I was just wondering why many railroad preservation and historical groups take down their internet postings of convention and event notices a day or two after the event is over? Does a meeting notice or event summary take up so much space on the server that you cannot afford to let them stay there for a while?

If people encounter the website in the off-season, and next years events have not been posted yet, the details of previous conventions, meetings, and events at least give them some direction for whether they want to watch for your future activities. They also help to generate search engine "hits" long after the event is over. It is also a nice way to say thanks to the people who set the event up. A few groups do keep an archive of their past meetings - NRHS, Amherst Railway Society (one of the sponsors of this site), etc. come to mind immediately and there are others. But why are there comparitively so few that do this?

MX (Obviously Not My Real Name)

I would guess that the reason for taking down notices after the event is past is because if someone looks at the site in July and it still shows a special event in April, viewers may wonder how often the site is updated. Fellow preservationists would cut the group some slack, knowing that volunteers may have limited time for revising the display, but casual visitors might wonder how current the information is. One can make an analogy to seeing political posters still displayed long after the last ballot is counted.

Bob, thanks for your contribution to the discussion. Sometimes I look at the "views" totals and small number of replies and wonder if anyone reads the postings here that have to do with improving public visibility and attendance. It is good to find out that these things do get viewed.

I cannot disagree with the explanation you provided. I have seen plenty of groups with four or five year outdated websites and it does indeed give the appearance the group has died or doesn't care what people think of them. But it takes the webmaster all of a minute or two of work to move the links for last years events to a clearly labeled archive page like this one that gives the public a well arranged and fully explained look at past activities:

http://www.amherstrail.org/archive.html

If you set up the folders and name the pages properly, it only requires setting up one new link (from the archives index) and dropping an old one (from the home page) each year to keep this updated. If you did a good job setting up the page so it showed the entire years events and kept it up to date as things changed during the year, you should not have to make any further changes to it at all. I speak from experience.

Keep in mind Amherst is an independent group, not a part of NRHS or RLHS, and is one of the most successful groups of this type in the country. (Sometimes it is worth taking a look at how successful groups do business, and learning from them, no matter how unfair that concept might seem).

Here is another example, for a group that hosts one major meeting a year: A clearly explained list of past meeting descriptions to provide a look at the group's typical meetings during the off season (see MEETINGS about 3/4 of the way down the page):

http://tugboatenthusiastsociety.org/Pages/tugs.htm

Either of these techniques generate search engine hits all year long and also give the public a look at what the group does regardless of whether a notice is posted yet for any upcoming events.

If all it takes is a little space on the website and if you are already paying for that space anyway, why not make better use of it? A number of participants in this forum have regularly identified the need to get their activities out in front of the public as a significant issue in dealing with the combined effects of aging membership and changes in demographics. If you can't attract people to the front gate none of this other stuff matters. Any ways that you can accomplish that for free seem like they are worth investigating.

MX

In the past, I've kept a timetable on the site to display the yearly events and would add events as they were announced. Likewise, I set up the news page so that most recent updates and other items were on the top, but over time for space and aesthetics I removed the updates that were a month or two old.

One of the important things I've tried to keep in mind while maintaining www.765.org is history--not just literal, physical "the engine was restored in 1979 history" but browseable history, a paper trail of updates and information in addition to making sure that every time the site was updated it didn't hide the actual history of a group that has existed long before the internet.

I wanted to instigate a tool that not only served as a news forum, but also one for public outreach and information. I wanted our actions to be documented and transparent to show members and the public that even when there's not coal smoke in the sky we are extremely active. To do so easily, I instigated a blog type of news section, which serves as online addition to our printed quarterly newsletter Short Lines.

http://www.765.org/Second_Section/Second_Section.html

This way, not only can people be up to date by a cursory examination, they can see that we've been pretty busy over the course of time. Likewise, there are special sections in the site dedicated to outline the recent restorations of NKP 765 and NKP Caboose 141. Visitors can follow the progress and updates as they were originally posted years ago, but now in chronological format with more information.

http://www.765.org/sevensixtyfive/sevensixtyfive.html

To further flesh out that the FWRHS is an organization that has existed for many years, a special section has been dedicated entirely to the 765. For those wanting a cursory history, it's already on the site in a variety of succinct fashions, but it's important for sites and museums to not forget that they have rich, unique, and in some cases ground breaking history that can really give your organization some meat and potatoes to offer the curious and potential donors and investors of time, talent, and money.

http://www.765.org/nickelplate765/



Amen, brother.

Great looking presentations and a superb use of the internet, Kelly. Thanks for bringing them to our attention and providing the explanation of the thought that went into them. Hopefully others that have developed similar techniques for getting the message out to the public will share their thoughts on this too.

This is an area that needs some work in a lot of groups. It usually isn't very expensive to do, but it requires people with concern and a vision to design and execute it effectively. Just look at the daily financial news and you will all see why it is going to be increasingly important in the times to come.

MX

I think the real dilemma here is that almost any time anyone with a contemporary brain sees an outdated website--say, some place listing the events for the 2006 season now--they're going to think that either the operation has died, or that they've found an obsolete website that's now been replaced by a newer site/name they have to go find. Only the most generous of visitors are going to figure out the most obvious answer: that the webmaster quit or died without leaving off the passwords. One organization with which I am involved has not managed to change their website since about 2004 because both the original webmaster and the person to whom he turned over the access info have stalked off and left. And, yes, the site remains static, as a basic embarrassment--I believe there hasn't been one real inquiry made through it or anyone showing up at their project as a result of a web search in all that time.

The most valuable thing any of us can do is enlist (by hook, crook, bribery, or extortion if need be) ANY young or otherwise web-savvy person they can find to help design AND MAINTAIN a website. Get some youngster who needs a school project or class credit. Find someone who wants/has to do community service. Get the child of a member involved. Have them do the initial set-up, and then write an instruction manual for how to update the information, meeting/event notices, upload photos, etc. Said person doesn't have to be a young person--I know a doddering 74-year-old "geezer" that was a top-notch military systems analyst, who now maintains websites for his church, his retirement community, and about a half-dozen other civic organizations to which he and his wife belong--a bird-spotting network, a historic town recreation, etc. It's a perfect job for a competent computer wonk who doesn't get out much because of his arthritis.

Sandy, having gone through the "dead website" problem with an organization where I am a member I can tell you that it only takes a couple minutes on the phone with the technical representative of your service provider to recover your access to the site. Sometimes it doesn't even take that much effort. One local enthusiast group "lost" their webmaster five years ago and their site still shows events from 2003. The guy works for the local railroad right down the street. Apparently this is the traditional "railfan standoff" where none of the guilty are talking to each other any more. Too bad only one person had the password, but they could fix that with a call to the provider (if they have paid the bills).

They could have avoided this if more than one person had information on how to access the website. I would strongly suggest that anyone managing a website for their organization learn to use the "print screen" button on their computer, and also learn to use Microsoft PowerPoint. Use them to make a record of the access settings for the website. Then give the site access information to a couple of the officers.

Open up your web software (Dreamweaver or whatever) and open the "website definitions". At the same time, open a new document in Microsoft PowerPoint. Go through the "advanced" portion of the website definitions that show the settings for access to the server and hit "print screen" on each tabbed page display, then go over and paste that page into Microsoft PowerPoint. Make an album of each screen in the website definitions settings, and then save the PowerPoint file. You can then e-mail the PowerPoint file to each of the other officers in your organization that is responsible for the site. The PowerPoint file does not show the password, it appears as a row of dots, so don't worry, nobody will find your password as the attached file is transmitted across the internet. You can send them the password separately. This way you all wil have a reference copy of what is needed to access the website. It is very quick and easy.

Be aware that maintaining an archive of past activities is completely different from having an outdated and inaccessible website. The archive can be well hidden on the site, it is there to provide a historical record of what your group has done and give additional information to those using search engines to find your group. The cost of keeping an archive is nothing when you already have paid for the space on the server.

I am the webmaster of a site, I knew nothing at all about it when I offered to take it over, I did it because of the lack of others with time to work on it. I still know very little about it, but I have been able to steadily make improvements and I am learning. All it requires is a little effort.

Sorry to be so blunt about this, but it is a lot like the situation of the ALCO WW2 era design staff that all lived in the neighborhood with the Mohawk and Hudson Chapter for decades and nobody could be bothered picking up the phone and inviting them any of them to a meeting. Some of those guys were around into the 1980s. Well it is too late now.

Sometimes these things just require somebody who is willing to try doing them.

MX (Obviously Not My Real Name)