How have museums dealt with online criticism by volunteers or members who disagree with museum policies or management and operational decisions? Do you ignore it, or are there consequences for doing it? Do you have policies regarding online trolling or spreading of misinformation?
Aaron Isaacs, editor
HeritageRail Alliance

How many places/organizations have the personnel/resources available to combat and/or online criticism? I can't imagine that a lot of places do. Not every group has people (ala a Kelly Lynch) or people with online profiles in a place like RYPN to be able to correct/counter misinformation or criticism. Hence, on a site like RYPN, people with anywhere from 10 to 1000 posts can be anonymous and spread misinformation without any formal (or even informal rebuttals).

Our group's experience has been issues with misinformation and negative personal opinion being spread by former members across social media. While we have enough friendly "eyes-in-the-field" that report many such postings to us, we can't catch them all. When the info can be hidden or deleted, it is, but then you're bordering on censorship and the free-speech issue. Truthful, factual information is posted, when available, to combat the negative that gets out there. "Haters gonna hate".

Sometimes it's not even the issue of having resources to combat the negativity. The world is such a strange place these days and many things can be misconstrued. Correcting misinformation anymore can really lead into a bad PR debacle.

-Tim

I've been on the edges of a couple situations that escalated into full-scale, business-impacting internet warfare and observed several others.

It can go as far as the disgruntled individual setting up a competing website with a similar name and trashing you, and if they are good, it will show up on Google before yours. Some of you may know the situation I'm speaking of, it literally held on for years.

Within an organization that's mostly volunteer, the passion will always ignite disagreement. The challenge is to set up a method for disagreement to let people vent without feeling compelled to go full-on public to express it. You'll always have 'that guy' that may turn into a loose cannon, with any luck they will be recognized for what they are. The XY&Z Railroad is Unsafe! !!!!

Whether it's board members, volunteers, or customers - it's more than likely to happen, and a very good topic to address at the board level is just exactly what the response needs to be, if any, by whom, and in what manner. The uncontrolled and undisciplined response can be just as damning as the accusation, or more so.

There was one organization, with somewhat "new management" now, with which I was a member and co-administrator of their Facebook presence, that threatened to undertake proceedings to have me removed from the organization simply for my criticizing their complete lack of internet competence and technical savvy--in a PRIVATE e-mail to another member.

I saved them the trouble by removing myself.

Then, to further prove my points, when I offered to transfer administration of the long-running Facebook page to new administrators, they insisted I delete the former page (which had over 6,500 "followers" according to FB itself) while they set up a new page from scratch.

Months later, it currently has ten followers. TEN.

They have instead focused their energies on a new website, believing that will draw in new members.

There are reports to me that several of the most active members/volunteers have defected to another organization nearby, not simply because of this but because of other managerial missteps and rebukes as well. I was told the one member that has since joined was an old Fabebook page follower.

In talking recently with a former NRHS official on other matters, I pointed out that some NRHS Chapters are similarly dragging themselves into the computer age circa 2000 when social media and smartphones are already bypassing that form of online presence, railfan periodicals, etc. He wryly replied, "Some NRHS Chapters and museums are still stuck in 1980."

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If the criticism is over what color the host jackets were on an excursion or what horn is on the locomotive, you can usually ignore them.

If the criticism is of fundamental operating practices or management, you factor in how long the critic has left to live, no matter how long he's been with "the club," then the practicality of the suggestion(s). Otherwise, ignore at your peril.

If the criticisms are from paying clients or customers, discern whether this is a person with unrealistic expectations or not, then consider the validity. People routinely go on Yelp, TripAdvisor, etc. to criticize ten times faster and more often than they do to praise or report positivity--and far too often for unrealistic expectations (they wanted the Orient Express, not historic preservation).

If it's the one I think you're referencing, the competing Facebook page is still active with 358 "followers" and 331 "likes"--although how many of them are from the guy's numerous "sock puppet" accounts is indeterminate. But there has not been a new post in nearly a year, and sporadic activity in the year before that.

The organization's actual FB page has 38,000+ "followers."

The organization has a "Friends of...." page which is functionally dead, with 329 "followers" and the last post in 2020, one in 2017, one in 2016..............

> dragging themselves into the computer age

That is absolutely BONKERS. They don't get the importance of it.

There is a museum ship walking distance from my house, but I feel better connected with a ship 3000 miles away in Camden NJ, because of Ryan Somanski. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC_Ftxa ... IWDw48uyBw

Some obscure light house preservation society in Virginia is also on my radar https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RT9ZpFDEzHs

I also know a whole lot about the effort to preserve Cerro Gordo CA mining town, and that's not anywhere near a 501c3 lol. Like the opposite of a 501c3.

And the story of restoring the Aurora cruise ship (from a team that appeared to be woefully underfunded and tended to "rearrange deck chairs on the Titanic”) til they abruptly went off the radar. Later in the care of the buyer, the ship sunk and was towed to Mare Island.

These get chosen over others for no rime or reason except they are "out there" producing content. There's precious little of that level of notoriety in railway preservation, believe you me, the Youtube algo would be presenting it to me if it existed.

Meanwhile, I've never visited Mt Rainier Scenic Railroad, currently have no plans to, but I'm extremely interested in them from the other side of the country, due to their Facebook updates/posts and online presence. Some places know how to do it right.

Don't overestimate social media algorithms. Unless someone's specifically PAYING them to skew their content to you, you cannot count on them to deliver your desired content, even if it looks like they are........

The old saying applies...don't air out your dirty laundry. If you have members who are trashing your organization online, I would call them into the 'office' and council them that they should bring up concerns to the management, not to the internet. If it continues, I would tend to say, remove them from participation. You need team players and good energy. Why would you volunteer at a place you don't like, wouldn't promote, etc?

The above assumes your organization is in good health with good policies, etc.

At work, we get into discussions of when we have processes that don't work so well, where the customer isn't being taken care of. MY opinion has always been, we should immediately take care of the customer in the most friendly, accommodating, professional manner possible, without troubling the customer with extra work. Then once the customer is gone, we can have a brawl or a meltdown or whatever in the office to settle our issues, and spend whatever time is needed to correct things. But all the customer should see is their issue fixed and go on about your day.

We've had one serious incident due to mistaken identity. Instead of contacting us directly to discuss, they accused the organization and a vetted volunteer in a rant on Facebook. A few of the BOD members are Facebook savvy and caught it almost immediately. An immediate phone call didn't dissuade the accusers but a prompt response from our legal council on behalf of the organization and the volunteer shut it down quickly. The accusatory post was quickly deleted and an appropriate response was posted. We haven't seen or heard about the incident since.

A fast response was vital in minimizing any damage.

The online world is filled with people that make snap assumptions and go off like a flame thrower with the trigger stuck open. And sometimes it's with glee. Ignore your overall internet presence at your peril.

Another related issue is when employees, members, volunteers post on official or semi-official social media sites and reply to customer questions and complaints - that should be left to dedicated customer service employees who know how to deal with questions and complaints in a respectful manner.

I think the biggest problem is who is managing responses when a quesion is made about questionable decisions. I can think of two seperate groups that have the same problem, people are questioning the thought process of owning ____ locomotive when they don't have a good place to run it.

In one case its a privately owned locomotive with no formal ties to any railroad anywhere, but due to the size of the locomotive, people are always questioning "where will it run". The answer from the group has amounted to a "build it and they will come" attitude which isn't really the satisfactory answer that those who ask the question are seeking.

The other case, an excursion line sought the donation of a historic diesel locomotive from a large regional freight railroad. The donation was made, but the locomotive itself is known to have been ballasted on the heavy side since it originally operated in the greater Pittsburgh area. Locomotives of similar size, but ballasted at a normal weight have infamously broken the rails of the owning railroad in question when used in the past. So naturally a question of whether the locomotive can actually operate on the line or not has been raised. When posed on facebook, since one of the officers for the railroad is also an admin in the group where questions are raised, the post is usually deleted because they don't wish to answer the question and put their head in the sand. (Sadly, the admin that thinks the "best answer is no answer" for that page is also a member on this forum.)

Well, that's why you have other media. There's always your own platform. However you better not be the kind of personality who has poor skill at distinguishing reality from exaggerations and convenient untruths, or you can get yourself in bigger trouble.

Or actually not - you can air the dirtiest of laundr by posting in your own media a verified, reasonable, balanced and nuanced view… and letting those other personalities in the comments section do all the dishing of dirt!