Talk:Tri Counties Bank

Spektred It's a decent start, but you focus too much on trivial info, and not enough on the important stuff. Here's a chunk of info you can use from the Sacramento Biz Journals source, including a source for the year of foundation: "Founded in 1975, Tri Counties Bank has grown through nine acquisitions since 1991. Most recently, it bought Redding-based North Valley Bank in a deal announced in 2014. That gave it 22 offices, including branches in Roseville and Woodland. During the financial crisis, Tri Counties bought Granite Community Bank of Granite Bay and Grass Valley-based Citizens Bank of Northern California." TimTempleton ^{(talk) (cont)} 22:36, 26 July 2021 (UTC)

Hi, when you say "you focus too much on trivial info, and not enough on the important stuff", can you expound upon that? I have more content that I could have added but I didn't because it's difficult to find sources online from before the internet existed. I also did not want to source too much content directly from the bank website. I was also warned against copy-paste so there is a lot of things to watch out for. It's a bit overwhelming. And of course, I don't want to write it all myself. Even though I have more content available myself, I wanted to see if I could submit the draft with a minimal amount of content and then recommend more details get added later as time permits.

I'd be fine if other editors submitted more content to it, but is now the time for that or after its been submitted for review? Spektred (talk) 22:50, 26 July 2021 (UTC)

Spektred By trivial, I'm referring to the bell ringing, the charitable donations ($40k out of $44B income), and the minor branch openings. I'd probably also ignore the PPP loans, since it's cited with an interview, and therefore not a completely reliable source. Since you are connected to the subject, it's harder for you to see how including those less significant items actually weakens the article. You're also not able to write impartially if there are negative things, not that I'm aware of any, but you can see why we have a COI policy discouraging connected editors. The bank otherwise looks large enough to meet our notability standards. If I were you, I'd focus on keeping it simple, with a history including the founding date (and circumstances, if you can source them), and then include all the major bank acquisitions. Add less of the items that an unconnected editor wouldn't add. I can review your progress with you if you ping me when you're done. And I wouldn't get your hopes up about others jumping in to assist - there are too many other articles, and people usually just edit the subjects that interest them. But maybe other interested Teahouse volunteers will see your thread and chime in. You never know. Good luck! TimTempleton ^{(talk) (cont)} 23:33, 26 July 2021 (UTC)

Thank you!!! That's very much appreciated! I'll work on those edits and let you know when it's done! Spektred (talk) 23:36, 26 July 2021 (UTC)

Hi @Timtempleton, I think the draft is now ready for AFC submission but please review again and let me know if you have any other thoughts or recommendations. Thanks! Spektred (talk) 21:35, 3 August 2021 (UTC)

@Spektred: You don't have to limit yourself to online sources. You can use books, magazines, and newspapers as well. Happy editing! GoingBatty (talk) 12:37, 27 July 2021 (UTC)

Thanks. I'm going to see if I can find some non-digital sources from our early history, around the time in which we were founded. I did find some additional acquisitions, so I'll be adding those to the history section over the next few days. It will be good to have these since we are referenced in a few additional articles. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens_Bank_of_Northern_California Spektred (talk) 01:16, 28 July 2021 (UTC)

@Spektred: The lead is supposed to be a short summary of the history section. Almost none of the history that you put in the lead is actually in the history section. I'd merge almost everything to the history section. Start with a thinner lead. Otherwise, it looks self-congratulatory and promotional. Also, few if any of the bank names you red-linked are ever going to have articles, since they are no longer in existence. Populating the draft with redlinks only hurts editors' subconscious perception of notability. You're basically broadcasting that the entities are not notable (in Wikipedia's eyes). I'd avoid putting in any redlinks until the article is accepted, and even then only for entities you truly think will (or should) have an article one day. Also, "Today, the company serves its members throughout California"? Take off the ad copywriter hat. Try something like "As of 2021, the bank had more than 75 branches in California, over 37,000 ATMs nationwide and total assets of approximately $8 billion". But again, none of that is in the article. Add an operations section to flesh the info out. See Bank of America#Operations. TimTempleton ^{(talk) (cont)}

@Timtempleton: Thank you. I have applied most of your suggestions to the draft. However Bank of America isn't really a fair comparison. TCBK only has $9 billion total assets, but BofA has over $2.8 trillion, over 200K employees, plus they have history going all the way back to 1923.

@Spektred: Of course, but I wanted to give you an example so you can see what kind of info goes in the section - I didn't have time to look for a better one. TimTempleton ^{(talk) (cont)} 21:18, 10 August 2021 (UTC)

Update for Lead Section

I made an update for the lead section. Please see draft article to review it.

Latest decline

I see this was declined again. See WP:RS to see why the sourcing needs to be improved. All the PR and links to company controlled info, besides SEC filings, should go - if the info isn’t picked up by independent press, don’t include it. The PR does nothing to demonstrate notability, which is the endgame here. I would have waited before resubmitting. Sorry. Can you wriggle out if this project? TimTempleton ^{(talk) (cont)} 13:45, 12 August 2021 (UTC)

Spektred courtesy ping TimTempleton ^{(talk) (cont)} 13:46, 12 August 2021 (UTC)

Hi, not sure what you mean by "Can you wriggle out of this project?" Spektred (talk) 15:57, 12 August 2021 (UTC)

You face an uphill battle with this project. Success may be hard to achieve. You might want to try to get out of having to complete this. TimTempleton ^{(talk) (cont)} 21:29, 12 August 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for the recommendation, but I would prefer to see this project to its competition, one way or another. If you are asking because you would like to move on to other articles, I will merely say thanks for all your help up to this point, but I wish to continue editing. It seems like the only remaining thing that it's lacking is better sources. The article has only been declined once in the AfC process. Spektred (talk) 00:30, 13 August 2021 (UTC)

I'm happy to stay involved and keep helping you - this is what I'm here for. Your draft is on my watchlist. But I just think that with what you have to work with, it's going to be hard. I Googled the bank to see if I could find some sources you missed, and was unsuccessful. What I noticed is that many of the sources about the bank are derived from press releases, where the coverage just says "staff" in the byline, and offers nothing that's not in the release. This is quite common, as newsrooms cut staff, but what you need is independently written profiles of the bank, to show they are notable. Perhaps this coverage will come from a local publication when you make your next acquisition. TimTempleton ^{(talk) (cont)} 23:15, 13 August 2021 (UTC)

Alright, sounds good. I see that sources from bizjournals.com do have the staff writer named, so I'll add those writer names to the source references.

On another subject, I'm wondering if we still need to keep focusing on acquisitions since WP:ORGDEPTH appears to indicate that acquisitions are generally trivial coverage? The AfC reviewer also mentioned that these are WP:ROUTINE. Our latest acquisition happened just last month, and our PR person is currently out of office today but she will be back on Monday so I can ask her then if she knows of some broader news report on the event. Another acquisition may not happen again for years. So I'm wondering if I should just focus on news reporting for other kinds of events from here on, and not go overkill on acquisitions. Spektred (talk) 00:35, 14 August 2021 (UTC)

Agreed - it would be good to have some other news to balance things out. CEO changes could also be noteworthy. An operations section that I suggested earlier could expand on the business. TimTempleton ^{(talk) (cont)} 00:51, 14 August 2021 (UTC)

@Timtempleton OK, I've made quite a number of edits and added additional sources. Let me know if you have any further recommendations for the article. Spektred (talk) 21:57, 30 August 2021 (UTC)

@Spektred: I made a few minor changes. It's better, but there's still too much unencyclopedic detail. A branch was turned into office space? $2,000 was given to Habitat for Humanity? I know you're struggling to find coverage so you're throwing everything you can find in there, but having those minor details only signals to other editors that there's not enough coverage to demonstrate notability. I'd remove everything that's minor and just keep the best info from the best sources. But it's still not quite there. TimTempleton ^{(talk) (cont)} 02:42, 31 August 2021 (UTC)

@Timtempleton Good call. Those sources have been removed. Let me know if you see anything else that appears minor in nature, its difficult for me to determine what is minor since we are biased about everything in the article. And to us, everything seems significant.

Also, I've been looking at published articles for some other banks in our peer group (by total assets) and I notice that most of them are published with various cited issues. But there are a few without any apparent issues, like this article here so I imagine that our article may be equally trimmed down before it can be approved. My problem is, I personally don't know what to cut out. I think you have a better eye for determining minor content since you are unrelated to the company.

Otherwise, as far as content I'm uncertain about what direction it should go from here. The only stone that remains unturned (to my knowledage) is non-digital magazine stories, but it will take more time for me to source more of those. I had begun to write a section about the history of CEO changes, I could add a Leadership section if you think it would help. Our CEOs have been interviewed a number of times but I'm not sure how notable that is. Spektred (talk) 00:59, 1 September 2021 (UTC)

@Spektred: It looks better now. Interviews only go so far. If it's a notable publication, it helps somewhat to show the notability of the person (that the subject got the attention of the outlet), but to a lesser degree the bank. And interviews are not considered reliable sources, since they are not vetted, so you can only use them so much. One other important thing I just noticed. You want to avoid using press releases. Anything the company says about itself in a press release is considered unreliable, and they do nothing for notability, since anyone can pay to have a press release released. Indeed, having them in the article makes the company look less notable, because nobody picked up their releases and did independent reporting. For the financials, since you're public, you can use SEC filings instead. TimTempleton ^{(talk) (cont)} 21:53, 2 September 2021 (UTC)

Hello @Timtempleton, I've made a lot of good progress but these last two statements here; I can only seem to source them directly from the banks own documentation. They seem significant enough to me, but I don't know if any independent coverage exists (yet).

• "The company’s main and current headquarters building opened in 1998 on Constitution Drive, in Chico, California." (Source: https://www.tcbk.com/about/history-timeline - Historical Timeline) This building HQ location might exist on some SEC filing documents but that isn't an option is it? The SEC would have gotten that address from us.

• "Brokerage and investment management services are provided by Tri Counties Advisors in affiliation with Raymond James Financial Services, Inc." (Source: https://www.tcbk.com/about/company-profile - Company Profile) This seems important to me, but it may not be news-worthy. Should I omit this? The wealth management section seemed valuable to me.

Let me know what you think I should do. Thanks! Spektred (talk) 21:20, 14 September 2021 (UTC)

The SEC reports are fine for financials, basic business descriptions and routine info like addresses. They are theoretically audited and approved by a third party. The Raymond James info is trickier. It might seem that you could just list your page and their page, but then that suggests the info isn't noteworthy enough to have been picked up by the media. If you have future media coverage about your bank, hopefully the reporter will include this info so you can source it. For now, you could put it in with your link, but also include a citation needed template ( {{cn|date=September 2021}} ) to show that you acknowledge that a better source should be used. TimTempleton ^{(talk) (cont)} 19:09, 15 September 2021 (UTC)

@Timtempleton: OK, those changes have been made. There are 7 sources from American City Business Journals, and 5 sources from Chico Enterprise-Record, 2 SEC filings and 2 stories from the The Wall Street Transcript which is both a magazine and an online news source, and various kinds of other sources. All the press releases have been removed, and I think I got rid of all the WP:ROUTINE news items too, but it's still difficult for me to know for sure since I have COI with the subject. The only remaining thing that sticks out to me is source #8. It's a 1981 Annual Report from the SEC, and I no longer see it archived on the SEC website but the bank documented it on their website, so I linked to it from there. Not sure what else to do about it? Let me know if the citation syntax is fine.

Other than that, I think it's ready for resubmission. Let me know if you see any other areas of concern. Thanks! Spektred (talk) 19:42, 16 September 2021 (UTC)

@Spektred: I did some additional editing to tighten it up and make it less promotional. I removed as much as I could that made it look like it was written by an insider trying to promote the bank. You don't know what will trigger a rejection. Better to be extremely conservative, than have all of this be for nothing. I toyed with the idea of deleting the philanthropy section altogether, since that's a small number, clearly self-serving, and makes the bank look smaller, but maybe against my better judgement I compromised by aggregating everything and removing the details. If the reviewing editor sees this and feels that section should be deleted, I'd have no objection. Otherwise I think the bank just squeaks by for notability. Good luck! TimTempleton ^{(talk) (cont)} 22:26, 16 September 2021 (UTC)

Hi @Spektred and @Timtempleton - I'm reviewing the article now and I noticed that you decided to delete the philanthropy section. I could go either way on that one, but I think it is OK to include some of that information, just perhaps not to such detail. For example, in the history section, you could have a sentence or two (no more) toward the end saying something to the effect of, "Tri Counties Bank has engaged in various philanthropic efforts on the local level over the years, including etc etc etc." The key is to make sure it does not sound promotional, just putting the facts out there.

I would also say that we need to work on the prose of the history section. It is very dry at the moment, as each new sentence, which also starts on a new line, begins with "In 19/20xx, TCB etc etc." That makes for tough reading. We need to format that a bit better to make it easier for the reader.

All of that said, I do agree that it just squeaks by for notability. I'm going to go ahead and publish the article and add an improvement tag or two. If there are no objections, I may help out with that history section as well, although I am going on a two-week vacation in a couple of days, so I may not contribute much during that time. - Pax Verbum 04:03, 12 October 2021 (UTC)

@Pax85: Thank you Pax! I have to agree, the history section could be made easier to read. No objections from us. Please feel free to edit the copy so it reads in a less repetitive way. You guys are the experts. Spektred (talk) 15:56, 12 October 2021 (UTC)

Hi @Pax85: and @Timtempleton: The very first sentence in the article, I would like it changed to this: "Tri Counties Bank is an American financial institution headquartered in Chico, California, which constitutes the consumer and business banking subsidiary TriCo Bancshares." The first sentence currently says we are a "subsidiary." This is correct, but it's more accurate to state we are a financial institution first, and a subsidiary second, like other bank articles do. Here is my source for the statement. Let me know if this sounds fine. Thanks Spektred (talk) 21:58, 28 October 2021 (UTC)

Simple Updates to Sentence Structure

I've made a few simple updates here as a fairly experienced copywriter/editor. It seems like a solid-enough piece of copy that I believe the banner at the top stating it needs edits for readability is no longer necessary. I do notice the comment above discusses the dryness of the History section, which could certainly be revamped, but I believe it makes for a very clear read and an encyclopedia need not seek to be "less dry" if it seeks to report factual information. But, I digress and can begin addressing some of that dryness if necessary.

Spitball Champion (talk) 21:19, 6 January 2022 (UTC)

Agree – I also think the banner should be removed, but it's not up to me. The user who placed it there was named Pax85. Perhaps someone can ping him, or perhaps someone with enough power can remove it without bugging him. Spektred (talk) 16:51, 14 April 2022 (UTC)

Commons files used on this page or its Wikidata item have been nominated for speedy deletion

The following Wikimedia Commons files used on this page or its Wikidata item have been nominated for speedy deletion:

• Tri Counties Bank Campus Building 2016.jpg
• Tri Counties Bank regional headquarters in Roseville.jpg

You can see the reasons for deletion at the file description pages linked above. —Community Tech bot (talk) 10:09, 15 January 2022 (UTC)

Resolved – This was resolved on Wikimedia Commons, the images are no longer up for deletion. Copyright was confirmed. Spektred (talk) 16:53, 14 April 2022 (UTC)