Talk:Hardman, Oregon

Refs for expansion

• http://www.archive.org/stream/oregonendoftrail00writrich#page/262/mode/2up/search/Hardman

Katr67 (talk) 00:39, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

I expanded the article somewhat based on the reference above. Thank you for providing the link! I cleaned up the confusion about the consolidation of the two villages, Raw Dog and Yellow Dog. (The article had made it sound like there was a 3rd settlement.) I found a good resource at ghosttowngallery.com, however I did not cite it nor did I include any information from it. The .doc file from that website has a legitimate-looking time line for the town, however it has no references nor bibliography. I can't even be sure of who authored it.Tsarevna (talk) 11:17, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

There was a third settlement: (1) Dairyville/Rawdog (became Hardman), (2) a mile to the southeast of Dairyville was the original settlement named Hardman, and (3) Adamsville/Yallerdog was a mile to the northwest of Dairyville. The Hardman post office (an entity, i.e. a post office named Hardman vs. a specific building in the present-day Hardman) was moved to the site of Dairyville and retained the name Hardman thus as usually happens in the post office moves, the town became known by the name of the post office, not by its original name.* Thereafter, Adamsville post office closed and the commerical activity of Adamsville combined with that of present-day Hardman. The combination of the two nicknames (the original settlement/post office of Hardman founded by David Hardman did not have a nickname) yielded the nickname for the former Dairyville/present Hardman of "Dogtown". And I think that's pretty much what it says in the original version. I drew a map and that really helped me figure it all out. Like I said below, I'd trust the version of history in the 2003 OGN far more than the 1940 OEOTT. Lemme know if you want me to type out a copy of the text on page 444 of OGN, but I'd stake my Mensa membership on my reading comprehension skills. :) *To further clarify: Until the mid-20th century or so, the name of a town did not always equal the name of the post office serving it (again, the town of Dairyville was served by a post office named Hardman) and often the town's railroad station had a third name. Gradually in most places one name of the three would prevail, often with the railroad being the last to change the station name to match the name of the p.o./town. Katr67 (talk) 02:52, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

About trusting EOTT: see my favorite quote at Oregon Historical Society#Legacy about the romanticization{{huh}} of history and the "Oregon story". The context given was Portland, but it certainly applies here. tedder (talk) 03:17, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

Citations Deleted?

Please explain to me why 90% of my citations were erased and replaced with a "citations needed" tag. This does not make any sense.

Also, changing the description of the location of the wheat and livestock ranges was a mistake.

"Wheat farming was established on the plateau around the community, and further south near Rock Creek Canyon appeared cattle and sheep ranches."

was changed to

"Wheat farming was established on the plateau around the community,[when?] and further south near Rock Creek Canyon, the cattle and sheep range begins.[3]"

Firstly, the new sentence contains two tenses, past and present. Secondly, there is no source that states that sheep and cattle are raised in the area today. I specifically wrote the article to reflect this, stating that the ranches and wheat farms "appeared," using past-tense purposefully. This reflects the source that I cited (Oregon, End of the Trail,) which states that historically wheat, cattle and sheep were raised/grown in the area. I cannot confirm, using verifiable references without original research, that any of these agricultural activities occur there today. Oregon, End of the Trail was published in 1940. It cannot be used as a reference to what goes on there today because much may have changed in 50 years. This sentence should be reverted, but the [when?] tag should remain until a source can be found with specific dates. Tsarevna (talk) 13:18, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

First, I didn't erase any citations? Can you show me where I did? It was late when I did it, and it's possible I &%$#ed something up. I simply subsituted my reference template that I use for End of the Trail, as I think it's better because it has many more details and a link to WorldCat. (I use EOTT quite a bit and am quite aware it was published in 1940.)

As for the {{cn}} tags, I prefer that all statements in an article (especially one that I have started) are cited--it makes it much easier for future editors to include their additions, otherwise, as the article is expanded, it is impossible to tell where the uncited info came from. This especially true in places where sources have contradictory information. (BTW, I would trust the 7th edition of OGN over EOTT.) I'm not saying what you wrote isn't true, but citations improve the credibility of the project's articles in general, and especially specifically on ghost town articles where there is a great deal of misinformation/romanticizing out there.

Sorry if I messed up the verb tense, but to say that cattle and sheep ranches "appeared" is strange--someone had to make them appear, so I tried to improve the sentence structure. Also EOTT refers to "ranges" not ranches, implying that people ran their livestock on open rangeland and did not fence them in. So though I see what you are getting at--attempting clarity by using the verb tenses--may I gently suggest, as a professional copy editor, that your attempt wasn't successful. Nor, it appears, was my hamfisted drive-by effort. Feel free, of course, to restore your original sentence, but additional wordsmithing is in order. I'll try to supply some when I get a chance.

Thanks for fleshing out the article. I got bogged down after I started it because I actually found so much info on the area and it was indeed confusing. I was trying to sort out the current status of the community, the history of the community hall, when the school closed, etc. using Google news sources and a dearth of other reliable sources. I also got sidetracked trying to find out if the "ghost town classification system" was ever published in a consistent manner in a reliable source, as people often find the fact that there are people living in "ghost towns" (as they do in this one) contradictory, and I had hoped to clarify that. Cheers, Katr67 (talk) 02:08, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for your reply, this explains a lot of things that were puzzling me. I have been pouring over the revisions and I can't make sense of it. It seems is my fault for the citations going missing. The article is not the same as I wrote it, but I cannot find a revision where all of my citations are present. I apologize for suggesting someone removed them, it seems that my full article never made it to wiki. When I looked at the article next it just appeared as if it had been altered, so I jumped to conclusions. I uploaded it late at night, and I thought my revision with more citations was published but it just isn't there. I will need to re-add the citations as my original text was saved to a hard drive that crashed and was unrecoverable.

I do understand that wordsmithing is in order, and I completely agree. I am an essay writer, and converting my writing style to fit an encyclopedia-type format is a bit challenging. I was hoping to lay down some meat to the bones, and have others correct and add to the work. I am doing my best to stick to the facts, however, many of the references I have available contain sentimental elements and nostalgia, and it can be difficult to completely sanitize emotions out of it when transferring data from books to the article. I do not have the firmest grasp on wiki markup, I will try to put my citations back in the correct way.

I do have a problem that I cannot remedy easily. It concerns the "citation needed" tag for my comment about communities. The Adams Ranch (Adamsville) and "Yellow Dog" are probably different references for the same place. The references I have found that suggest this are unverifiable, namely ghosttowns.com. The information found on such websites are bits of commentary made by locals or former residents. It can't be verified, so I can't cite it. I don't know what to do other than to suggest to the reader, (as I have done in the article,) that the two places could have been considered the same community. If they were not considered the same community, then the article must be re-written to suggest 3 communities were vying for dominance. I have never come across any references, anywhere, that a 3rd community existed in the area. I'm not sure how I can change the article to become more clear, as I really don't know the truth of the matter. What do we do when we don't know?Tsarevna (talk) 10:21, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

Hi, this is just a brief reply to a couple of points (I haven't been around for a while) but thanks for responding so thoughtfully. And I'm sorry you lost part of your article--I hate it when that happens. IMHO, ghosttowns.com should not be relied upon for any info and if you can't cite it, it shouldn't be put into the article until it can. I know this is frustrating, there are lots of things I *know* are true about certain places, but I can't find a reliable source so that I can add the info to Wikipedia. And we do have a source for the fact there are three towns--Oregon Geographic Names. I'm confused why you think there aren't any sources. (See my rather snotty reply regarding that in the section above.) Katr67 (talk) 06:13, 14 July 2010 (UTC)