Talk:Community banking models

Peer Review and Responses During the Educational Assignment in Fall 2013 Introduction
We began with an interest in micro-financing and the impact that this practice might have on communities. However, we found that the micro-finance topic, while well-covered, seems to have a lot of different iterations and formats, one of which is community banking practices.

We are still working on editing our content together. Right now, things are generally where we want them, but there might not be a great flow of information from one section to the next. It is also a lot of economic-content heavy material, so we want to make it accessible.

Please let us know how we could improve!

Introduction
In the introductory paragraph, you do a good job of explaining the goal of community banking and mentioning the difference between that and mircofinance. Additionally, I would agree that there is definitely some economic heavy content. Even in the first sentence, I'm not sure what "capital derives from a local collective" means.

Instead of jumping right into the models, maybe you can do a "background" section. Many wikipedia articles have something like this. You can explain how community banking came to be, how it relates to micro-finance, maybe some real-world examples of what it looks like, how it relates to social work, etc.

Could you also potentially cite this information? It might add some legitimacy for the introductory information to come from somewhere reputable!

Models
Since all of the models discussed are specific to a country, maybe you can specify that in the title of the section.

I had a hard time understanding the different models. Maybe if you considered using more accessible language it could be easier to grasp the content. In the models section, could you potentially give an example when talking about the common form of US community banking? Also, I'm worried that the citations of the models might not be sufficient because only the first sentence of each paragraph is cited, and then a lot of really important information is written after that, without any reference. Make sure all of that is cited!

In the India model, I really like how you tie it in specifically to social work! Maybe you could say a bit more about that, since the general population reading this won't necessarily know about the values of CO or social work.

Criticisms
The criticism portion of your page is really beneficial - it offers a neutral tone to the topic. At the end of the criticism, maybe you could summarize some of the general criticisms of community banking on a whole rather than just specific models.

Is the Grameen Bank a community bank? If so, maybe you could talk about this a bit since it is probably the most famous bank/foundation in the micro-finance world.

Specific Requirements from Syllabus
Also, part of the requirement on the syllabus is to "(b) Figures: a minimum original figure/flow chart/graph/picture must be added to the site. Again, the quality will be evaluated." I am not sure that I see this on your page! Also, if you can include any citations from the/a textbook, that could add to the page quite a bit.

General
Overall, I think this is a really good topic. It would be cool if you could add a bit more around how it relates directly to social work and specifically CSS. Like you mentioned, it could also use a more consistent flow that ties things back to the original topic. Make sure everything is cited. Oftentimes it seems like a lot of really important information is stated but you didn't necessarily say where it came from. Lastly, I am still a bit confused about the relationship of community banking to micro-finance, so if you could clarify that a bit more in the intro, that would be great!

Response
Thank you for your comments. You were very thorough and did a great job editing. We implemented many of your suggestions into our final revision!

Question
None of the above comments is signed. Are they external to Wikipedia? Biscuittin (talk) 19:45, 28 April 2014 (UTC)