I never thought to look before, but someone made a page for Travel Town. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Travel_town

Looks like we can add to it, but it's not bad either. And the images are not that old.

Greg

Someone created a page for us, too. I spent some time reorganizing the information in September.

Wesley
National Capital Trolley Museum

I think I'd be cautious creating a Wikipedia article simply as a promotional tool. You have to be careful of "conflict of interest". Here is Wikipedia's guideline on that. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia: ... f_interest

But completeness is a great reason to contribute information about your own organization. Most of the railway museum articles I see are very incomplete, some are even wrong. Of course an article can be made wrong even after you make it right, one helpful Bay Area railfan edited the SMRS entry, coining a new name for the organization!

That said, thre's something to be said for widening the knowledge base. To what depth should information go? Once data about museums is filled out, should there be an article for 4449? 1361? FEBT? SN 1005? After all, there is an article for every episode of the Simpsons! Here's what Wikipedia has to say about that: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Notability http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Depth

There _is_ one for FEBT.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friends_of ... _broad_top

I saw to that as well as one for the Rockhill Trolley Museum.

I did the Shelburne Falls Trolley Museum one, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shelburne_ ... ley_Museum I have noted that a lot of other Massachusetts railroad museums don't have pages and was thinking of making them for all the organizations.

I have tried numerous times to create a page for Bluewater NRHS, but it keeps getting deleted.

[

Wow, five deletions on two articles I could find.
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Log/delete&page=Bluewater_Michigan_Chapter,_Inc.
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?tit ... al_Society

Hmm. I can't see any way to view the articles which were submitted to Wikipedia, so it's difficult for me to make comment. I see where others made comment, but they seem to be form letters and/or robots: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?tit ... =192721525

I'm guessing here, but my first guess is that we're seeing the trail of a Bluewater insider's efforts to create a wikipedia article by copying and pasting text from the Bluewater website to the Wikipedia page, and further it appears this has been attempted several times. I would not say this is the way to go about it.

In a perfect world, the page would be "crowdsourced"; i.e. knowledgeable folks would create the page of their own volition. I'm quite shocked this has not happened, given the size and stature of Bluewater within Michigan preservation, and their unique position of value in having preserved coaches.

Wikipedia is a good place to provide information about your organization, but it is probably not the best marketing tool. Your organization's website is crucial for that purpose, but there a few other websites that could be used to promote your museum.

We have talked about the Web 2.0 phenomena here before. There are now a lot of websites that have been created to promote and distribute content and opinions created by the public. Some sites focus on user-submitted reviews, while others list events and encourage social networking. These have become valuable tools for people seeking information on how to spend their leisure time.

User Review
Your museum may already be listed and reviewed on some of these sites. The main ones seem to cover specific regions and include the following: Yelp, City Search, and Metromix. It would be unethical to game these systems with fake reviews, but they often allow businesses to provide updated information, photos, and event listings, and there is nothing unethical about encouraging your visitors to contribute reviews to these sites.

Event Listings
Some newspaper websites use these services to provide local event calendars for their coverage area. Listing on one of them will sometimes result in your listing showing up in other places. There are other event-oriented websites that include social networking features so that friends can share their plans and recommendations with one another. Zvents, Upcoming, Yelp Events, and other, more locally-oriented sites are easy to find by searching for events in your area. Most of these services are set up to allow anyone to list events for free. Additional promotional features are often available for a fee.

I suggest Googling your organization's name frequently to see what's out there. Visitors may be blogging about their most recent experience at your museum, and you should be interested in hearing what they have to say. You can also request automatic news alert emails that will go out whenever your keywords turn up on the news sites Google covers.

There is also the realm of Social Networking. Facebook seems to be the warm center of this world at the moment, but few museums seem to have effectively exploited this medium, which really requires user-generated content, participation, and enthusiasm. The California State Railroad Museum recently started a Facebook group, and I am hoping it turns into something.

I wrote one for the Western Railway Museum then somebody else came by and expanded on it.

I guess that shows that people are reading the site!

Ted Miles

I wrote one for the Western Railway Museum then somebody else came by and expanded on it.

I guess that shows that people are reading the site!

Ted Miles