Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Ghost towns/Archive 1

Archive 1

Archive 2

How close are we?

The proposed project has the support of four editors, including myself. Ideally we need at least 5 or six, as those are the guidelines per wikipedia for a consensus, otherwise nothing we decided would have sticking power. I am working on solidifying some templates, which I will post on the main page here for now, anyone who wants to can start adding them to articles in the Ghost towns cats. That will probably help recruit others, and if Katr67's enthusiasm is any indication, the userboxes are going to be a big hit. A mcmurray 18:48, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Way too many stub stypes!

The guidelines for stubs call for at least 60 existing articles for new stub types, with an exception being made for the first stub of a WikiProject, where the bar is lowered to 30. Keep in mind that by using stubs instead of some other method of you are asking others outside your project (and the members of WikiProject Stub Sorting in particular) to help you out. The stub sorters need to keep the total number of stub types to a manageable level which is why they have minimum size guidelines. Also there are the stub type naming guidelines which your stub templates do not follow. These stubs will be heading to SFD in about a week for either deletion or renaming. Caerwine Caer’s whines 23:03, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

New page

A new page, mostly copied from the NRHP project. Also anyone know how to add assessment capability to the talk page ghost town templates. That would be good. Also perhaps adding the scale and some other info on assessment to the main page, I don't know much about it personally and if it's not a stub I usually leave that kind of stuff to other project memebers.

If anyone sees anyway to improve the page go ahead. Be bold.

For now we need to tag existing articles which will help with exposure, as well, of course, as writing new articles, there are countless ghost towns. Maybe some lists may help in the near future. Anyway. Happy Editing and special thanks to the NRHP Project and its members.A mcmurray 01:15, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Also, how do we make it so when a page is tagged it gives the talk page a category within our project, say in Category:Ghost towns in the United States?A mcmurray 06:59, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

I figured this out.A mcmurray 04:16, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Your name and scope

I just tagged Wittenoom, Western Australia with your WikiProject tag. Then someone pointed out to me that this project is for ghost towns in the United States. Once I'd quietly and calmly explained to the walls of my office my opinion of america-centric cultural imperialism and what-not, I decided that I ought to come here and point out that Wikipedia is an international project, and as such, your project name does not match your project scope. You should either rescope the project to include all ghost towns everywhere, or rename the project to "WikiProject US ghost towns". Hesperian 02:18, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

Responded here. I am going to go with rename, unless someone objects in the next ten minutes IvoShandor 11:47, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the civil response to the not-so-civil message. ;-) Hesperian 12:20, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

For anyone who dosnt understand - he is quite a nice guy - I have met him and can vouch for him - he has tagged some articles that I wrote for ghost towns in Tasmania . Oh and thanks from another Australian for widening the scope - we have quite a few in this country... SatuSuro 12:48, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Sofala, New South Wales

I was rather surprised to see a wikiproject ghost towns box added to Talk:Sofala, New South Wales. As I've noted on that talk page, the town is not a ghost town. It has never been abandoned. Please discuss on that talk page rather than here. --Athol Mullen 22:12, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Resolved. Hesperian 05:06, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

Calumet, Colorado

Aside from supposedly being the setting for Red Dawn this ghost town is hard to find - updated atlases don't mention it, and the only information I can find on it is that it was a source of epidote: [1], and the location: [2]. Is this sufficient enough for it to merit an article? -WarthogDemon 22:05, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Hmm . . . since this seems to be inactive, I suppose I'll be bold and see what happens. -WarthogDemon 22:10, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

I am very active, but this project could be more so, but I am around, and much more experienced than I was when this project started. Go for it, I wouldn't mind seeing the end result if you could post it here. IvoShandor 00:14, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

I've went and added as much as I could. :) It's at Calumet, Colorado. I also asked over at the Colorado wikiproject if any of them would be able to help with it. I myself will try to look for more sources and information later. -WarthogDemon 00:38, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Cool, nice job researching so far, these places can be quite obscure. Just a note, the sentence about Red Dawn probably needs to be clarified a bit, what do you mean by "setting behind"? (That is a sentence that might do well with citation too. IvoShandor 00:41, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

That should be "of" not "behind." Poor word choice. Calumet is mentioned on the Red Dawn article but I'll check imdb.com; it'll probably mention it in trivia. -WarthogDemon 00:43, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

IMDB.com doesn't explicitly say it and the other sites think Calumet doesn't exist. :P Should it still have a citation? And if so, would an interwiki reference be acceptable? -WarthogDemon 00:47, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

(unindent)Much clearer now, thanks. Hmm, well the only part I was concerned about was the "Although it was not filmed here," I assume they say that's it Calumet in the movie so that's probably fine and doesn't need a citation but the other part probably does need an external source I would say, I mean anything would work, a DVD special feature or behind the scenes show or review, whatever. IvoShandor 00:55, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Assessment banner templates?

The project banner instructions seem to have disappeared from Wikipedia:WikiProject Ghost towns/Assessment. Could someone repost them? I posted a banner at Cherry, Arizona, but then couldn't enter the assessment. Thanks, Pete Tillman 19:01, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

BUMP. Pete Tillman 19:35, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

BUMP-2 Pete Tillman 14:36, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

Finally figured out how to do this: {spl{WikiProject Ghost towns||class=stub|importance=mid}}

yields:

Cheers, Pete Tillman (talk) 21:56, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

DYKs

There's no explanation of what goes in the Did you know?s section. My articles Kelton, Utah and Ajax, Utah have both made it to DYK. Do I just put in links, or copy the DYK hooks here? Ntsimp (talk) 17:07, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

No response so far, so I was bold and copied the hooks, with the DYK dates in parentheses. Ntsimp (talk) 15:30, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

A good website for ghost town info

• http://www.ghosttowns.com SaintJimmy505 (talk) 01:42, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

New York to Tennessee road trip

So I'm going to be going on a road trip from Long Island, NY to Nashville, TN making one planned stop in Centralia, PA. We're going to be spending the majority of our trip going down I-81 through Virginia. Are there any interesting ghost towns along the way that aren't too far out of the way. An alternate route might be this one, which may be a bit more interesting. I'll be taking lots of photos, so are there any articles that need some photos? ;) -- MacAddct  1984 ^{(talk • contribs)} 04:55, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

I live near Centralia, and it is very interesting. It will be worth the stop. SaintJimmy505 (talk) 01:43, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Category work

I am currently working on trying to reorganize the categories within Category:Former subdivisions of countries, which includes Category:Ghost towns. The term "ghost town" appears to be used for places all over the world, even though it is really a term only used in the United States. Moreover, I am not certain if the term "ghost town" should be used in favor of "former cities" for the United States locations as well, although if "ghost towns" were restricted to abandoned locations and if the "former cities" were for locations that were dissolved politically as well as abandoned, that may be acceptable.

Before I propose merging the "ghost towns" and "former cities" categories, what are other people's thoughts on this? At the very least, "ghost town" should only be used in locations that actually use the term (i.e. not necessarily in Europe). Dr. Submillimeter 09:57, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

We use "ghost town" in Australia too. Hesperian 11:18, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

I see this is from last year, but I wanted to throw in a comment anyway! I've been creating articles on some of the extinct towns in my area (the American Midwest) and have been categorizing them as "ghost towns". This seems a little misleading, though, since as I understand it a ghost town is an abandoned settlement — one that is devoid of people but still has some remaining physical vestige. However: Many of the communities I document are completely gone and nothing at all remains of them. Are these ghost towns? Personally I wouldn't call them that; moreover I've never heard anyone apply the term to any of the no-longer-extant towns in my area. Another point is that some of these towns no longer exist as towns, but there are still people who live in and around the site where it once existed, so calling the site a "ghost town" again seems inappropriate.

For my own part, I prefer the term "extinct town" since it's broader and doesn't carry any connotations about the current state of the community. It simply identifies a town that once existed but no longer does. Huwmanbeing ☀★ 17:05, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

I've created articles at those two "extremes"; one where people, albeit not many, still live (Adamana, Arizona) and one where almost nothing remains (Piedmont, Arizona). I think for the purposes of this project, these can be defined as ghost towns. In fact, there are several "ghost towns", such as Bodie, California, that have a thriving tourism industry. SaintJimmy505 (talk) 01:48, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Elkhorn, Montana

Well, I just finished (mostly) my first article on Elkhorn, Montana. Sorry if I've completely mangled the format or anything, but Elkhorn was one of my favorite places to go when I was a kid so I couldn't help but write the article for it. Please, let me know if there are any improvements I could make. Additionally, I'd be thrilled to find out more about the people that continue to live in Elkhorn. At my last visit to Elkhorn (January '07), I saw a couple trucks and a lot of cabins that were somewhere in between collapsing and being refurbished. (Not to mention, a dog that was so unafraid of/unused to cars I had to get out and lure him off the road with beef jerky) It would be interesting to see whether there's any sort of community there or just two or three ghost town hermits. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Hurfledurfle (talk • contribs) 02:04, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

Changes to the WP:1.0 assessment scheme

As you may have heard, we at the Wikipedia 1.0 Editorial Team recently made some changes to the assessment scale, including the addition of a new level. The new description is available at WP:ASSESS.

• The new C-Class represents articles that are beyond the basic Start-Class, but which need additional references or cleanup to meet the standards for B-Class.
• The criteria for B-Class have been tightened up with the addition of a rubric, and are now more in line with the stricter standards already used at some projects.
• A-Class article reviews will now need more than one person, as described here.

Each WikiProject should already have a new C-Class category at Category:C-Class_articles. If your project elects not to use the new level, you can simply delete your WikiProject's C-Class category and clarify any amendments on your project's assessment/discussion pages. The bot is already finding and listing C-Class articles.

Please leave a message with us if you have any queries regarding the introduction of the revised scheme. This scheme should allow the team to start producing offline selections for your project and the wider community within the next year. Thanks for using the Wikipedia 1.0 scheme! For the 1.0 Editorial Team, §hepBot (Disable) 21:04, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Azerbaijan

Azerbaijan has a couple of Ghost towns as Shusha, Agdam, Khojaly etc all due war with Armenia. It also has the largest ghost tonw in the world - Agdam, a city of 150,000 people but now nothing, thats gotta be a record! We need to get this information in this article!! —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 85.146.213.29 (talk) 14:00, 2 February 2007 (UTC).

Only Agdam is listed in the article as being a ghost town, and that article has a dispute tag on it. Is there a standard of how _long_ a place must be abandoned to qualify? 13 years doesn't seem like a permanent abandonment. Chris 15:53, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Umm, 13 years sounds like quite an abandonment. wp:Be bold and include this! doncram (talk) 23:49, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

A discussion

An important discussion on " Should WikiProjects get prior approval of other WikiProjects (Descendant or Related or any ) to tag articles that overlaps their scope ? " is open here . We welcome you to participate and give your valuable opinions. -- TinuCherian ^{(Wanna Talk?)} - , member of WikiProject Council. 14:34, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Hey, i just skimmed some of that discussion, but it seemed overwhelming in appropriate opposition to any idea that a new wikiproject has to get permission from prior wikiprojects. I noticed new WikiProject Museums added itself to many many pre-existing articles on historic sites within wp:NRHP, in the U.S., and on articles elsewhere, which is fine. It just means that some articles have to start using condensed/hidden versions of wikiproject headers in their talk pages, or it would take too long for readers to get down to any actual discussion on the articles. I agree with sentiments on the main page of this wikiproject, by all means just include any stub that is relevant. Ghost towns are fun. Me, i wonder where is the ghost of IvoShandor. Am i him? Cheers, doncram (talk) 00:17, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

Articles flagged for cleanup

Currently, 757 articles are assigned to this project, of which 90, or 11.9%, are flagged for cleanup of some sort. (Data as of 14 July 2008.) Are you interested in finding out more? I am offering to generate cleanup to-do lists on a project or work group level. See User:B. Wolterding/Cleanup listings for details. More than 150 projects and work groups have already subscribed, and adding a subscription for yours is easy - just place the following template on your project page:

{{User:WolterBot/Cleanup listing subscription|banner=WikiProject Ghost towns}}

If you want to respond to this canned message, please do so at my user talk page; I'm not watching this page. --B. Wolterding (talk) 17:33, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia 0.7 articles have been selected for Ghost town

Wikipedia 0.7 is a collection of English Wikipedia articles due to be released on DVD, and available for free download, later this year. The Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team has made an automated selection of articles for Version 0.7.

We would like to ask you to review the articles selected from this project. These were chosen from the articles with this project's talk page tag, based on the rated importance and quality. If there are any specific articles that should be removed, please let us know at Wikipedia talk:Version 0.7. You can also nominate additional articles for release, following the procedure at Wikipedia:Release Version Nominations.

A list of selected articles with cleanup tags, sorted by project, is available. The list is automatically updated each hour when it is loaded. Please try to fix any urgent problems in the selected articles. A team of copyeditors has agreed to help with copyediting requests, although you should try to fix simple issues on your own if possible.

We would also appreciate your help in identifying the version of each article that you think we should use, to help avoid vandalism or POV issues. These versions can be recorded at this project's subpage of User:SelectionBot/0.7. We are planning to release the selection before December 2008, so we ask you to select the revisions before October 20. At that time, we will use an automatic process to identify which version of each article to release, if no version has been manually selected. Thanks! For the Wikipedia 1.0 Editorial team, SelectionBot 16:15, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

Extinct Settlements proposal

Please have a look at this proposal for a new project (ExtinctSettlments) and add your votes and/or views. Folks at 137 (talk) 16:46, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

Milestone Announcements

All WikiProjects are invited to have their "milestone-reached" announcements automatically placed onto Wikipedia's announcements page. Milestones could include the number of FAs, GAs or articles covered by the project. No work need be done by the project themselves; they just need to provide some details when they sign up. A bot will do all of the hard work. Click here for more information or to sign your project up.

I thought this WikiProject might be interested. Ping me with any specific queries or leave them on the page linked to above. Thanks! - Jarry1250 ^{(t, c)} 21:53, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

Peer review request for Home of Truth, Utah

I have requested a peer review for Home of Truth, Utah. Please review the article and leave any comments on the peer review discussion page. Thanks, Ntsimp (talk) 14:16, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

Coordinators' working group

Hi! I'd like to draw your attention to the new WikiProject coordinators' working group, an effort to bring both official and unofficial WikiProject coordinators together so that the projects can more easily develop consensus and collaborate. This group has been created after discussion regarding possible changes to the A-Class review system, and that may be one of the first things discussed by interested coordinators.

All designated project coordinators are invited to join this working group. If your project hasn't formally designated any editors as coordinators, but you are someone who regularly deals with coordination tasks in the project, please feel free to join as well. — Delievered by §hepBot (Disable) on behalf of the WikiProject coordinators' working group at 05:31, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

Expanded Fairbank, Arizona

I expanded the article for Fairbank, Arizona. If anyone is still active on this project, please take a look and improve it if you can. Let me know if you'd like to discuss anything I added or omitted. Thanks. --Transity ^{(talk • contribs)} 17:12, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

Expanded Charleston, Arizona

I expanded the article for Charleston, Arizona. If anyone is still active on this project, please take a look and improve it if you can. Let me know if you'd like to discuss anything I added or omitted. I also created a redirect to that article for Millville, Arizona as they are sister towns and Millville is covered in the Charleston article. Thanks. --Transity ^{(talk • contribs)} 16:06, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

Definition

What is a "ghost town"? The dictionary definition stipulates "significant desertion," yet the project description includes "defunct" towns – such as those that have been absorbed. If it's been absorbed, I hardly see how it might qualify as "deserted." It seems to me that, while all ghost towns are "defunct," I don't think it's fair to say that all defunct towns are "ghost towns."

Next – what is a "town" for the purposes of this project? Would a former Native American village site count as a "ghost town"? Or are we sticking with the European definition of "town?"

The (unsourced) article Ghost town indicates that no structures need be present. If that's the case, then it would appear that any archeological site involving human habitation (as opposed to a battlefield) might qualify as a "ghost town", too.

To answer these questions, we might want to start from the bottom up. What would a visitor to this encyclopedia want to know about "ghost towns?" Does this project define "ghost town" in the same way as the typical visitor? How will the "ghost town" category be useful to a visitor? That is, does the visitor find the information he or she would expect when clicking on such a category link?

The answer to these questions, I think, would be to stick as closely as possible to the dictionary definition of "ghost town" rather than take a broader view not supported by common usage. Rklawton 21:54, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

This project has been spectacularly inactive Robert. I tried to get people to discuss it when this started, instead people were content to complain on article talk pages and not come here at suggestions, which is fine, whatever. It seems to me that ghost town has a traditional definition, regardless of the unreferenced article ghost town. Honestly I don't really have the time to trifle over something so insignificant in the scheme of things, so I gave it up long ago. I proposed that anywhere that was a town, village or settlement with less than 5 people, including places of which no trace exists, be deemed a ghost town or defunct town or however its going to be categorized, but I never got enough input here to gain consensus on a definition or categorization scheme, so honestly, I am not quite sure how to approach it. IvoShandor 21:59, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

I think I have a solution. Gary Speck has a class system for defining ghost towns.[3] On his web page he defines them using letters, for example "Class A," or "Class B." He has photographs showing clear examples of each class...

· Class A...barren site

· Class B...rubble and/or roofless building ruins

· Class C...standing abandoned buildings (with roofs), no population, except maybe a caretaker.

· Class D...semi/near ghost towns. A small resident population, many abandoned buildings.

· Class E...busy historic community, yet still much smaller than in its boom years.

· Class F...Not a stand-alone class, but an addition to any of the above. This class usually designates a restored town, state park, or indicates some other “additional” status.

Class F I would use to designate "ghost cities" such as Chernobyl, Ukraine, or Vanport, Oregon, USA. Vanport was designed to be a temporary city for workers building ships in Portland during WWII, so it was quite unusual. Gary Speck also has a definition for ghost towns that sums it up nicely:

"A Ghost Town is a town or community that at one time had a commercial or population center, and is either wholly abandoned or faded greatly from its peak, and now is just a shadow of its former self."Tsarevna (talk) 06:20, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

The definition of the term ghost town is subjective. A criterion for ghost towns was proposed here and the consensus seems to be that if a reliable resource calls a site a ghost town, then it is a ghost town. Some ghost towns have hundreds of people still living in them, but have diminished considerably from their high point. Other ghost towns have reverted to a natural state, without any evidence that there was previous settlement.

Also there are reliable resources that state that a ghost town need not formerly have been a town, but can include camps, mines, mills, hamlets, villages, river settlements, and cities. (from Ghost Towns of Oklahoma and Ghost Towns of Arizona) I'm sure there are also other examples of ghost towns that began as different places.

I would include a Native American village as a ghost town so long as there is a reliable resource that refers to it as such.

As far as Speck's classification system is concerned, I really like it, but I'm not sure everyone would consider his one source as reliable. I actually started using his system to classify some ghost towns, especially on the Oklahoma state list, but now I'm not sure it's a good idea. I'm not sure I could defend classifying ghost towns by his criterion because it's not accepted by any source other than his page really.Narthring (talk • contribs) 03:13, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

Assessment

Please tell me this project's not dead. I'm having so much fun with it. The last few days I did a major assessment push, assessing almost all the articles in Category:Ghost towns in the United States. It looks like most of what's left at Category:Unassessed Ghost town articles is in Australia, which I'm probably not qualified to assess. I would like to put out a request for the few unassessed articles at Category:Ghost towns in Utah, which I left unassessed mainly due to conflict of interest concerns, since I've edited them. If anyone is there, could you please assess these few articles? It's really a quick job. Thanks! Ntsimp (talk) 16:22, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for working to get the ghost town articles assessed! I don't think the project's dead, though as with most projects there are busy periods and slow periods. Lately I've been trying to expand articles on a few of the extinct towns in my area, and I know there's been some activity in other regions too. Huwmanbeing ☀★ 16:40, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

I've been working on articles for ghost towns in the southwestern United States, especially Arizona. I really hope this project sticks, since I have just found it and am having a lot of fun with it. This is an interesting subject.SaintJimmy505 (talk) 01:42, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

I think a lot of folks just kind of work on their own, I see ghost town articles every once in awhile. I set up the project a long time ago and my ghost town production went down, I still manage one every once in awhile. They basically fall from my interest in history, I come across a lot of red links, or potential red links through my research. Anyway, thanks to every one who has kept this going. The more interest people show the more things will pick up I guess, and Huwmanbeing said I think all projects go through up and down periods (you should have seen it when it first started, I didn't even realize it was live for awhile). IvoShandor (talk) 23:30, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

I wouldn't call this project dead at all, though there isn't a lot of activity all the time. Just from what I've seen there seem to be a few people steadily adding information and new people adding information from time to time. There is still a lot of work to be done. For example, I've noticed that New Mexico doesn't have its own state list for ghost town articles yet, but I've found a lot of good resources on many ghost towns in the state just from researching other ghost towns.Narthring (talk • contribs) 03:21, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

Infobox

A couple of my articles have recently had their talk pages tagged as needing an infobox. We still don't have one, right? There was discussion about this last year here, but did anything come of it? I haven't got the wiki-fu to make such a thing, but it would be really really nice to have. Any takers? Ntsimp (talk) 15:50, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Okay, so for now I'm just going to use {{Infobox settlement}}, even though most of it is superfluous. I don't think most ghost town articles will need to use more of it than I've put on Home of Truth, Utah and Sego, Utah. Ntsimp (talk) 16:30, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

I started using Geoboxes when I couldn't find a ghost town-specific Infobox, with the fields from the {{Geobox|Settlement}} here and simply calling it {{Geobox|Ghost town}}. I'd like to hear some input if this is a good idea, or if we should just use the {{Infobox settlement}} for ghost towns.Narthring (talk • contribs) 03:28, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

Ghost town category removed from many articles

User:Hmains has used AutoWikiBrowser, an automated tool, to remove Category:Ghost towns from ghost towns in Canada. He says if a town has more than nine people, it cannot be a ghost town, and is citing Wikipedia's own article on Ghost town as a source.[4] I have explained that we cannot use Wikipedia as a reliable source to edit Wikipedia, but he has refused to revert the 100 or so edits he made automatically. I am coming here to seek greater consensus (and am planning to cross-post this to the appropriate provincial WikiProjects as well). Firsfron of Ronchester 05:15, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

• Wow, that doesn't seem right. What about this?. Mrmcdonnell (talk) 17:50, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

• Unjust. See this authoritative web page which describes the various classes of ghost towns. [5] There are many, many ghost towns that become re-inhabited, sometimes only by people in tents, after the price of minerals like gold shoot up. I visited many sites in the Sierra Nevada mountains in California in the summer of 2008. Many of the ghost towns are now inhabited by squatters panning for gold because it recently hit $1,000 US dollars per ounce. That doesn't mean they aren't still ghost towns.Tsarevna (talk) 06:25, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

What do you mean, "authoritative"? That's just someone's opinion. Different people use the expression ghost town in different ways, and Wikipedia has nothing like an official explicit definition. There are many borderline cases for which it is hard to decide whether or not they belong in the categories. I think very few editors have had anything to do with this area, and we don't have much of a consensus on such basic issues. So the current state of things is pretty chaotic, but not much editing is being done on ghost town articles anyway. Ntsimp (talk) 13:44, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

• I would say if a reliable resource calls the site a ghost town, then it is a ghost town. That does, however, exclude many places that could possibly be called ghost towns according to the criterion that that resource defines. For instance, some states in the United States have only one reliable resource published on the subject of ghost towns. What if that one resource had never been published, would that mean those ghost towns were not actually ghost towns? Are the only ghost towns in that area the ones specifically stated in that resource?

I would cite the references that call those sites "ghost towns" and re-add the ghost town category. If there is no reliable resource that calls the site a ghost town, even if it seems to be a "common sense" ghost town, I would not readd the ghost town category.Narthring (talk • contribs) 04:01, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

Clemenceau is not a ghost town

See Talk:Clemenceau, Arizona. I hesitate to just drop the Ghost town wikiproject identification from there, as i am not a member (or if i did sign up, i am not active) of your wikiproject. How do you identify what are ghost towns or not, by the way? This one is not a ghost town, in my view, anyhow. doncram (talk) 10:45, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

This project seems moribund to me; we have little participation and haven't had enough of a discussion to get consensus on criteria for inclusion. But at least as things stand, it's clear that abandonment is not necessary. From the project page: "The project covers all articles about ghost towns and defunct settlements. This is to include any towns or municipalities which were absorbed by another entity." I've used this to include both Pickleville, Utah and East Layton, Utah, which are currently populated places. I think the crucial question is: does Clemenceau still exist as a separate entity? The article says it was built as a company town, but included in Cottonwood at incorporation. To me that qualifies for the project. Ntsimp (talk) 15:08, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

I added a comment on the article's talk page. After a brief search for resource I found two resources that call Clemenceau a ghost town, but I wouldn't call those resources the most reliable. Since the question has been called as to whether Clemenceau is a ghost town or not I would not include it unless there is a reliable resource out there that refers to it as a ghost town. (I think there probably is, but I didn't find it.) I have read reliable resources that specifically state that some towns that are absorbed by other towns and cities can certainly be considered ghost towns. Personally I don't share that view, but since there are reliable resources that state it it should be accepted. There are plenty of places I think of as ghost towns that other people would not call ghost towns.Narthring (talk • contribs) 04:28, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

Created Harshaw, Arizona

I created an article for Harshaw, Arizona. Please take a look and improve it if you can. Let me know if you'd like to discuss anything I added or omitted. I also uploaded two photos I took in 2004, and one photo I scanned from 1879 (should be public domain as it has been more than 120 years since it was taken). I also modified Template:Santa Cruz County, Arizona to include a Ghost towns section (like the Cochise County template). Thanks. --Transity ^{(talk • contribs)} 20:05, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

Expanded Contention City, Arizona

I expanded the article for Contention City, Arizona. Please take a look and improve it if you can. Let me know if you'd like to discuss anything I added or omitted. As a note, the sources for this ghost town weren't as plentiful as for Charleston, Fairbank, and Harshaw which I recently worked on, so it's not as robust. Thanks. --Transity ^{(talk • contribs)} 20:49, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

Tiger, Arizona and Swansea, Arizona

I recently expanded both of these articles, and added some images to Swansea. Let me know if you see any issues. Thanks. --Transity ^{(talk • contribs)} 14:46, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

Castle Dome Landing, Arizona

Okay, I get that the article Castle Dome Mountains is about a mountain range. And I get that the articles Castle Dome, Arizona and Castle Dome Landing, Arizona both redirect to Castle Dome Mountains. I also get that Castle Dome Mountains discusses the ghost town(s) mentioned above. I see the arguments for adding the link to the Yuma County template (and adding the ghost towns category to the article), and I see the arguments against doing so.

Give me a little while, and I'll drop a proper article into the Castle Dome Landing, Arizona slot. My references state that the town was first settled as Castle Dome, Arizona, then renamed Castle Dome Landing, Arizona when it expanded to the river (which means I'll handle this as one article that mentions both names). As such, I'm planning to make Castle Dome, Arizona a redirect to Castle Dome Landing, Arizona.

Once I complete that article, there should be no issues with adding Castle Dome Landing, Arizona to the Yuma County template, and there should be no issues with adding the ghost town category to the Castle Dome Landing, Arizona article. Make sense? --Transity ^{(talk • contribs)} 15:37, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

New article created. I copied Mid importance from the older article, but left class unassessed for now. I added Castle Dome Landing, Arizona to the Yuma County template, and added the ghost town category to the new article. I also uploaded a higher resolution version of the 1877 image. Let me know what you think. --Transity ^{(talk • contribs)} 17:47, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

Created Mohave, Arizona

I created a page on Mohave, Arizona. Its pretty short. I also uploaded a picture of the city from the 1890's.--Coldplay Expert (talk) 17:20, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

Harshaw, Arizona improvements

I've spent a lot of time improving the Harshaw, Arizona article since it was first assessed (C-class) back on July 18th. I've added a bunch of new refs, and expanded most of the sections significantly (diff). At this point, I've basically run out of improvement ideas. If anyone has the time to take a look at it, I'd really appreciate any feedback you might have. I'd love to get this article to B-class, and maybe to GA at some point, but I'm not sure where to go next. I think I've exhausted the majority of sources on this relatively obscure town, and I think I've covered just about everything that I can imagine covering.

Any ideas? -- Transity^{(talk • contribs)} 17:47, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

You might try to find an old map that has Harshaw on it. Maps published before 1923 are in the public domain so if you can locate one you can upload a portion of it featuring the surrounding area. You might also be able to expand the background information, such as the Native American tribes that were in the area, the Spanish and then Mexican claim to the area, and the importance of the area itself. Narthring (talk • contribs) 23:09, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the suggestions. As I discovered, maps are not easy to come by. I found two that I was able to download digitally in a large enough format to be readable, and which I believe are in the public domain. One is a USGS map published in 1910 (should be PD based on creation by the US government, as well as publication prior to 1923), and the other is a map from 1883 (should be pd-old as it is more than 120 years old, and presumably published prior to 1923). I added both to the article and to the commons gallery.

Information from before the 1860s also proved difficult to find. I found a little on the earlier settlement of Durazno, and a bit more on the region around what it today called Harshaw Creek. I added information about the known indian tribes who settled in the area, as well as what I could find about Spanish settlements in the area. I think it ties in pretty well, and fills in the earlier history from "discovery" of the land through where the article used to pick up in the 1860s. I didn't want to go too far down the road of Spanish/Mexican interests in the area at a holistic level, because they had no specific interest in Harshaw - just in the entire region. I tried to draw the line in what I thought was a reasonable place.

Let me know what you (and others) think. Are there other areas for expansion/impovement? -- Transity^{(talk • contribs)} 15:31, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

I guess what I'm wondering, specifically, is what is keeping this article from being a B-class article, and what would it need in order to be a viable Good Article nominee? I'm literally out of ideas and sources, having checked everything I could think of on Google News, Google Books, several ghost town (and related) books that I own, the local library, online mining resources, government sources, and everything else I could think of. I still stumble across little ways to improve it from time to time, but I can't think of anything else substantive to add. I haven't been writing ghost town articles for very long, so if there are sources of information and/or topics of interest that I've omitted that are reasonably possible with ghost town articles, I'd love to hear about them.

Ghost towns are hard to research and write about, and as a result, I feel that they are underrepresented among B-class and better articles. I'd really like to move this article up as far as it can be taken. Any thoughts? -- Transity^{(talk • contribs)} 01:11, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

I really haven't had a chance to look at it again yet, and I've seen very little sign of active members on this project. You need something that will attract more attention; I recommend Wikipedia:Peer review. Ntsimp (talk) 03:50, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

(undent) I am just a little unsure about taking a C-class article to peer review. I thought that was for getting an article ready for FA, and I'm pretty sure I'm not at that point yet. And Request for Feedback seems like it's more for less developed articles. I'll give peer review a go, and see what happens. Thanks. -- Transity^{(talk • contribs)} 14:50, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

I've reassessed the article as B-class. It definitely meets that assessment and I think its to the point that it needs to be peer-reviewed for GA-status. I went over the article and reworded some of it to try to help, but my grammar and punctuation isn't pristine. One other place you may be able to find sources (if you haven't looked already) may be a local library or a genealogy library. If you aren't in the area that would be a problem, but often you can find primary sources that have been filed and saved. They also have access to microfiche and microfilmed materials that may help, possibly an old local newspaper that has been transferred to archived material. Also during the Great Depression the WPA conducted interviews in many (all?) areas of the United States and published them. You might be able to find and check those materials and happen across someone who was from Harshaw and talked about it. Narthring (talk • contribs) 18:33, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, Ntsimp and Narthring, for the suggestions, the edits, and the advice. I appreciate you taking time out from your own activities to help with my request. I know there aren't many of us actively engaged on this project, and as such your help is even more valuable, especially on an obscure, relatively unique topic like ghost towns. Unfortunately I'm not local to Arizona, so area libraries and the like aren't possible sources for me. I'll have to check into the WPA interviews, though. It's a crap shoot whether the handful of Harshaw residents at the time would have been included, but it can't hurt to look.

I've opened up a peer review request, and we'll see where it goes from there. It goes without saying that any additional changes, input, comments, or questions that you have are always appreciated. I'd love to get this article to GA. -- Transity^{(talk • contribs)} 20:30, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

Reassess Silver Reef, Utah

I have recently done some improvements on Silver Reef that I think may change its quality. Can somebody please reassess this article? Thanks! --The Utahraptor (talk) 02:16, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

No, it's definitely still just Start class. Needs a lot more work to get to C. You should check out the quality scale and some of the articles in the various classes to get an idea of how this works. I've been planning for over a year to write this article myself; I've gathered a lot of sources. When I get some time I'll work on improving it. Ntsimp (talk) 03:32, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

OK, thanks! --The Utahraptor (talk) 14:59, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

WP 1.0 bot announcement

This message is being sent to each WikiProject that participates in the WP 1.0 assessment system. On Saturday, January 23, 2010, the WP 1.0 bot will be upgraded. Your project does not need to take any action, but the appearance of your project's summary table will change. The upgrade will make many new, optional features available to all WikiProjects. Additional information is available at the WP 1.0 project homepage. — Carl (CBM · talk) 03:21, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Some help with Thistle

Howdy, Could I get a quick eye on Thistle, Utah. I've been around wikipedia for a few years, but this is my first attempt to get a ghost town article promoted to GA status. As I'm not familiar with this projects standards, quirks and unwritten rules =-). Could I get a quick look over, and perhaps a reassessment. I'm nomming for a DYK now, if nobody finds anything here, I'll nom for GA and see where it goes.

Thanks much in advance. Dave (talk) 07:40, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

You've done a great job with this. I just tweaked a couple of things and added a historical census box (unfortunately, small unincorporated communities stopped showing up on the census after 1950). Re-assessed as B-class, since it definitely meets the criteria. I'm not familiar with GA criteria, but I say go for it. Ntsimp (talk) 17:13, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the copyedits. I'm notorious for needing about 80 minor revisions to fix all the errors. Where did you get the population data; Can I get the source? Dave (talk) 17:32, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

I just follow the various historical links at census.gov, though it can be annoying to wait for the large PDFs to download just to get a few numbers. Ntsimp (talk) 23:40, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

I see that. I chased down a couple of numbers and saw what you were referring to very quick. Thanks for doing that. FYI, I do have one more book in the mail. It's possible I'll have some more material when it arrives. Dave (talk) 03:16, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

Definitions

To continue earlier threads. To me, as a Brit, "ghost town" is a specific type of abandoned settlement, and this is supported by the heavy emphasis on North American examples and N American editors, plus a few Aussies (no offence intended). It doesn't seem appropriate to use it for English plague villages, flooded or eroded cities, abandoned caravan cities in the Takla Makan, Zimbabwe, for example. If I had a choice, I'd do the following:

1. rename the current project as "Extinct settlements" ("cities" would cause confusion, it already does on WPCities),
2. link the project to Archaeology and Cities projects,
3. retain the article Ghost towns and restrict its content, creating a new article to take the rest.

There's a breadth of subject matter for this, "ghost towns" is misleading, IMO Comments? Folks at 137 (talk) 20:48, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

Very good ideas — you have my support. "Extinct" has always seemed to me like the right term to use since it conveys simply that the settlement (for whatever reason) is no longer extant, and avoids the connotations that invariably cling to terms like "ghost town". (Speaking personally, I've always considered a ghost town to be a settlement that still has its infrastructure but lacks any inhabitants, which is a fairly narrow category.) Huwmanbeing ☀★ 21:04, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

In a similar vein, does anyone have strong feelings for or against renaming the current ghost town categories to use "extinct settlement"? Example: renaming the current Category:Ghost towns in Indiana to Category:Extinct settlements in Indiana. Having created a number of articles in that category (Granville, for instance), I can say that many don't really fit the definition of a ghost town, either as defined in the dictionary or as used in popular parlance. Some sites, for instance, are still inhabited, but they're simply no longer formally considered settlements... Huwmanbeing ☀★ 17:03, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

Similar thoughts to the original post above - I'm in the UK and the nearest I think we have are the many DMVs, especially in the Midlands counties. I think there'd be uproar if they were tagged as ghost towns though! 86.147.160.219 (talk) 14:01, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

Suggest you have a look at the "Former settlements" family of categories. Dunwich and Segontium are example members.Folks at 137 (talk) 21:01, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

American Old West WP invite

--Chris (クリス • フィッチ) (talk) 18:29, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

Tombstone, Arizona should be removed from this project.

Tombstone, Arizona. Sure, it has a long history of ghost stories and famous westerns, but it is far from a ghost town. There are plenty of people living there. Therefore, it should be removed from WikiProject Ghost towns. Paleo Kid (talk) 15:19, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

It's a long and convoluted discussion you've waded into. What makes a place a "ghost town"? There are other towns listed as ghost towns in Wikipedia that still have populations, so that alone isn't really enough to make a case. Sometimes, a boom town that went into steep decline can be classified as a ghost town. And while some ghost towns are nothing but barren remains, others are museums, recreation sites, historical sites, or tourist sites. In general, the standard that we have been using is if a reliable source refers to a place as a ghost town, then we include it as such. There is no shortage of sources that fit that bill for Tombstone.

That said, while I think it's clear that Tombstone should be associated with this Wikiproject, I also understand why it's kept at arms length in some ways (so to speak). For example, you won't find it on the List of ghost towns in Arizona, and you won't see the category Ghost towns in Arizona on the article. But you will see it tagged as part of this Wikiproject on the talk page. It is different from many other ghost towns, but there's no doubt that it should in some way be a part of what this project is all about. Exactly what part it plays is, I think, a matter of debate.

Lest it be overlooked, Tombstone also spurred the creation of a number of area ghost towns. The Tombstone mines were responsible for the likes of Charleston and Milleville, Fairbank, and Contention City, just to name a few. So it's relevance to the subject and the project are, I think, pretty clear. -- Transity^{(talk • contribs)} 18:12, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

"Category:Settlements in XXX County, Arizona" deleted and replaced with "Category:Populated places in XXX County, Arizona"

Recently, the "Settlements in XXX County, Arizona" categories were deleted and replaced by "Populated places in XXX County, Arizona" (see discussion). While this may work for settlements that are populated, it doesn't really fit with most ghost towns (at least not the ones that no longer have a population). About the best of the new categories that I can come up with for the Arizona ghost town articles is "Former populated place in Arizona" (no county specified).

Does anyone have any other suggestions or concerns before I change the Arizona articles over? -- Transity^{(talk • contribs)} 19:53, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

I tried this out on Tiger, Arizona. I removed:

• Category:Populated places in Pinal County, Arizona
• Category:Populated places in the San Pedro Valley

I added:

• Category:Former populated places in Arizona
• Category:Pinal County, Arizona
• Category:San Pedro Valley

Make sense? -- Transity^{(talk • contribs)} 20:14, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

Since Category:Ghost towns in Arizona is a subcategory of Category:Former populated places in Arizona, I think you only need the ghost towns one. Ntsimp (talk) 23:32, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

Thanks - good catch. So I'll replace "Populated places in XXXX" with just "XXXX" as I go through. -- Transity^{(talk • contribs)} 00:38, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

Ghost town articles have been selected for the Wikipedia 0.8 release

Version 0.8 is a collection of Wikipedia articles selected by the Wikipedia 1.0 team for offline release on USB key, DVD and mobile phone. Articles were selected based on their assessed importance and quality, then article versions (revisionIDs) were chosen for trustworthiness (freedom from vandalism) using an adaptation of the WikiTrust algorithm.

We would like to ask you to review the Ghost town articles and revisionIDs we have chosen. Selected articles are marked with a diamond symbol (♦) to the right of each article, and this symbol links to the selected version of each article. If you believe we have included or excluded articles inappropriately, please contact us at Wikipedia talk:Version 0.8 with the details. You may wish to look at your WikiProject's articles with cleanup tags and try to improve any that need work; if you do, please give us the new revisionID at Wikipedia talk:Version 0.8. We would like to complete this consultation period by midnight UTC on Sunday, November 14th.

We have greatly streamlined the process since the Version 0.7 release, so we aim to have the collection ready for distribution by the end of November, 2010. As a result, we are planning to distribute the collection much more widely, while continuing to work with groups such as One Laptop per Child and Wikipedia for Schools to extend the reach of Wikipedia worldwide. Please help us, with your WikiProject's feedback!

If you have already provided feedback, we deeply appreciate it. For the Wikipedia 1.0 editorial team, SelectionBot 16:32, 6 November 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject National Register of Historic Places/Fall 2011 Photo Contest

WP:NRHP is having a Fall Photo Contest running from Oct. 21-Dec. 4, 2011. I'd like to encourage anybody who enjoys photography, and anybody who is interested in historic places to participate as a photographer, a sponsor, or both.

One way that an individual editor or a project can participate is to sponsor their own challenge. For example, somebody here might want to include a challenge such as "A barnstar will be awarded to the photographer who adds the most photos of previously non-illustrated NRHP sites related to Ghost Towns to the NRHP county lists." To sponsor a challenge all you need to do is come up with an idea, post it on the contest page, and do the small bit of work needed to judge the winner(s).

Any and all contributions appreciated.

Smallbones (talk) 15:33, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

Ghost town AfD

There's currently an AfD for Champion Creek at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Champion Creek. Article could use some improvement as well, but clearly appears to be notable and deserving of a stand-alone article. Yworo (talk) 02:08, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

The result was Withdrawn. Ntsimp (talk) 04:11, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

Disambiguated article titles

This is just a heads up that there appears to be work needed standardising the naming of articles about ghost towns that need disambiguation. Browsing Category:Ghost towns in Colorado I see:

• Alpine, Colorado (ghost town)
• Independence, Pitkin County, Colorado, and
• Tarryall (ghost town), Colorado

The only other category I've looked at, Category:Ghost towns in New Mexico, consistently uses "Settlement, County, New Mexico" naming, which is implied by the statement about article naming on this project page. Thryduulf (talk) 10:02, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

• In my opinion, if there is an active town in the same state, it should be disambiguation with (ghost town) after the state name rather than county. People outside of the state in question are usually not familiar with the state's counties, so noting it as a ghost town is more useful to most readers. To add to the fun, in San Bernardino County, California, there is a ghost town called Silver Lake and an active town called Silver Lakes - in the same county. Ego White Tray (talk) 12:25, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

Featured Article

FYI, Thistle, Utah is scheduled to be on the main page as the featured article for April 17th, with the blurb writeup at WP:Today's featured article/April 17, 2013. Dave (talk) 23:53, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

Comment on the WikiProject X proposal

Hello there! As you may already know, most WikiProjects here on Wikipedia struggle to stay active after they've been founded. I believe there is a lot of potential for WikiProjects to facilitate collaboration across subject areas, so I have submitted a grant proposal with the Wikimedia Foundation for the "WikiProject X" project. WikiProject X will study what makes WikiProjects succeed in retaining editors and then design a prototype WikiProject system that will recruit contributors to WikiProjects and help them run effectively. Please review the proposal here and leave feedback. If you have any questions, you can ask on the proposal page or leave a message on my talk page. Thank you for your time! (Also, sorry about the posting mistake earlier. If someone already moved my message to the talk page, feel free to remove this posting.) Harej (talk) 22:47, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

WikiProject X is live!

Hello everyone!

You may have received a message from me earlier asking you to comment on my WikiProject X proposal. The good news is that WikiProject X is now live! In our first phase, we are focusing on research. At this time, we are looking for people to share their experiences with WikiProjects: good, bad, or neutral. We are also looking for WikiProjects that may be interested in trying out new tools and layouts that will make participating easier and projects easier to maintain. If you or your WikiProject are interested, check us out! Note that this is an opt-in program; no WikiProject will be required to change anything against its wishes. Please let me know if you have any questions. Thank you!

Note: To receive additional notifications about WikiProject X on this talk page, please add this page to Wikipedia:WikiProject X/Newsletter. Otherwise, this will be the last notification sent about WikiProject X.

Harej (talk) 16:57, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

Dudley Town listed at Requested moves

A requested move discussion has been initiated for Dudley Town to be moved to Dudleytown, Connecticut. This page is of interest to this WikiProject and interested members may want to participate in the discussion here. —RMCD bot 00:14, 19 November 2015 (UTC)

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Landergin, Kansas

Hello. Is anyone able to find sufficient information about Landergin, Kansas in Greenwood County, Kansas? I think it must have been named after Patrick H. Landergin. Please ping me or reply on my talkpage if you are interested. Thank you.Zigzig20s (talk) 03:41, 10 January 2016 (UTC)

Support

• I definitely support this project and am very interested in documenting our many extinct towns and villages. As has been discussed elsewhere, there's less than full agreement about what constitutes a ghost town, so the terminology may need more discussion to reach consensus. I, though, am fine with calling any town a ghost town that once existed and now doesn't. --Huwmanbeing 17:32, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

• As am I. Perhaps we can reach consensus here. A mcmurray 18:24, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
  • I need to get the supporters to sign on here and on the proposal page. Then we can get a permanent presence on here. A mcmurray 01:25, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

• I'm in. Yes, we need to work out the definition, as in Oregon we also have Category:Defunct cities in Oregon, which seems to be for places that have been completely absorbed into other cites, or as in the case of Vanport, Oregon, washed away. Which reminds me, Bayocean, Oregon is an interesting story... [6] Katr67 13:27, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
  • Cool link, I love the old photos. Also, thinking of terminology, "extinct town" is one possibility to kick around. It's a fairly broad term I've applied elsewhere to describe towns that for a variety of reasons no longer exist, have been abandoned, have become defunct, etc. One point in its favor is that it doesn't imply "abandoned but still extant structures", which some consider the mark of a true ghost town. Just a thought! BTW, Warrenton, Indiana (my county's original seat) is one long-lost town I've been researching lately -- I thought the bit about the whiskey was interesting... --Huwmanbeing 17:45, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

• Which brings us back around to an earlier point. The difference between ghost town and defunct town/city. As I thought, Katr67 also thinks that defunct city implies that the community has been absorbed into another city. I say we go for consensus on that definition. A mcmurray 17:49, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

• I'll alert EngineerScotty to this discussion. I think he's the one who created the defunct city cat... Katr67 18:21, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
  • I didn't have anything more specific in mind than "cities which no longer exist". The includes several former cities which were merged into a larger city; at least one which was destroyed (Vanport); one which was disincorporated by the court (Rajneeshpuram), etc. Oregon has a few other interesting cases, such as Valsetz, Oregon--a company town from which everyone was evicted when a mill went out of business (the town was subsequently demolished), a few classical "ghost towns" (communities which were more or less abandoned when their economic wellspring dried up for whatever reason), etc. I'm not an authority on the subject, I should note. --EngineerScotty 19:17, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

• It seems that the concept of a category for cities which no longer exist has never been implemented. I think we need to reactivate this idea. For example, there are several defunct communities in South Louisiana that have been swallowed up by other entities. They are definitely not ghost towns. A few are readily recognizable by their old names, but in other cases the names have faded from common usage. In one case (Lafayette, Louisiana), the name was adopted by a different community. I would definitely add places like these to a defunct community list, as I think it would be informative from a historical perspective. Bruin2 (talk) 16:57, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

• "Someone" created a Ghost Town Classification system a while ago to answer some of the questions about what constitutes a ghost town or not. Generally I follow the rule that if it once had a post office and a general store and no longer does, it is a ghost town. Of course there are exceptions to that too, especially when you start talking about towns that are now geared towards tourists. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Hamellr (talk • contribs) 21:16, 7 June 2016 (UTC)

Request for article class review

Hi,

I've been working on improving the article Pawnee, Kansas, and while I'm sure it is no longer a stub, I don't want to re-rate it myself. I would appreciate someone taking a look and redoing the rating. While you're at it, you are welcome to take part in the merge discussion there as well. I will be improving the other article too, and any merge would likely go the opposite direction (but right now it looks like no merge will happen).

Thanks so much! RM2KX (talk) 23:49, 29 March 2017 (UTC)

Talk:List of ghost towns in Michigan

If anyone is active here, I'd appreciate some feedback at the above page. Thanks. John from Idegon (talk) 01:05, 13 April 2017 (UTC)

New Members.

Can we think of new ways to get more users to join WikiProjects Ghost Towns. My idea is to use a userbox on our user pages to get more people, like "I want you to join WikiProject Ghost towns". PW102281 (talk) 15:15, 10 April 2018 (UTC)

This user want you to join
WikiProject Ghost towns.

The new recruiting userbox that I made. PW102281 (talk) 00:04, 12 April 2018 (UTC)