Payphone Project

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About Payphone Project

"Payphone Project" Wiki Substitute - phone number database.

Mark Thomas started the www.payphone-project.com/ website: "The old format listings of numbers from the United States, comprising numbers and stories sent in by contributors. Update 8.6.2007: You can now browse through the database of about 750,000 payphone numbers. The original purpose of this collection was to encourage people to call payphones, and to make random contact with complete strangers. Today, few payphones accept incoming calls. This listing is kept on-line in the hope that it could be useful in matching a payphone number to its location."

Wiki wasn't invented yet, but Wiki is the correct answer, a user contributed and maintained listing of public payphones around the world. In lieu of a Wiki we have the Payphone Project group of flickr.com. The most important data gathered in this group is, of course, the telephone number (conveniently recalled by dialing 1-800-444-4444 on the phone in question) and it's location, such as NorthWest corner of 26th and Terwilliger, Springfield… Ancillary to that data collection, at least on flickr, is an image.

When posting a photo of a payphone, please post "Payphone" and the telephone number in the title. Please locate the payphone using flickr's close-up satelite view map as accurately as possible and GEOTAG YOUR IMAGE! If at all possible, include the address of the payphone (sometimes included on the information card, near the phone's number) in the photo's description.
If location and number are included in the entry, add the tag "Payphone project" and the payphone number in the format xxx-xxx-xxxx. Don't use () parentheses, Mark had originally requested that the number be without any formatting at all. I believe this was to allow sorting the line item records (all within the U.S.) But now, using flickr as a Wiki substitute I believe that search engines would hit on the way people enter the numbers in the search, the most versatile of which is the hyphen separator. So I would suggest that entries such as
7145359926 Kona Motel 331 N. Brook Hurst St. Anaheim CA 92801
be formatted as
714-535-9926 Payphone(enter)
Kona Motel (enter)
331 N. Brookhurst St.(enter)
Anaheim, CA 92801
along with any interesting stories about the phone, or assistance in locating the phone.

If the phone no longer exists as a working payphone, tag with "Out Of Service" or "Payphone Ghost" next to "Payphone Project" in addition to the title or in the description.

Going above and beyond is fine as well.
I have provided three over the top examples:

the payphone in the Nixon Library as a decorative example,
and this pedestrian pointer

the bank of payphones behind King Triton's Carousel within Disney's California Adventure as an example of insetting location and phone number information.
As long as we're going WAY OVER THE TOP, This enticing entree features delightful azure zoom lines over a wide beefy panorama pilaf, topped with a succulent subtle hint of transparent information card, and a side of spam.

The telephone itself is featured prominently and insets are used to assist in locating the phone and identifying its number. The telephone numbers in the photos are macro snapshots of the information card mounted on the phone itself, which are cropped, sized and then pasted into the phreaky phone photo. The location is precisely geotagged mapped, and the address is included in the description and on the photo itself. The number is on the photo and included in the description as well. — You don't have to go that far.

Links to additional information about the phone are encouraged and easily copied from the URL location line of your browser and pasted into flickr's description, which will automatically wrap it in <a href="URL">LINK</a> for you, when you save.

Additional photos can easily be attached in the comments section below your photo by wrapping the flickr URL in square brackets [ ]
The question was raised about close-up detail shots of interesting portions of a payphone - "are macros appropriate here in the flickr.com/groups/payphoneproject group?" It is my opinion that those are fine as insets to the whole (or ghost of, or as much as remains) phone image which include the phone surroundings. Remember, this group is for identifying and locating payphones. Try to snap shots of the environment the phone is located in, post that image, with number and map or address, then link your fascinating close-up in the comments [using brackets] or an inset (or even a link on an inset note) for the illustrious details. This method also works well with "Views from this Payphone" that are even more desireable.

So add the tag "Payphone Project" when your photo is of a whole phone, and tag with the location (mapped with geotag preferred) and phone number (or "Out of Service") is included.

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a flickerized subset of

http://www.payphone-project.com/