My wife was playing around with GOOGLE recently and found an interesting thing.

It seems that they are picking up on the things we post here.

I wonder why people who are well paid and I would think have better things to do than follow the comments of rail fans and preservationests?

Our words are being turned into electrons for the ages!

Google yourself and you might be surprised what you find there. I did not know that I work for a symphony orchestra or for a Drug company!

Ted Miles

Please tell me your joking...

I am take your pick: an attorney, a chef, or a Jesuit priest.

Yes Ted, I have noticed that responses to questions and solutions to problems have been picked up from here and reposted to "fix-it" sites and other information boards.

On the other hand I have also noticed that internet accounts of events held by many organizations in our field of interest die a very quick death, the descriptions being taken down almost immediately once the events are over. Try to find out who the presenters of programs were, the titles of their presentations, or any other information on what was presented, at most any event over a year ago, and you will see what I mean.

Considering our organizations are supposed to be about "history" it is unfortunate that in many cases the accounts of their own activities don't survive for very long. After many years of watching this phenomenon I have reached the conclusion that writing print articles is a more worthwhile use of time than doing lectures and programs.

PC

> On the other hand I have also noticed that internet accounts
> of events held by many organizations in our field of interest die
> a very quick death, the descriptions being taken down almost
> immediately once the events are over.

That's also due to Google. Things live on the World Wide COBweb for a very long time. We often have people saying "But it says on your website your train runs at 11:00, 1:15 and 3:30 and leaves from Elbe..." We then reply "Uh, can you send me the url for that page?" Invariably it turns out to be some newspaper article, or travel site, or old magazine article written 10 years ago. They don't know enough to differentiate between our site and other sites.

I actually had to call up a local hosting company for the Dinner Train we used to partner with and beg them to take down the Dinner Train's website since it was no longer operating, and we were getting accused of false advertising.... Luckily, it was a small operation, so he did some research, verified what I told him, and then deleted the info. It was simply sitting there, forgotten.

Promptly deleting info like that helps avoid mis-understanding and confusion.

Many years ago, Billy Graham came to Tacoma. As usual, he attracted huge crowds of followers. Many of his supporters put bumper stickers on their cars, all saying "Billy Graham Crusade: Tacoma Dome Nov 2-4" No year was listed. Care to guess what happened one year later? ;) Yep, a small crowd showed up for the meetings, only to be told they were a year late.

You bring up some good points there Bob. I am the webmaster for an enthusiast organization and it really doesn't take much time after an event to re-edit the internet event notices to past tense and put them in the archive section of the website. Doing so accomplishes several things. It lets people who are thinking about joining the organization brouse a summary of their past events and programs to give them an idea whether the activities are of interest to them. It also helps other groups identify speakers and programs that might be of interest to them. And finally and perhaps most important it says thanks to the people who organized and participated in the events and recognizes their contribution to the effort, unless of course they do not want their names posted at all, which some do prefer.

By the way, one of the best organized internet records of past activities is maintained by the Amherst Railway Society (Massachusetts), a supporter of RYPN. They take their yearly meeting announcement page and retire it to an archive, it provides a very good historical record and causes no confusion with upcoming events.

But yes, I know of a group that has the problems Bob described. Their website featured for several years an announcement about their upcoming annual meeting. It did not mention the year, and unfortunately it was a meeting that was held back around 2003, the site was years out of date. They "lost" their webmaster and he took the keys to the city and nobody left in the organization knew how to unlock the site to make edits. Of course in those years none of them has bothered to call their internet provider for help either.

PC

As your moderator, I can see who is on line watching at any time... The "google bot" is there about 75% of the time.. "Yahoo bot" is also found frequently (but not as often).

Google and the like are here, frequently, watching... As a result we can find references to discussions, both here and elsewhere on a basic web search...

There is a downside... the google bot is always watching... so be aware that what you say here can show up on a google or other search... think about how it would look if say, a future employer googled you. Would it raise red flags? Would they see you as a (probably unpaid) professional, or as a goof.

In the spirit of disclosure, my wife is a Google employee... our dog is a Doogler (dog at Google). They have a really great cafeteria (they call them cafes.. they have lots of them).

Then I should also mention that I'm a Yahoo employee and I work in search, i.e. the kind of search we're talking about here. Yes, everything is forever on the Internet... except the stuff you want :)