Talk:Tollgate, Oregon

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List of businesses in town

Picking up a thread from Tedder (talk · contribs)'s page. BTW, I don't think its rare that unincorporated communities are self-sufficient. There are two ways a list of local businesses are listed in these articles about small communities. One, someone looks out the door and writes: "There are two gas stations, Joe's and Bob's, a cafe (try the burgers they're really great), a market, a tavern (Ladies Nite is Thursday), and one traffic light." Original research. Not so great. The second way is a NPOV listing of the amenities in the town that is cited using a third-party source, as was done here. In a larger community, this sort of thing is really useless and definitely a violation of WP:NOTYELLOW, but for these tiny places, when the listing is an inventory of everything in the place, it serves to illustrate how small/deserted/not-much-of-a-going-concern it is. I think that's a great thing. Especially if the place was a former boomtown and used to have three times as many businesses on its main street. I can't think of any examples right now, but browse through Category:Unincorporated communities in Oregon and a few examples should pop up. For example, if I were to write an article on Macleay, Oregon, I would note (if I could find citations and not rely on my original research) that it has an early 20th century general store, a cafe, a fire station, a grange hall, a cemetery, and a church that was formerly the local school. And that's it. Very illustrative, especially when contrasted with what used to be there (train station, etc., etc.) That's my reasoning--I don't think the guideline is set in stone in these matters. Katr67 (talk) 23:51, 16 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Examples:

Good: Low Pass, Oregon, Austin, Oregon
Middlin': (needs citation or expansion) Adel, Oregon, Goble, Oregon
Bad: Otis, Oregon, Scholls, Oregon

Katr67 (talk) 00:10, 17 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, Katr67. It's definitely a balance. I actually like the lede of Adel; it's nice prose- needs refs, but gives a description of the community without turning into a stale directory or into advertland. Sorry I don't have more time to reply today- if further information is required, let me know. Otherwise, Katr67 said it better than I could, as always! tedder (talk) 00:26, 17 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]