Category talk:Ghost towns in Oregon

Oregon Category‑class

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Ghost towns Category‑class

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Definition of ghost town[edit]

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)[reply]

Henry Chenoweth, ghosttowns.com[edit]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

The same goes for his entries on ghost towns in Ontario Canada. Most of his references are near plagiarisms of Ron Brown's series of ghost town books written from the 1970s to 90s. You will note there are no photos from any of these locations.

The entry on Aultsville is particularly interesting. Aultsville was mentioned in one of Brown's books. I would not call it a ghost town. It's been under water for over 50 years along with seven other communities. It's true a number of buildings from Aultsville were relocated, but so were buildings from the other communities that were inundated. Chenoweth makes no mention of this.

Agreed he's got an armchair interest in ghost towns but has probably never explored them. Doubt he's ever been to Ontario or even lives in Canada. Most Canadians would not use the word "railroad."

Chenoweth's information is not reliable. He may think he is providing valuable a valuable service, but information that's 20-30 years out of date is highly misleading. It would be far more helpful if he simply provided his sources and dates and let people draw their own conclusions on whether or not to explore the area.

— Preceding unsigned comment added by Maxwell2001 (talk • contribs) 21:41, 14 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

My name is Shawn Hall and I have a bone to pick about Mr. Chenoweth. He had an entry under Strawberry, Nevada and the information he put under that was taken, verbatim, from my book "Romancing Nevada's Past - Ghost Towns and Historic Sites of Eureka, Lander, and White Pine Counties." Published by University of Nevada Press in 1994, page 192. There was no citation at all as to his source. This is plagiarism, pure and simple, and my publisher has been notified of this unauthorized copying of protected material. I will now be checking all his Nevada entries for further offenses, which I am sure I will find. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ghosttowner33 (talk • contribs) 16:42, 4 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]