Talk:Jón Magnússon (politician)

Untitled

It says he was dead in year 1923, but he was the prime minister to 1926? ....

Birth year

The Swedish wikipedia apperars to say that he died in 1926 (although I don't speak Swedish), so I changed that.--Carabinieri 13:56, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

WikiProject class rating

This article was automatically assessed because at least one WikiProject had rated the article as stub, and the rating on other projects was brought up to Stub class. BetacommandBot 15:52, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Edit Warring

@Mewulwe @Leikstjórinn Instead of the current edit warring, could you please seek a dispute resolution at for example WikiProject Politics or WikiProject Iceland (the former is probably better but at least notify the later). Alvaldi (talk) 11:28, 23 August 2024 (UTC)

It is a larger issue that has been discussed much before, and the policy is "This should only be used when there is a well-established use of such numbering in reliable sources. Do not add numbers simply based on a Wikipedia list of holders of the office, because (1) the list may not be accurate and (2) even with a definite list, different numbering systems could be applied (as to how various categories of "irregular" officeholders should be counted, and as to the counting of those serving for multiple non-consecutive periods) making the numbers arbitrary; and even where such issues are not yet present, they are bound to be in the future, making this unsustainable."

Unfortunately, people just mindlessly keep adding such numbers where they don't belong, not recognizing the difference between unambiguous "established" numbers as for U.S. presidents and the arbitrary numbering based on Wikipedia lists.

Leikstjórinn said: "In countries in Europe (especially Iceland) there are so many people who serve as PM at different times, so it really would be strange if each term would be counted as a new PM we would have 45 PMs." So what? 32 or 45 hardly makes a difference. One way of counting is as good as the other.

"Look, when Katrín Jakobsdóttir took office in 2017 every Iceland media talked about her as the 31st PM of Iceland." Presumably you mean 32nd, which is what Wikipedia has, and where undoubtedly the media just copied from. See how many references to "xth prime minister of Iceland" you can find from before Wikipedia times. In English, I find zero.

"It is also like this in Canada and UK. Let's just keep it simple like this" - no, "it" is not like this. It is just Wikipedia doing it like this everywhere. In Canada there may be some genuine numbering practice adapted from the U.S., but the U.K. certainly doesn't do that. Mewulwe (talk) 08:01, 24 August 2024 (UTC)

Speaking the language, I took the liberty to search for sources in Icelandic. The Icelandic government does have a list of former Ministers of Iceland and Prime Ministers in correct order but does not assign any numbers to them.

The article on the Icelandic Wikipeda numbers the ministers but sites no sources.

The only sources I found that discusses an order of a certain prime minister are an article on the Icelandic Government site about Hannes Hafstein, titled The first minister and an article on Vísir.is about the grave of Jón Magnússon titled this The grave of Iceland's first prime minister is unmarked It clarifies that [..] Jón was the country's first prime minister after Iceland gained independence in 1918 [..]. He did become prime minister in 1917 and contemporary sources seem to treat the different title of him and is predecessor a simple name change due to the increased number of ministers (from 1 to 3)[1][2][3]

@Leikstjórinn Can you site any sources that discuss the historical order of the Prime Ministers of Iceland?

If not then I would have to agree with @Mewulwe in this issue. Alvaldi (talk) 11:10, 24 August 2024 (UTC)

There is an Icelandic book about all of the Icelandic prime ministers that lists Jón Magnússon as the 6th PM of Iceland and at the time of the realse as Davíð Oddsson was in office, he was listed as the 25th PM of Iceland (if that rule would be followed, incumbent Bjarni Benediktsson would be the 31st). Look at the cover of the book (https://www.bokin.is/images/66902.jpg). You can see that all of the Ministers of Iceland are on it, plus all of the prime ministers. You can also see that it says "Forsætisráðherrar Íslands" on it (english: Prime Ministers of Iceland), not just Ministers of Iceland. I'm Icelandic myself and everybody here refers to Hannes as the first PM of Iceland. Jón Magnússon was just the first to have the 'Prime' in front of Minister (this was done because when there were Ministers, the cabinet was just one person, so it was the just 'The Minister of Iceland', cuz there was just one Minister, but in 1917 multiple person cabinets were invented where they added 'Prime' to make sure people knew what minister was being talked about). And regarding the numbers, it defiantly is the tradition to have the 32 prime ministers rule instead of the 45. We don't use the US counting system. Leikstjórinn (talk) 16:38, 24 August 2024 (UTC)

Being Icelandic myself, I don't recall Hannes Hafstein being references as the first Prime Minister, only as the first Minister of Iceland. I am also unable to find any sources that reference him as a prime minister. All that might though be beside the point since we are trying to establish if there are enough sources to back up the claim that the heads of the Icelandic government should be numerically listed. Does the above mentioned book specifically say that Jón Magnússon was the 6th PM of Iceland? (The book is available at my local library so I can take a look at it next week if there are any doubts). Alvaldi (talk) 17:26, 24 August 2024 (UTC)

The book talks about the Ministers of Iceland as prime ministers, as you can see here from a newspaper on Timarit.is from 2004 (...en afmælinu lýkur með útkomu bókar um alla 24 forsætisráðherra Íslands frá Hannesi Hafsteini til Davíðs Oddssonar) (english: ... the birthday concludes with a book on all 24 prime ministers of Iceland from Hannes Hafstein to Davíð Oddsson). Davíð Oddsson was actually the 25th prime minister of Iceland because the book does talk about Magnús Guðmundsson who was only in office for 12 days following the death of Jón Magnússon, but sources and media still count him today as an Icelandic prime minister. Here is another link talking about Hannes Hafstein as the first PM [4]

Also, Icelandic minster titles change a lot. Samgöngu- og sveitar­stjórnar­ráðherra was changed to Innviðaráðherra in 2021 but it is still the same office held and same ministry, it's not a new ministry, it's the same one.

If it is personal to anybody for Jón to be refered to as the first prime minister, i say that the 32 number rule will be still in use but that on the Infobox on this arcitcle on Jón Magnússon will say just 'Prime Minister of Iceland', not 1st PM of Iceland nor 6th. Is everybody happy about that? Leikstjórinn (talk) 22:07, 24 August 2024 (UTC)

As Mewulwe points out, the numbering should only be used when there is a well-established use of such numbering in reliable sources per Infobox officeholder. As it stands, I wouldn't say that it is well-established. At best we have the one source but you didn't clarify if it does use such numbering. Alvaldi (talk) 23:20, 24 August 2024 (UTC)