Category talk:Ghost towns in Oregon
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[edit] Definition of ghost town
Discussion of deletion of this category, and the what ghost town means occurred at Category talk:Census-designated places in Oregon#Ghost towns. —EncMstr 19:53, 14 January 2008 (UTC)
[edit] Henry Chenoweth, ghosttowns.com
Kerby, OR has a bogus entry on ghosttowns.com attribued to "Henry Chenoweth", it reads like uncited material with some invention. Significantly (much more than 50%, based on a page of google examinations - see my recent edits for the list I looked at) of the other wikipedia cites of ghosttowns.com are attributed to the same author. As a source it seems extremely unreliable - it is a an advertising site of some description operated by Atjeu LLC. Jbowler (talk) 07:55, 23 January 2008 (UTC)
- FYI, Chenoweth seems to be an armchair ghost towner who gets all of his information from books. The entry on Shelburn, Oregon is from a 38-year-old book. So although it's true the site is an unreliable source, I don't think Chenoweth is in cahoots with the site owners to mislead people or to put down small towns by calling them ghost towns, they simply accept all submissions without checking them. (For example, it places Bonanza in Klamath County though the place that's a ghost town is in Grant County, and Chenoweth has combined the info from both places for his entry. The Zena, Oregon entry is based entirely on the Wikipedia article and links therein, and includes inaccurate information that I recently removed from the Zena article.) Three books on Oregon ghost towns, by Florin, Miller and Varney, however, all mention Kerby. I plan to revise the inclusion criteria for this category with a full explanation in the category's intro. The criteria will include towns that experienced a boom (logging, mining, railroad, etc.) and bust cycle, with a significant drop in population and well-preserved old buildings, and listing in at least two books on ghost towns. The criteria will include full citations and won't just be my opinion, and each place listed will need to have citations within the article as well. Not every small town counts as a ghost town, though some might count as "defunct". I'm a bit skeptical of the three Riverside entries, for example. However, Jacksonville is mentioned often and fits the criteria, though it is certainly not deserted. Katr67 (talk) 14:33, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
