Unsung York County asset: Actual, virtual historical community with hustle
This is the cover art for blogger Scott Mingus’ forthcoming “Flames Beyond Gettysburg: The Gordon Expedition.” Here, artist Bradley Schmehl captures the burning of the Wrightsville Bridge in late June 1863. Mingus is one of many productive members of the York County historical community. Background posts: Best of yorktownsquare.com, 2007 and Resources for York/Adams history junkies increasingly posted on Web.
‘Local history scene is a busy one’ said the headline on my recent York Sunday News column providing a sample of good work going on in York County’s historical community.
The column went beyond all the books and publications that people are putting out… .
A lot of progress is taking place in the virtual world; for example, on this blog and the other three local history blogs that are part of Yorkblog.com.
One stat that stands out surrounding this blog, York Town Square.
More females than males read it by a 53 percent to 47 percent margin.
And more than 35 percent of this blog’s readers are below 17 years in age. This suggests that it’s being used by students for research, which is terrific. And it might be interesting to some that another third of this blog’s readers range from 18 to 50 years in age and the last third 50 years in age and up.
There’s a curious stat, though. We’ve put up more than 1,200 posts since late 2005 – we’ve just passed our third anniversary. But we received comments on only one post out of every four.
That means our viewers are looking for information, not conversation. But we’re glad for you to converse, too. In fact, I’ll redouble efforts to respond to queries that you put forth in the commenting area.
It might interest you to know that sometime around the election, our three-year page view total passed 500,000. This number is growing each month.
So we appreciate you checking us out.
And now, some random info on York Town Square posts:
– First ever post: Journalism goes back to the future .
– Post receiving the most comments: Memories about ‘The Oaks’ pile up.
– Most viewed individual post of 2008: Gettysburg battlefield produces steady supply of news.
– Most viewed category of 2008: Explanations & categories.
