[OSM-talk-ie] Townland Mapping in Ireland (an update)

[Dave Corley]

Hi all,

As most of you on this list might have guessed, given the amount of
townland mapping related mails floating about, the response to this project
has been, in a word, fantastic!

In my original mail below you can see I mentioned that based on the
progress at the time of sending, that we were on track to take 11 years to
finish....in 2025. I can happily report that based on the amount of people
recently pitching in with this project that the eta for completion is now
down to approx....

18 months!!

This is due to the fact that with a load of people chipping in,  we are now
adding just shy of 100 townlands a day to OSM. It just goes to show that
the old adage of "many hands make light work" holds true. In terms of round
numbers, we broke 12,000 yesterday so we are 20% of the way there.

Some other townland related news:

- Donal (IrlJidel) has set up a new map showing the current coverage of
townlands for the country. This map now receives hourly updates (roughly 8
mins past the hour). It also shows the county, barony & civil parish
boundaries that have been added. You can view this here -
http://dev3.openstreetmap.ie/osm/slippymap.html

- Some good news on the GSI sheets, there is a possibility of a set of
replacements for those in the works. Cormac (Boggedy) is in contact with a
library in England that may be able to supply fresh scans that we can use
to replace those GSI sheets as they are simply too difficult for most
people to use due to their quality. More news on this once there's
something to report.

- The FAQ has been updated with many questions which have come up here and
in IRC so take a look there if you have any questions, it may already be
answered for you.

- I'm planning a refresh of some of the content of the videos based on
feedback and pointers I've received. Don't worry if you have already
watched them, or were planning to, I will release a separate video with all
the updated bits collected together so you won't need to go back and watch
them again. Most of the updates relate to a bit of fine tuning or slight
corrections/improvements to the instruction so overall there will be no
huge changes

Finally, to give you some idea of where there is activity, below is a list
of all counties broken into 3 groups, completed, in progress and not being
mapped. This is purely to show that while we've had a great response, there
are still a lot of areas that some attention, so if there is anybody out
there thinking about joining in, don't worry, it's really not that
complicated once you get going.

== Completed ==

Carlow
Longford
Fermanagh

== In Progress ==

Antrim
Cavan
Clare
Donegal
Dublin
Galway
Offaly
Roscommon
Sligo
Tyrone
Westmeath (this is being mapped at an extraordinary rate)
Wicklow

== Not Being Mapped ==

Armagh
Cork
Derry
Down
Kerry
Kilkenny
Laois
Limerick
Louth
Mayo
Meath
Monaghan
Tipperary
Waterford

Thanks,
Dave

On Mon, Oct 13, 2014 at 10:47 PM, Dave Corley <davecorley at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> I wanted to let you all know (though some of you are aware) that we now
> have a wiki page setup that details the process of townland mapping in
> Ireland, from start to finish.
>
> http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Ireland/Mapping_Townlands
>
> Included on this page are:
>
> - Some basic stats on the current qty of townlands in the OpenStreetMap
> database
> - A high level overview of the process from start to finish
> - An eight part video series (which contains 10 videos, I know) which goes
> into every detail of the process from start to finish on a stage-by-stage
> process. Each video is linked separately along with a link to the full
> playlist. The videos total close to 2.5 hrs of guides on every aspect of
> the process
> - Links to every tool and site used in the process
> - A table to add your name for the county you are actively mapping in (you
> can map in as many as you wish)
> - A FAQ which will grow over time as more questions come up
> - A list of links to other resources which are handy to have when mapping
> townlands
>
> This wiki page, and all of its contents were put together to increase the
> speed with which we are mapping these. Based on the current progress, we
> will not have complete coverage of the island of Ireland until 2025, so it
> is hoped that these aids will bring that down significantly.
>
> Is it doable that we could be finished before the 1916 celebrations in Mar
> 2016? With enough people contributing I would hope so. Mapping townlands is
> a slow process, but with more people we can get this over the finish line.
>
> For anyone interested in joining in, I would encourage you to review the
> materials on the wiki page before you start. If anyone has any questions,
> please feel free to send a mail to this list where everyone can see both
> the questions and more importantly, the answer.
>
> I would also ask, that if anyone is active on Twitter, please retweet the
> following:
>
> https://twitter.com/DaCor_ie/status/521778468665970688
>
> Thanks,
> Dave
> aka DaCor on OSM
> aaka @DaCor_ie on Twitter
>