User talk:Mikel1777

I appreciate your comments on the Nicoboli article. I did everything I could to make it seem less "advertising-ish" so it's not supposed to read like an endorsement or ad. If you have specific concerns, perhaps you can help. Use the article's discussion page and let's hash it out. Thanks. Kaplansa (talk) 20:07, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Credit Union article

Hey there Mike! Thanks for the excellent work cleaning up and adding references to the Credit union article. Nice job with that; keep up the good work, and have a great weekend. -Mmpartee (talk) 18:30, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for your edits Mike. Your edits would be immensely valuable for a page that doesn't yet exist -- namely Credit unions (United States). Where it is it just leaves people with the confused impression that maybe US law governs credit unions in all 100+ countries where they operate. You reverted an edit of mine in which I explained the debate between those who view credit unions as non-profit and those who view them as making a profit for their members. You did not acknowledge that the US legal definition of credit unions as 'non-profit' is not universal. Formally, any institution that is a non-profit in the generally accepted sense of the term (rather than in US law) is an institutin that relies either on donations from its members, or government or third party donations, subsidies or tax breaks to stay afloat. So your edit is actually leading readers from outside the US who don't know credit unions to believe that they are dependent on hand-outs for their survival. Where I come (Canada) and where I've worked with credit unions (many countries) credit unions successfully compete in a free market economy. They are self-financed and make a profit for their members. If I thought for a single minute that my credit union was a not-for-profit, I would pull my savings out the next day. Managers of non-profits usually have social goals that conflict with treating deposit protection as a priority. Their incentives are geared to raising subsidies, not to protecting my life's savings. I do not deny that this legal fiction in the US exists or that it is valid for the US or that Americans are quite happy with credit unions as non-profits. But the term non-profit has a very different meaning in most of the world, and thank God credit unions aren't seen in that light -- no matter how many times you revert other people's edits to try to justify your own understanding of the world.

I am not going to revert your edits because edit wars are pointless. Just as you have reverted mine, someone else new to Wikipedia will come along in 6 months and revert all of yours. Is that the kind of Wikipedia you want? To avoid it, the solution is to discuss on the talk page first, especially when making major changes, such as those you just made. This is not an article about US credit unions; it is one about the world's credit unions. I have visited credit unions in Nepal, Cambodia, Mongolia, India, Bangladesh, Mozambique, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Trinidad and St. Vincent. They are a little different everywhere. There is no universal 'one-size-fits-all' description of the nature you depict in your new introduction to this article. But face it, you are not really honest in this edit. You are describing US characteristics, and then citing "for example" a US law or other example. Yet you are pretending that what you are saying is universal, without offering any evidence to back this up. The problem is not with what you say, just with where you say it (it should be in an article on US credit unions).

I suggest you create an article on US credit unions and move your content there. While you're at it, you can graciously undo the massive reversions of other people's hard work and more clearly thought out content that you have executed today and 3 days ago, so that we won't have to still be having this argument months and years from now.Brett epic (talk) 17:29, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

It should be noted that the World Council of Credit Unions defines credit unions as "not-for-profits" (see http://www.woccu.org/about/creditunion) so my citing the U.S. definition of credit unions as "not-for-profit" with an "e.g." citation signal was wholly appropriate under any standard as it is consistent with the worldwide council's definition. Mikel1777 (talk) 04:32, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Hi Mike: Thanks for your hard work on this -- and sorry if you felt 'flamed'! Many people hop onto Wikipedia (without opening a user page, which you hadn't) and act like nothing done before them was important. They then disappear as quickly, leaving everyone else to clean up the mess. Having seen your edits and responses in the past day (and your new user page) it is clear to me you don't fall into that category. Welcome to Wikipedia! We need more like you and mpartee and a handful of others, as credit unions are not nearly visible enough here! Thanks for your welcome additions on SACCOs and other international references as well. I've been working (in very small amounts of spare time!) to raise visibility of credit unions on Wiki since early last year and will continue to do so.

On the main point however -- as noted on the talk page, WOCCU details what should be done with the 'surplus' arising from credit union operations in the Nine Operating Principles of Credit Unions, and devotes one of those principles to emphasizing that there must be acceptably large 'surplus' after all costs are dealt with to continuing growing and serving members better. How, precisely, is this 'surplus' different from 'profit'? Perhaps there is not a 'debate' about profitability -- everyone considers the need for it obvious. Perhaps a better term might be a 'conspiracy of silence' in which that word ('profit') is scrupulously avoided by some. I use the word all the time in various credit union forums and credit union people have never offered any objections before. Personally I don't consider profit a dirty word -- it is necessary part of delivering services in a healthy capitalist economy. I also clearly distinguish the great contribution of cooperations -- they focus on a 'reasonable' profit which banks for example focus on 'profit maximization'. To me, that 'reasonable profit' is a major part of credit union positioning in SRI. And non-profits definitely don't build healthy capitalist economies, either. So I guess the fact that about 20% of the banking system in Europe, and 10% in America, are dominated by credit unions is because they took lots of donations from rich people when they started? But I know that some people might disagree with this view.Brett epic (talk) 09:38, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Last year I had a chat with Brian Branch at WOCCU in which he emphasized (to my relief) that WOCCU is very 'business-oriented'. Sadly that has not always been the case. Like every actor in the credit union movement, Canadian and European, they have slipped away from business principles at times in the developing world, and there is a certain amount of wreckage among credit unions in the developing world to show for it (Comilla Model is a classic -- though by no means isolated -- example. Try using the word 'credit union' in Bangladesh! WOCCU would probably not be happy to hear me say that and it's not something I say in wide circles though among development practitioners it is the 1 ton elephant in every room where microfinance is discussed. If you want to label me as from 'the banks' because of what my eyes have seen and my ears have heard, that is your prerogative. But the credit union brand outside the West has taken a real hit and is really suffering; it would be better for all of us if that changed -- not least for credit unions in the West who as I mentioned, are not getting as much business from immigrants from the developing world as they should be. WOCCU is obviously not publicizing the fact, but privately they are very aware of it and will discuss it.Brett epic (talk) 09:38, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for your frank comments on my talk page about the depth on the struggle between credit unions and banks in the US. It is helpful context for me as I am far removed from it. But on a level you may not wish to admit, it does reinforce my main point about Wikipedia's article on credit unions. Every reason you cited had to do with the United States and the interests of US credit unions. With all due respect, if we are ever to succeed in catalyzing a truly global credit union movement (outside the developed world) we can't have those interests defining down to the Nth degree every aspect of how credit unions are viewed globally. The interests and struggles in other parts of the world are simply very different. The arcane distinction between 'non-profit' and 'not-for-profit' would be totally lost on readers from most of the world. For this reason, I believe you should take your contributions to a separate article. Do not worry about whether we can come up with enough content for an article on credit unions globally. We already have enough, and certainly if the two articles were separate it would be easier to deal with the issues around global credit unions without the tail constantly wagging the dog.Brett epic (talk) 17:34, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Furthermore, while you seem to believe this obscure (and arguably unintelligible) distinction to be relevant to the survival of US credit unions, I don't see how that can be. Credit unions have a completely different organizational structure, with completely different stakeholders and organizational goals, from banks. The 'for-profit'/'not-for-profit' distinction is not only factually erroneous, it misses the key points. Credit unions are democratic, member-owned organizations with double bottom-lines. One bottom line is a reasonable profit, the other is community and member development. They go to scale in a manner that is completely different from banks (replication and federating rather than branching and centralization) and reach a different clientele who often are unlikely to be served by banks. They have a completely distinctive role to play in a capitalist economy. How does the emphasis on the idea that they are 'not-for-profit' -- even if that idea could be made coherent to the average person -- play to their strengths? Please tell me -- I ask you this honestly as I cannot begin to formulate an answer that makes any sense to me.Brett epic (talk) 17:34, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Mike, I am an independent microfinance consultant who happens to have cut my professional teeth at a credit union and who happens to understand why some distinctive features of credit unions vis a vis banks could play a critical role in the fight against poverty (if credit unions ever get their sh-t together enough to make that happen). I do not work for either a credit union organization or a bank organization. (If I was working for WOCCU there would still be virtually nothing on credit unions in Wikipedia for you to add to or revert!) You, as you state on your user page, are employed by a credit union organization and are using that as your base for contributing to Wikipedia. Every argument I have advanced to you has indicated why your representation of credit unions in an article on their global identity is legalistic and will be incomprehensible to the average Wikipedia reader. In other words, I have been arguing from a principled position based on the needs of this on-line encylopedia. I have been attempting to define credit unions in every-day language that ordinary readers can understand. Every argument you have advanced has betrayed who is paying you. You are attempting to present to Wikipedia's readers a definition of credit unions that is based on US law and which advances a phrase 'not-for-profit' that while legally correct is highly misleading in a substantive sense. Your argument is like that of a car dealer announcing '1.9%' with the truth buried in text so small no one can read it. You have even gone so far as to impute immediately, without any effort to ascertain one way or another, that because I happen to disagree with you I must be in the pay of commercial bankers. This seems to be the only way you can understand the greatest on-line learning forum on the planet.Brett epic (talk) 18:40, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

With respect, the onus related to this debate is on you, not on me. This debate matters to me because the possibility of hundreds of millions of poor people securing the benefits that real credit unions can offer is tied up in it, whether I have time to deal with your edits in more detail now or whether I have to get back to it later.

The best solution without a doubt would be for you to create a new article on US credit unions, leave the legal arguments in legal documents where they belong, gain some exposure to credit unions in Latin America while you write your Masters paper, and hopefully one day, help out by writing a section in credit union history about the Latin American history!Brett epic (talk) 18:40, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

That's right Mike -- revert my edits, ignore my arguments and insult me until I respond, and then go to you favourite place -- accuse of me of being in the pay of your enemies. What I am attempting to do here is offer you some good advice from someone who has been here a while. My suggestion is that you take it. Wikipedia is a place where everyone has their say and anyone can edit. But the administrators here do watch out for lobbyists. They can tell the difference between edits that clearly advance an interested agenda and those that do not. And if I ever chose to provide citations and facing more arbitrary reverts from you, respond by escalating this, Wikipedia's administrators would agree with me that in the end, the onus is on you to show that your contributions are in the spirit of an on-line learning collaboration. Your transparent lack of that spirit now is putting your work at risk. Having said that, and in spite of my growing distaste for you, I believe that so far your edits (other than inappropriate reverts that you still haven't corrected) have not distorted the article against Wikipedia's norms. They have created a different work in process with different problems that will need to be corrected in future. See the article talk page.Brett epic (talk) 04:28, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

By the way Mike -- although I have frequently been told by commercial bankers that I'm not good enough to consult with them on microfinance because I'm 'just' a credit unionist, I have never actually had a credit unionist accuse me of being in the pay of commercial bankers (credit unionists have said a few other things, but always stopped short of that). This is actually a red letter day and I will celebrate it with a toast. It shows without a doubt that I am making progress in the search for pure truth -- the kind that can finally bring financial services to the 2 billion at the bottom of the pyramid (this is challenge credit unions have made far more progress on than banks, but neither have achieved). It's actually every bit as good as winning an award!Brett epic (talk) 04:44, 17 July 2008 (UTC)