Talk:Iceland/Archive 1

message: I did some edits to this page and to the economics subpage.  I noticed that there is nothing about travel/tourism in Iceland and was thinking about adding a short section about it and a subpage with links to official tourism sites, maps and such.  I will not be plugging any specific firms but believe a lot of people could benefit from something like that. Does anyone object to such a section/article?
-- Torfason 16:13, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Edits and travel/tourism proposal

message: moved from talk:Wikipedia category schemes
I have a comment for your page on Iceland.  Iceland does not have its own military and is not providing troops for the NATO mission in Bosnia.  Iceland is providing doctors and nurses.  The United States has a small military base in Keflavik and these personnel provide defense for Iceland.  
While Iceland doesn't have an army, Iceland has sent the "Crisis Response Unit" which has military training and is armed and uniformed and does have military rank to command both KAIA withing ISAF, and Slatina in Kosovo within KFOR.
These units, although not officially acnowledged to be military for domestic comsumption, have used military ID's and operate like a military unit.  
As for Bosnia, Iceland also sent police as well as these nurses. And the military base in Keflavik is currently barely capable of defending itself, as of now its a theatrical gesture, unarmed F-15s have no military power unless the pilots are willing to die for any effectm, unless they are only for reconaisence...  -Kjallakr 16:54, 11 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Comments moved from talk:Wikipedia category schemes

message: It's incorrect to say that Iceland became independent on 17 June 1944 - that's the date it became a republic, but it had become independent of Denmark in 1919 as a kingdom, retaining the same monarch as Denmark. Sveinn Björnsson was ambassador to Denmark 1919-1940, then became Regent of Iceland when the King was trapped in Copenhagen, and finally became the first President. - Arwel
-- Actually that was in 1918. -Ómar K.
----
It is, in fact, absolutely correct that Iceland gained independence from Denmark on 17th June 1944. It had since 1st December 1918 been a sovereign nation under the rule of the Danish monarch. Sovereignty is not quite the same as independence. - Stefán
----
I think Stefán may be incorrect and it's a mistake I have made myself in the context of Ireland.  The Irish Free State gained home rule from the UK in 1921, which was not independence.  Later, however, the UK offered independence in 1937, but retaining the link to the monarchy.  Many believed that loyalty to the same King as the UK meant that it was not independence.  In fact, Irish legislation was to be ratified by the King of Ireland while UK legislation was to be ratified by the King of the UK, although both roles were fulfilled by the same individual.  While Ireland is now a Republic, legislation for Canada, New Zealand, Australia, etc is ratified by their respective monarchs, which happens to be Queen Elizabeth II.  When legislation is enacted in, say New Zealand, the monarch is acting only in the interests of New Zealand and is not referencing the UK.Nelson50 22:04, 8 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Date of independence

message: I'm reverting 80.213.8.14's edit, which is described as "removed irrelevant info". Apart from removing the disambiguation with the British supermarket chain "Iceland", he has replaced all the ð, Þ, and ý in the article by <eth>, <thorn> and y´ -- which not only look terrible but have broken links to various other articles such as Davíð Oddsson and Siglufjörður. -- Arwel 01:21, 14 Sep 2003 (UTC)
thread_title: Reversion

message: Removed "Electricity 230V, 50Hz" which was inserted at the bottom of the page by 130.226.80.139 -- it may well be correct, but it was in an inappropriate place on the page and I can't think of a good place to put it if we want to keep it! Arwel 20:41, 3 Oct 2003 (UTC)
thread_title: Another reversion

message: Icelands date of independence is indeed 1918. If not declared League of Nations mandate would had come into play. The British Monarch is still head of Australia, St Lucia, and so on.
Those nations are still independent thought and the same could be said for protectorates... Vital component
Those nations are also sovereign in their foreign policy and defense which Iceland was not in 1918-1944, the highest court of the Icelandic judicial system was in Copenhagen as well... that's a lot of authority placed in a another country. Biekko
:Ideas of sovereignty and independence in the early part of the last century were a bit different from today. Although Canada, Australia, New Zealand etc were independent in the 19th century it's arguable that they weren't fully independent until 1931; the Royal New Zealand Navy wasn't created until 1937, previously it was the New Zealand Division of the Royal Navy; until the introduction of Canadian citizenship in 1947 triggered a review of citizenship laws, all Canadians, Australians, New Zealanders and others were British subjects, etc. Arwel 11:38, 24 Feb 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: More on independence

message: Iceland was first settled by Norwegians and Celtic (Scottish and Irish) immigrants during the late 9th and 10th century.
Is there any evidence for Celtic immigrants? The article History of Iceland does not mention them. --zeno 10:09, 24 Feb 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: like I've stressed before... the relationship between Denmark and Icleand was much much deeper than just sharing a monarch! The highest authority of the judicial branch was in Copenhagen as well as authority over defense and foreign relations, I can not accept that to be 'independence'. --Biekko 13:17, 25 Feb 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Evidence for Celtic immigrants?

message: I merged the list of political parties that was in the politics section with the list that was already on List of political parties in Iceland. --Biekko 09:26, 20 Aug 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  The politics section 

message: Ekki nema rúmlega tvítugur og skrifar zetu! Skál fyrir þér. :-) (Apologies to any non-natives who might be reading this - I just had to). Cheers Io 18:48, 24 Sep 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Only when the party leaders are unable to reach a conclusion by themselves in reasonable time does the president exercise this power and appoint the cabinet himself. This has only happened once, in 1942, and that was actually before the republic was founded, although the regent, Sveinn Björnsson, who had been appointed in 1941, later went on to become the country's first president.
The president has only appointed the cabinet once, and someone later went on to become the first president? So who was doing the appointing of the cabinet? *confused* 66.92.237.111 02:21, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Z

message: "Many of the Scots and Irish were female captives... It is thought that Irish monks had come to Iceland some thirty years before the first viking came to Iceland, but they left before the vikings came to settle the country."
These two statements are inaccurate (the first) and probably untrue (the latter). Many of the first settlers came from Viking settlements in the British isles, such as Dublin, with an ethnically and religiously mixed entourage and slaves (including slaves of Scandinavian origin - as slavery was not limited to "others") but it is a gross oversimplification to sum this up as "female captives", as they were equally male and female, according to all written sources - there is no evidence whatsoever that they were predominantly female, that is none except one recent research comparing the genes of modern Icelanders with modern Irish, which should be considered highly dubious for obvious reasons. As for the latter assumption, it comes from one medieval source and is thought by most modern scholars to be simply wrong. Although it could be put in the article History_of_Iceland it should be omitted here. --213.220.103.152 14:14, 10 Mar 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm not editing this in the article for now, as there seems to be the shadow of an edit war going on around this theme...--213.220.103.152 14:27, 10 Mar 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Celtic settlement

message: I was just wondering where the tourism numbers came from, because I find it hard to believe that Britons and Americans make up the two largest groups of tourists in Iceland. Having lived in an area of Reykjavik full of "sights" and hotels I always got the impression that at least half of all the tourists were German, and indeed it's very common to joke about the abundance of German tourists (as well as their... eccentricities) among members of the hospitality industry.
:See this document. The largest tourist groups in 2004 were:
# UK 60.375
# USA 48.700
# Germany 38.726
# Denmark 32.932
# Sweden 26.993
# Norway 26.815
# France 21.600
:--Bjarki 16:04, 10 Apr 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Tourism numbers 

message: I've found this story on a German website (www.radiomultikulti.de). Is it true??? (For those who can't read German, it says that in the 18th Century, France contemplated with Denmark exchaging Louisiana for Iceland, in order to challenge Britain's naval forces).
"Reykjavik heißt übersetzt rauchende Bucht. Es hat nicht viel gefehlt und Reykjavik würde heute Baie de Fumée heißen.
Denn historische Dokumente belegen: Frankreich hatte im 18. Jahrhundert Dänemark den heutigen US-Bundesstaat Louisiana als Tauschobjekt für Island angeboten.
Neuesten Forschungsergebnissen zufolge, plante Frankreich auf Island einen Flottenstützpunkt zu errichten, um den Schiffsverkehr des damaligen Erzfeindes England zu stören."--62.6.139.12 10:10, 31 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: If this is true (I think not), it is far from common knowledge and you need much better sources than radio multikulti before putting this into the article. --Sindri 16:50, 31 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I actually think this is true, there was a lengthy piece about this in Morgunblaðið just some weeks ago, that is a fairly reliable source I would say. --Bjarki 20:40, 31 May 2005 (UTC)

text: See: ,  and . It appears that this was never anything but a far-fetched dream on the behalf of the French, they never actually offered the trade to to Denmark. I don't think this is significant enough to be included in a short summary of Icelandic history but perhaps these facts could be worked into the History of Iceland article. --Bjarki 20:45, 31 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Did France try to exchange Louisiana for Iceland in the 18th Century?

message: This morning User:194.144.20.165 made a number of sensible edits to this article, which generally gave the impression that they had local knowledge. One of those edits was to remove references to minority religions, but that was reverted by User:Sindri with the suggestion that this was a strange edit trying to suppress information.
Now in general a country based article should explain the broad characteristics of a country and most include a section discussioning the religious make up of the country. However, it is a distortion and POV to mention every religion represented in a country no matter how small. In the UK, the official statistics include a 0.7% proportion of the parody religion Jedi. In this case, it looks like the primary list of religions is based on census statistics and is truncated at the 1 - 2% level. Any religion with <1% representation can hardly be said to be characteristic of Iceland and I can't see any reason to mention them here.
Rather than trying to suggest that there is a non-Christian mix in Iceland, it would be more appropriate to say that Iceland has a remarkably low proportion of Buddhists and Muslims compared to other European countries. 
Is there some reason to suggest that Jehovah's Witnesses and Bahá'í are particularly well represented in Iceland? If so, then those reasons should be discussed. If not, it seems odd to mention these religions at all. -- Solipsist 7 July 2005 13:06 (UTC)
:I don't understand, this is correct and undisputed information... and Wiki is not paper. --Bjarki 7 July 2005 14:47 (UTC)
::I'm sure there are some Bahá'í in the UK, but they are not mentioned in the Religion in the United Kingdom article and they barely show up in the national census. To mention them would be POV as it would suggest that they have some relevance to the religious makeup of the UK and they don't. 
::The same is probably true of Iceland. Unless there is some reason to suspect there is an unusually large number of Bahá'í in Iceland, there is no reason to mention it and it is POV to do so.
::To put it another way, why are these four religions being singled out for mention in the 6% Others group, rather than for example Jews, Moonies, and Sikhs. -- Solipsist 7 July 2005 15:38 (UTC)
:::In the case of UK, there is no way to know the excact number of people in each religious group and there are probably thousands of distinct groups present there. In Iceland, there are 29 registered groups. The count in the article does not include Jews, Sikhs or Moonies simply because there aren't any of those to count, there may be a few Jews or Sikhs but those have not bothered to create a registered religious group. This fetish that Icelanders have for keeping accurate records about these things can be used to make this article more accurate than the average country article and we should use that chance. --Bjarki 7 July 2005 16:57 (UTC)
:::The source for this information is the Icelandic national registry numbers for 2004 and are exact, the registry keeps a record of religious group membership for every Icelandic citisen.  We could list every one of the 29 registered religious groups in Iceland.
:::It seems all the non christian groups are listed (there is no organized Jewish,, Moonies or Sikhs group) I asume if there are any they are in the outside religious group category. --Sindri 7 July 2005 16:14 (UTC)
Here are the exact numbers for 2004 for those interested (names of groups in Icelandic):
2004 	 
* Þjóðkirkjan 	250.661
* Fríkirkjan í Reykjavík 	6.202
* Óháði söfnuðurinn 	2.588
* Fríkirkjan í Hafnarfirði 	4.365
* Kaþólska kirkjan 	5.775
...
* Önnur trúfélög og ótilgreint 	8.733
* Utan trúfélaga 	7.144
Here you can get this info in english
:Thanks - that's the nice thing about Iceland - you know where everyone lives :)
:Excuse me if I truncate that list and replace it with a reordered list in English.
Religious group                                      	number	% of population
Lutheran Church of Iceland                           	250661	85.46%
Reykjavík Free Church                                	6202  	2.11%
Hafnarfjörður Free Church                            	4365  	1.49%
Roman Catholic Church                                	5775  	1.97%
Reykjavík Independent Church                         	2588  	0.88%
Pentecostal Church                                   	1800  	0.61%
Seventh-day Adventists                               	746   	0.25%
Jehova's Witnesses                                   	655   	0.22%
The Way, Free Church                                 	693   	0.24%
The Cross                                            	629   	0.21%
The Icelandic Christ-Church                          	213   	0.07%
Church of Jesus Christ o.l.d.s.                      	185   	0.06%
Serbian Orthodox church                              	157   	0.05%
Kefas - Christian Community                          	137   	0.05%
Parish of St. Nicholas of the Russian Orthodox Church	113   	0.04%
The Church of Evangelism                             	90    	0.03%
First Baptist Church                                 	10    	0.00%
The Rock - Christian Community                       	0     	0.00%
Asa Faith Society                                    	872   	0.30%
Buddhist Association of Iceland                      	544   	0.19%
Bahá’i Community                                     	373   	0.13%
Muslim Association                                   	321   	0.11%
Betania                                              	144   	0.05%
Sjónarhæð Congregation                               	54    	0.02%
Zen in Iceland - Night Pasture                       	48    	0.02%
The Believers' Fellowship                            	39    	0.01%
Word of Life                                         	0     	0.00%
Other and not specified                              	8733  	2.98%
Outside religious organizations                      	7144  	2.44%
:This table is mostly ordered by the number of people in each organisation, with the Christian organisations grouped at the top, the other religions starting at Asa Faith Society (many of these I don't recognise so there may still be some Christian groups here), and the two unclassified groupings at the bottom.
:This shows there is no reason to single out Jehova's Witnesses over Seventh-day Adventists. There are fewer Bahá’i than Buddhists (the opposite of the impression given in the current text). But the total count of the non-Christian groups is just 2,395 or 0.82% of the population. This is much less than the unknown others, and hardly at a level that is worth mentioning. As you say, the Others could contain more Jews than there are Buddhists - at the tail end of the statistic you just don't know.
:So I would again, suggest a more accurate wording would be
::The remaining 6.5% is divided between several Christian sects, with less that 1% of the population in non-Christian religious organisations.
:Possibly still mentioning the Ásatrú as the vestige of the original religion. -- Solipsist 7 July 2005 17:56 (UTC)
I see no reason not to include the full table in the article, as Bjarki pointed out this is not a paper so it's not like we're running out of space. —Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason 03:22, July 16, 2005 (UTC)
::I know this is an old discussion, but I've created a Religion in Iceland article. I did so due to delete discussions over the Islam in Iceland article, but either way I hope some of you check it out and improve any screw ups I made.--T. Anthony 04:27, 25 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Well it would be a bit of a distortion on an article which is trying to give an overview of the country. However, it wouldn't be a problem to put the whole table in Religion in Iceland, which is more or less what is done in the United Kingdom and Religion in the United Kingdom articles. You could then give proper space to explaining how the table data is collected and why it might appear there are no Jews in Iceland. -- Solipsist 05:15, 16 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Religion in Iceland

message: Is there any reason why the recent addition of a link to a page with Iceland photographs was reverted ()? I know that adding one's one site is generally something that's frowned upon, but the photos are nice, and I don't see why they should be considered link spam, either. Don't bite the newcomers. :) -- Schnee (cheeks clone) 9 July 2005 17:13 (UTC)
:Sorry I should have noticed this earlier. It is link spam when a user adds links to their own site to dozens of different articles, and especially when it is a professional photographer selling the images - that's commercial link spam just like linking a shopping site. Instead we should be encouraging such users to contribute photographs under a free license, which then allows a link back to their source website on the image description page. 
:But hey, we can't even keep good pictures already contributed to Wikipedia on the page . -- Solipsist 07:31, 16 July 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Maybe we should just reinstate those. I think having those maps of the counties etc. in the article is good, but having a few actual photos in there couldn't hurt, either. :) As for the links, OK - although I still think that it might be better to just remove the links with a neutral remark instead of calling them "spam". They may be (or not), but calling them that is not going to make it more likely that the contributor will release the pictures under a free license. -- Schnee (cheeks clone) 13:23, 16 July 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Fair point. -- Solipsist 00:40, 17 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Pictures 

message: What are those big holes in the maps? Glaciers? Lakes? I don't get it... from the space picture, they don't look any different...
:The white spots are glaciers. --Bjarki 15:51, 28 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Holes? 

message: What's the climate like in Iceland? 169.231.3.17 19:32, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Oceanic climate, meaning cool summers and mild winters, small temperature range. --Bjarki 21:12, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I think a section on climate should be added. 65.206.41.34 16:58, 27 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Climate 

message: I just read this article http://www.military.com/Opinions/1,14790,Edwards_022805-P2,00.html
It's about a black American sailor during World War 2. Who thought he might be on the shores of Iceland and was worried about being lynched. I also read that that US Navy bases in Iceland were the last to finally allow blacks to be stationed there.
I am very curious about what racial and immigration policies were in Iceland. What they were, what they are now, how things changed. My intent is not to muckrack. My own country has it's share of ugly blemishes like this. It seems like a significant factor in the country's history and culture. I think it should at least be touched upon. The US has an entire article on immigration.
-- Yes, it's definitely worth mentioning.  It is mentioned under Þór Whitehead, an Icelandic historian who has studied these matters. Palthrow 23:59, 8 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  race/immigration 

message: It's kinda funny that the "Military" section in this article is longer than corresponding sections in country articles such as the United States, Israel and the People's Republic of China. And it isn't even about Iceland's military (well duh...) but the coast guard and police, stuff I don't feel is very important for an overview article of this sort. It should be moved to the main article Military of Iceland. --Bjarki 17:11, 20 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Military 

message: Does the Sturlungaöld merit the appellation of Civil War? According to the sources, the average casualties for the period, i. e. killed in battle or executed afterwards, were 7 (seven) a year, and that is according to fairly reliable sources. Wouldn't skirmishes be a better word? After all, for an estimated population of 60.000 - 70.000, the death toll is not far from the current homicide rate in the United States. Cheers Io 17:22, 8 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Civil War

message: I am unable to find where the various Ministries are described, for example the Ministry for the Environment (which as of this writing redirects to New Zealand Ministry for the Environment).  Politics_of_Iceland#Executive_branch for example, doesn't address the topic.  
I'm assuming that at some point even the Umhverfisstofnun (or in English, the Environment and Food Agency of Iceland), would have its own article, correct?  69.3.70.60 00:23, 9 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Missing information on the executive branch?

message: This article had too many "See also" subsections. I fixed a few of them just now. However, at many places, just because of the sheer number of the topics, it wasn't wise to put then in one line. However, since standardization should be made, I request any of the author to keep only the relevant topics (atmost 3 at a place) and standardize per the norms. -Ambuj Saxena (talk) 11:50, 9 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  See also sections 

message: I'd be grateful if one of you Icelanders or Icelandophiles would take a look at the article Prince Polo, about the Polish chocolate bar that is, or was, popular in Iceland. Please add info about the Icelandic connection to this, or add pictures of past or present Icelandic varieties. Thanks, ProhibitOnions 12:53, 5 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Prince Polo

message: Look at the list of ingredients for the national dish thoramatur: rotten shark, burned sheeps head... can't be right, can it?
:Well it's technically correct, however the choice of words is misleading, "fermented shark, 'flamed' sheeps head" is probably better. --Sindri 10:04, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Suspected vandalism: item food 

message: If the arctic fox had been the only land mammal on Iceland for some time what was its prey? --Abdull 08:57, 4 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Birds. --Bjarki 13:08, 4 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Arctic fox trivia 

message: Recently the picture of the coat of arms was replaced with a png version.  The new picture is of terrible quality and the colors are somewhat wrong compared to the official info on the icelandic coat of arms. Any idea what happened to the old picture? --Sindri 15:10, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Coat of arms