Money is Proof

Money is proof. Of what? That is the question. Answer it, and you can understand money completely. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.68.34.230 (talk) 18:57, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
Money is proof of having served one's fellow man. Rogimoto (talk) 00:17, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] GA Review
GA review (see here for criteria)
It is reasonably well written.
a (prose): b (MoS):
It is factually accurate and verifiable.
a (references): b (citations to reliable sources): c (OR):
It is broad in its coverage.
a (major aspects): b (focused):
It follows the neutral point of view policy.
a (fair representation): b (all significant views):
It is stable.

It contains images, where possible, to illustrate the topic.
a (tagged and captioned): b lack of images (does not in itself exclude GA): c (non-free images have fair use rationales):
Overall:
a Pass/Fail:

[edit] Suggestions

[edit] 1a. There are a few spelling/grammar errors.
4. Liquidity: econmy → economy
Credit: aggregrates → aggregates
Problems with precious metals as money (specie): jewellery → jewelry (if "jewellery is the British spelling, disregard).
Problems with paper as money: bills,Malaysia → bills, Malaysia

[edit] 1b. There are many issues under this criteria.
WP:LEAD states
“
The lead should be capable of standing alone as a concise overview of the article, establishing context, summarizing the most important points, explaining why the subject is interesting or notable, and briefly describing its notable controversies, if there are any. It should not "tease" the reader by hinting at important information that will appear later in the article. It should contain up to four paragraphs, should be carefully sourced as appropriate, and should be written in a clear, accessible style so as to invite a reading of the full article.
„
WP:MOS states:
"In a heading, capitalize only the first letter of the first word and the first letter of any proper nouns, and leave all of the other letters in lowercase. Example: “Rules and regulations”, not “Rules and Regulations”." Social Evolution of Money, Money Supply, and The Future of Money need to be corrected.
"Avoid the use of links in headings." This is present in all headings below Characteristics.
"Do not assume that your reader is familiar with the acronym or abbreviation you are using. The standard writing style is to spell out the acronym or abbreviation on the first reference (wikilinked if appropriate) and then show the acronym or abbreviation after it, in parentheses. This tells readers they will probably find it later in the text and makes it easy for them to refer back to it."
*Under History, US, UK, and USA make initial appearances. US and UK need to be corrected as per above, USA changed to US. And both wikified.Y Done
*Under Private currencies, United States needs to be changed to US, as per above, and de-wikified.Y Done
(Concerning wikifying) "Redundant links clutter up the page and make future maintenance harder."
fiat money--wikified in History--redirects to fiat currency--wikilinked in Characteristics-It is a store of value.
Barter is wikified in both the lead and Desirable features-To be anonymous.
Gold and silver are wikified in History, Desirable features-To be anonymous, and Modern forms (gold only).
Money supply is wikified in the lead, credit (two times), Money and economy, and Money supply.
In the headings under Characteristics, it is unnecessary that they include numbers. It is understood from the unsourced rhyme that there are four functions, therefore there need not be numbers. Additionally, there really need not be headings at all. They should simply be bold titles like those below Desirable features.
There may be more issues, but I'll stop there for the time being.

[edit] 2a-b. This is a big issue.
There are very few sources for this article... and I noticed that it's been (minimally) tagged for months. Considering its length and the number of topics covered, there should be at least three dozen references. Of the six references that are present now, not one is formatted correctly. One isn't even tagged as a reference; it's listed in text under Characteristics-It is a medium of exchange.

[edit] 2c. Another big issue.
WP:NOR states that an article can have NO original research. You may know it to be true, but that does not make it encyclopedic. If you can't cite a source, delete it.

[edit] Conclusion
The current state of this article disqualifies it for GA. However, considering the importance of the topic, I've requested that it be the WikiProject Good Articles collaboration of the week (COW). Pending the results of that nomination this GA nomination is being put on hold. If the nomination for COW does not go through, the GA nomination will be failed unless there is significant progress in correcting the above issues. The hold period will be no more than seven days. --LaraLoveTalk/Contribs 06:51, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] GA Review: Missing coverage areas/Further suggestions

[edit] Characteristics of money
It seems to me that there are some key coverage areas that are missing from this article. Each of these above points is probably worth an article in and of themselves, but the main money article should at least let the reader know that these issues have to be considered for a fuller understanding of money.
Taking each of the 4 characteristics, one by one, I note:
Medium of exchange
PPP (Purchasing power parity) not mentioned - this is the theoretical basis for calculating exchange rates between currencies.
role of interest rate in exchange rates
management of exchange rates. Governments (and sometimes private funds or consortiums) attempt to manage the exchange rate. Their methods vary in terms of their method of control and their method of calculating a desirable rate. Methods of control include: rates fixed by government agencies, manipulation of interest rates, manipulation of government spending, purchase of excess currency, sale of currency to increase supply. Methods for calculating a fair rate would include pegging to a more stable currency or commodity, pegging to a currency basket, and various kinds of models based on PPP or national economic statistics.
Unit of account
book value vs market value - two ways of accounting using money. This raises two issues:
the trade off between tracking cash flow (requires book value) vs. real value (requires market value)
objective vs. subjective measures of account (validity of measure)
present vs. future value - factoring in the time value of money
money systems within small groups - small social groups (e.g. kibbutzim, summer camps, prisons, primary school class rooms, residential mental health programs, corporations) sometimes develop private systems to track and/or trade privileges. These are arguably forms of "money" although they do not have liquidity outside of their small social group.
Storage medium
private exposure to currency fluctuations - those not in a position to control rates, try to limit their exposure to fluctuations via hedging using various sorts of currency derivatives.
impact of inflation and deflation - real value vs nominal value

[edit] Neutral point of view
Credit - only discusses why credit should not be counted in the money supply. There is another side to this argument and it needs to be addressed. Credit is in a gray zone because it makes future money available now. If money supply is a measure of purchasing power, credit needs to be included. If money supply is a measure of national assets or wealth it needs to be excluded. If money supply is a measure of economic health it can go either way depending on whether one is more concerned about demand or supply side effects.

[edit] Article organization
I think the article could be made a little easier to read and evaluate if it were restructured. 18 main topics is a bit much. I might suggest the following reorganization based on the four characteristics? An explanation follows.
Historical and social context
Historical forms
Social evolution of money
Linkages between money and other social institutions
Modern forms
The future of money
Benchmark world currencies
Economic characteristics
Money as a medium of exchange
Desirable characteristics
Commodity based standards (e.g. gold)
Money defined by social contract (e.g. paper money)
Money as a unit of account
Desirable characteristics
Market value vs. book value
Present value vs. future value - time value of money
Money as a storage medium
Desirable characteristics
Hedging to preserve value
Impact of inflation and deflation
Physical decay and commodity backed currencies
Liquidity
Money should be anonymous (this is really a liquidity issue)
Managing the national money supply
Tracking the money supply (definition, statistics)
Credit - when is it money?
Private currencies
Economic impact
The historic and social context of money.
The eight sections History, Social evolution of money, and modern forms, future of money, Social and psychological value of money, Linkages between money and other social institutions, and benchmark currencies are really all about how money functions in a historical and social context.
Split as they are into sections top and bottom, the interconnections between these sections are hard to see. For example, overlaps and redundant information in Social and psychological value, Social evolution of money, Linkages between money and other social institutions.
Benchmark currencies are also part of the social and historic context. Some discussion about what makes a currency benchmark might be merited as well. The list is always in flux so principles will be more important than lists.
Economic characteristics of money.
The content of the Desirable characteristics section should be grouped under each of the four characteristics. They are already, but by putting them in a top level heading the conceptual link is harder to see
The section Money#Economic value of money is primarily about the value of different kinds of money as a medium of exchange.
Managing the national money supply.
The four sections Money supply, Credit, Money and economy, and Private currencies are all about how governments do or should control the supply of money within their economy and why. Their content should also be grouped into a single major section.
Credit is really part of a larger discussion of what should be counted in the money supply.
The theorists listed in Money and economy are concerned primarily with the economic effects of the money supply are focused on the money supply internal to the economy as well as what impacts it and how to control it in a way beneficial to the economy.
Money#Private currencies discusses nations granting rights to print money - this also is driven by a country's money supply management policy
I think this is getting too technical here when talking about the money supply. A lot of these ideas can be expanded in money supply or central bank, and probably should. Leigao84 16:49, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
I agree with this proposed reorganisation JQ 08:41, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Source citations
I know this has already been said, but it can't be stressed enough. This article really needs strong secondary source citations - e.g. well respected textbooks and journal articles. Encyclopedic websites aren't probably suitable unless their academic qualifications have been validated.
Egfrank 10:04, 6 May 2007 (UTC)
I've added a few and will try to put in some more when I get time.JQ 08:42, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Sections
As noted above, there are far too many sections. I've merged "social evolution of money" into "history of money". I've also replaced the scrappy future of money section with one on currency unions. One section that should be reduced to a sentence or two, in my view is that on private currencies. Unless someone disagrees, I'll put it into history of money where it belongs. JQ 23:53, 6 May 2007 (UTC)
Good call. I moved the currency union section into the history section, seeing as it is really the next stage. Hope that is OK.

[edit] Private currency section
JQ - sounds right to me, perhaps it should be moved into the History of Money#Representative money section along with the link to the main article on private currencies.
But it may not be a good idea just to copy it wholesale. The last paragraph in particular, is problematic:
The Big Mac index is not an appropriate citation - its a humorous measure of PPP, *not* something backing a currency.
The discussion about currencies backed with energy or other perishables looks like someone might have confused money with derivatives. (Technically even a bank-note backed by a non-perishable commodity such as gold is a derivative. A derivative is defined as any financial instrument whose value is contractually derived from the price of an underlying). So the question is: what differentiates money from derivatives and what currencies backed by perishables meet this standard?
The transaction volume of private currencies needs a citation - if it really is 12b per annum, it probably at least deserves a mention in the money article.
Egfrank 03:30, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
I agree that we need a sentence or so, not a wholesale move. Average daily turnover in global financial markets is around $1.2 trillion [1], so I don't think $12 billion a year merits a mention unless it is put in this context.JQ 07:25, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
Good point. Egfrank 08:23, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Quotes about money
I'm not too enamored by this section. I think it should be taken out? Leigao84 16:51, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
How about replacing that section with a single link to Wikiquote (Money)? --rich<Rich Janis 09:09, 29 July 2007 (UTC)>

[edit] legality...
this article defines money as having to be legally acceptable, yet in the History of money article it lists cigarettes as an example of money. Which is right? Kingturtle 11:56, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Types of money
I Boldly deleted this section because it seemed to me to restate material presented earlier in a rather unencyclopedic tone. But I probably should have discussed before doing so.JQ 03:40, 15 May 2007 (UTC)