur (talk) 15:23, 16 November 2009 (UTC)
              • To avert any possible misunderstanding here, I'm not British. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:53, 16 November 2009 (UTC)
• Support. Espoo's rationale is convincing, and English doesn't have a thorn. Honestly, guys, I consider myself reasonably well-educated (never studied any pre-modern Germanic languages, though), but the title of this article confused me when I first saw it. Yeah, there's a link to the article for the funny letter, which I needed, because I'd forgotten that letter is called "thorn". But I definitely found the title confusing. --Akhilleus (talk) 02:21, 16 November 2009 (UTC)
• ^that(Akhilleus) is an argument that I can support. Þ(thorn) used to be part of the english alphabet, but was dropped somewhere along in Middle English. thus the english spelling doesn't use it and uses th instead. But it's a minor technicality. whichever spelling is used for the article, the other will exist as a redirect to the article. People will be able to get to the article regardless.--Marhawkman (talk) 17:35, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.