Talk:Virtual museum

Too many links?
Wikipedia is not a web directory (See WP:NOT). There are too many external links on this article. It needs pairing down. &asymp; jossi &asymp; t &bull; @ 17:11, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Comments
I´m glad there is already something about virtual museums, it´s an important field that wikipedia should cover. It now mentions web as a base of what is a virtual museum, but what about museums that are experimenting with VR for example, is that part of virtual muesums? Hope this aspect and some more deep information could be considered in this article. 80.221.5.206 11:05, 5 November 2006 (UTC)bcastro

Yes, virtual museums are an important thing to cover. One might even say that the Wikipedia is, or at least shares may aspects of, a virtual museum. I might also suggest structuring the article a little around headings and themes. The issue of technology is mentioned both in the beginning and end of the article. Does the technology part at the end of the article refer to the paragraph right above? Would a heading such as "Virtual museum pioneers" be appropriate for that section? Perhaps a headings of "Definition" (which may house several different variants of a Virtual museum - as bcastro alluded to), "Technology", "History", and so on, would fit in all the content and help make the article more clear? Miskaknapek 17:19, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Only online?
As of Sept. 15, 2011, the first paragraph is problematic. It says:

A virtual museum is a museum that exists only online. A virtual museum is also known as an online museum, electronic museum, hypermuseum, digital museum, cybermuseum or Web museum. The term used depends upon the backgrounds of the practitioners and researchers working in this field.

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I'm not sure that "exists only online" is the defining characteristic of a virtual museum. Most virtual museums are online, but one can build a virtual museum on a local computer that's not online (not connected to the Internet). For example, one could install Unity on their home computer then use it to build an island with a building containing framed images of photographs by Jonathan Robscheeling. Friends could be invited over to one's home to visit the museum, but it would otherwise be inaccessible to the rest of the world. It would be a virtual museum, yet not online.

As another example, a school might create a private virtual museum accessible only on the computers in its computer lab (but not online).

Also, not all online virtual museums are accessible via the web. For example, the International Spaceflight Museum is accessible only in the virtual world Second Life. Therefore not all virtual museums are web museums.

Let's draft a modified first paragraph. Here's a start:

A virtual museum is a museum, or a part of a museum, that exists only on computers. A virtual museum is also known as an electronic museum, hypermuseum, digital museum or cybermuseum. The term used depends on the context. Most virtual museums are accessible online via the Internet (e.g. on the World Wide Web or in Second Life). A virtual museum accessible online may be called an online museum. An online museum accessible via the World Wide Web may be called a web museum.

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Please discuss and suggest improvements. I won't make any changes to the live page for a while.

Drttm (talk) 22:52, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

"Other online museums" section
This includes entries with no reference and no particular case for being included. It could be weeded to those of special interest due to a particular stated reason. Some entries could also be shorter. The detail should be in the specific article rather than here. —Jonathan Bowen (talk) 18:13, 2 August 2023 (UTC)