Talk:Altabank

(Redirected from Talk:Bank of American Fork)
Latest comment: 4 years ago by Doncram in topic Original name? and more

merger to reverse recent split

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The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.


I propose deletion of new dab page at Bank of American Fork and merger of two articles it indexes, Bank of American Fork (building) and Bank of American Fork (financial institution), back into one article (to be implemented by move of the oldest page back to Bank of American Fork. I think the split was unnecessary because one article can hold discussion of the historic building plus the other discussion of the bank. It is not a huge bank, it just has 20 branches in the general area, and the historic building is apparently the current main headquarters of the bank, so it is highly appropriate to discuss it in the article about the bank as an institution. Like in general we do not split articles about churches between coverage of a historic and current congregation vs. coverage of a historic or current building. We should not surprise readers with a disambiguation page, and force them to check two pages to get coverage of the topic. It would be easier editing-wise and better for readers to have one integrated article. --Doncram (talk) 02:34, 26 November 2018 (UTC)Reply

Three thoughts. . .
First, perhaps a better way is to have "Bank of American Fork" default to the financial institution, but still have a "Bank of American Fork (disambiguation)" dab page.
Second, as indicated (but not clearly yet) in the building article (which still needs expansion), a fair amount of the history of the building has nothing to do with the financial institution. For many years it was not even owned by the bank, including at the time the building was added to the National Register of Historic Places. Such conditions would clearly merit separate articles.
Third, while the current Bank of American Fork has only 20 branches, its recent trend of fairly rapid expansion indicates a high probability of future and moderately rapid growth. This anticipated growth may well result in the combination of the sister institutions combining under a single and probably different name. If so, the building's historic name will not change, but the insitution's name and/or headquarters likely will. The result would be an absolute need for separate articles. An Errant Knight (talk) 19:52, 26 November 2018 (UTC)Reply
To An Errant Knight, you assert "clear merit" for separate articles and an "absolute need", but I don't see why. If a single article got to be too long, over maybe 200,000 bytes, perhaps size would be a reason for splitting. A guideline about article size used to suggest that articles over 100,000 bytes should be split. However the current institution article has 7,073 bytes and the building article has 3,112 bytes, so size doesn't seem like a valid reason to split. Does it boggle the mind to cover more than one narrow topic in an article? I think not. Most articles do cover many topics/subtopics/what-have-you. It actually would boggle the mind more to define exactly how the overlapping topics must be separated and to explain why they must be presented separately (which I don't understand). Use a section for the historic building. The notability of the building for National Register listing includes the fact that it is a tangible symbol/artifact for the bank as an institution, which was "American Fork's first full-service, professional bank in July of 1891--the Bank of American Fork--first housed in the Grant (Beck) Hotel Building".
I think it is simpler and better for readers and for editors to have just one article with use of sections. --Doncram (talk) 01:51, 27 November 2018 (UTC)Reply
Merge: The concept that we should have multiple articles to explain the use of the same basic or so closely related subjects has fundamental flaws. There are some that would like to see articles about every person, street, building, organization, or occurrence (we do have unlimited storage), and have all NRHP entries with their own article. This can be defended with several scenarios that may also include historical separation, change of entities, or even "someday". When we have a a good faith fork, with some justifiable reasoning the "big picture" needs to be examined. Bank of American Fork (financial institution) is a not great article with a lot of the above mentioned "too close paraphrasing", two primary sources, and two NRHP sources. The article has inaccuracies and is devoid of normally important content. The bank isn't even owned by those listed in the article but a holding company.
  • Merge. I cannot really improve on the arguments by Doncram (nom) and Otr500 (unsigned). Readers would find it much more helpful to find all the information in one place rather than to waste a click by landing on a DAB page – several clicks if they want to learn about both building and institution. I also point out the risk of duplication and WP:CONTENTFORK. Narky Blert (talk) 10:13, 8 December 2018 (UTC)Reply
  • Merge. Put the building as a section of the primary article. There is no need for a dab page. Just have the two topics redirect to the one article. You can use an achor in one of the redirects to point the that section of the article.Coastside (talk) 02:45, 4 January 2019 (UTC)Reply
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Merged

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@Doncram:, I presume that you will see to any cleanup needed following the merge. Cheers! bd2412 T 00:46, 21 March 2019 (UTC)Reply

Hi, I see User:BD2412 did perform the merge. I don't think i came and did any other cleanup. Thanks! See next section about further development. --Doncram (talk) 19:12, 30 November 2019 (UTC)Reply

after Altabank name change

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Now, today, there is this combo edit largely undoing the merger by User:An Errant Knight. The edit restored the separate article Bank of American Fork (building), and included a reference to a new bank name change / rebranding which is dropping use of "Bank of American Fork" and two other bank names within People's Intermountain Bank in favor of use of "Altabank" going forward.

There was also this page move edit, moving "Bank of American Fork" to "Altabank". But with no reference there, and no change to the article body yet, so it still presents itself as an article about the Bank of American Fork.

Hey, maybe the new branding / name change does change matters, so the merger decision taken above does need revisiting. I guess there is now justification to have an article on "Altabank", but it should cover the other parts of Peoples Intermountain Bank and should have some development about Altabank itself, and it should have a section on Bank of American Fork. And Bank of American Fork should probably redirect to that section. It's not obvious to me that the once-separate building article needs to be re-split out of that section though, and the current situation is a bit of a mess. Including:

  • the restored "building" article has incorrect stuff in the lede "and once again serves as the headquarters of Altabank", where "once again" is clearly wrong.
  • the Altabank article does not justify Altabank name at all; it is an article about Bank of American Fork only.
  • now both articles have NRHP infobox and fully cover the NRHP-listed place.

What now? Maybe just one article still would suffice and be best? Or maybe there should be two articles, one being "Altabank" and one being "Bank of American Fork", or one being "Altabank" and one being "Bank of American Fork (building)". I still don't tend to like the latter name.

User:Errant Knight, could you please comment on what you see as best way forward, and why? How is this not a content fork again, and other bad things asserted in the merger decision? Temporarily the situation sort of looks as if you just gleefully jumped in to restore the separate building article, as if to now assert a "win" in the past merger discussion, while leaving a bit of a mess. I am sure that's not what you intend. (And do we need to reinvolve merger discussion participants Otr500, Narky Blert, and Coastside, and closer bd2412?) --Doncram (talk) 19:12, 30 November 2019 (UTC)Reply

Actually it seems to me that there still should be just one article, now with Bank of American Fork as a section. All the previous reasons apply, why a separate article about its headquarters building should not be split out. Please feel free to convince me otherwise.--Doncram (talk) 19:17, 30 November 2019 (UTC)Reply

Apologies, most of the addressed issues were in an article update that the internet connection dumped, just prior to saving. Trying to make them again, just need a little more time. An Errant Knight (talk) 19:58, 30 November 2019 (UTC)Reply
While still not perfect, completed update should address most, if not all, the issues addressed. An Errant Knight (talk) 20:43, 30 November 2019 (UTC)Reply
Regarding the previous comment that this editor is asserting a "win" regarding the past merger discussion, truth is, until the prior discussion was brought up again, this editor had forgotten it. However, it would be untrue to claim that this editor does not receive some satisfaction from the realization of the anticipated, and for-warned, name change.
Both articles in question can still use much improvement, but with the bank name change, keeping them combined does not make sense. An Errant Knight (talk) 21:00, 30 November 2019 (UTC)Reply
Thanks for not minding my characterization about "as if to assert a win". And thanks for finding the notice of name change and bringing it up here. And thanks for trying to make it better now. I am not sure about one or two articles, and will take a better look at the situation later. But one comment: the current Altabank article includes wikilinks for Lewiston State Bank, People's Intermountain Bank and People's Town & Country Bank (all three currently being redlinks), as if suggesting separate articles for them might be wanted. At least one is exactly the same thing as Altabank, just being the previous name. I don't think any one of them should be a separate article. Shouldn't those be made into redirects to Altabank article, or sections within? And show bolded names within, instead? It seems to me this article would be clearer if it had a section for each bank that existed separately, perhaps instead of trying to organize by time periods but with mixed names. Again i will consider this more later. --Doncram (talk) 21:13, 30 November 2019 (UTC)Reply
Also, echoing the original merger discussion, the now-again-separate Bank of American Fork (building) article has nothing much at all about that building, per se. And there is substantially more about the Bank of American Fork as a bank system in the Altabank article, which would have to be copied to the separate article, if the separate article is to be renamed, too. Under either name, i think it does not help at all to have it split out from main coverage about Bank of American Fork, which I think should now be a section within Altabank article. An Errant Knight, if you actually developed the separate article to describe the building in detail (or to describe everything about the Bank of American Fork and its branches and history) that could potentially justify it being split out (i am not sure). But as is, there is no way that should be split out, IMHO. Perhaps I should, later, revise the Altabank article as I think it should be done, as one unified article, as basis for further discussion. --Doncram (talk) 21:30, 30 November 2019 (UTC)Reply
Proposal: Hmm, I think it might be most productive to just work on this main Altabank article, using sources identified by an editor in the previous merger discussion, developing about everything including the NRHP-listed building, and ignore for awhile the question about splitting or not. So I guess technically I mean restoring the redirect from the separate article, at least in principle, rather than trying to fix the separate one, and just developing one comprehensive article here. I think it might be clear later, or at least easier, to consider whether a new split makes sense. If splitting makes sense, it should be easier to implement a good split in the future when development of better material has been accomplished. I just can't see how, now, to fix/develop in two articles at once, esp. with there being dubious stuff or not-yet-great-writing in place in both now. User:Errant Knight, would that be okay, process-wise for awhile? I would like to proceed like this without pre-judging how things have to wind up in the end. --Doncram (talk) 02:14, 1 December 2019 (UTC)Reply

Move discussion in progress

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There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:Bank of American Fork (building) which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RMCD bot 20:05, 30 November 2019 (UTC)Reply

No, that discussion should be closed, and the discussion should happen in section above, instead, about "after Altabank name change" or whatever, instead. --Doncram (talk) 20:58, 30 November 2019 (UTC)Reply

Community bank or not

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The intro has claimed Altabank is a "community bank", which I now start to question. Wikipedia article Community bank says the term is not clear, but gives guidelines about size maximums. How big is this bank, actually? Also a community bank is supposed to be local / close to its customers. Maybe it is; it is not owned by a huge bank headquartered in New York or Japan or France, at least. A webpage of Altabank does claim it is a community bank, saying it is the largest community bnk in Utah: https://altabank.com/about, under Investor section. --Doncram (talk) 22:18, 30 November 2019 (UTC)Reply

Original name? and more

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There is confusing stuff in the now-separate article. The NRHP document states that the Bank of American Fork was established in that name in 1891, and there was an incorporation in 1903 or so. But there are contradictory, unsupported, and confusing assertions in the article, which states: "Originally called The People's State Bank of American Fork, it officially changed its name to Bank of American Fork in the 1960s. Bank of American Fork purchased and restored the historical building built in 1911 and was listed on the NRHP March 9, 1993." That sentence is footnoted to NRIS which in fact only supports the very end, the date of NRHP listing. Questions:

  • What source if any says this was ever, much less originally, called The People's State Bank of American Fork?
  • What supports about a name change in the 1960s?
  • When did the Bank of American Fork purchase the historical building? And what evidence did they restore it in any way? The NRHP doc establishes it was not operated as a bank since the 1960s, and it had not yet been re-acquired by Bank of American Fork. I currently don't see any source really about the recent development, though i haven't gone through the sources suggested during the merger discussion. [added a bit, --Doncram (talk) 02:19, 1 December 2019 (UTC)]Reply

What's written is confusing to me and I do not currently see how it can be salvaged. It is certainly not about the building per se, nor does it seem to be an account of the Bank of American Fork as a business. --Doncram (talk) 22:34, 30 November 2019 (UTC) I see some of the same text in the Altabank article too. Like i propose above, I'd like to proceed now just developing one good accurate well-sourced article here, and consider the now-separate article to be dead, to be considered a redirect only. --Doncram (talk) 02:19, 1 December 2019 (UTC)Reply