Martin Dittus normally does this sort of analysis!

Just looking at our present counts of everything in #MapLesotho

We count nodes being created, edited and deleted. We have set up the count to feed out of the osm database, so anyone working within the polygon of Lesotho is picked up. Of course GeoFabrick only gave Lesotho “spatial sovereignty” in February 2015, so we have a year and a half of editing to look at here. This shows 824 people involved.

I like to cut off at 100 mappers. When you do that you see that the top 100 have done 97% of the mapping. The remaining mappers listed tend to have very modest contributions to #MapLesotho. The modal value of nodes is in fact 1. I have no idea what causes this, but when I click into their usernames I tend to see a mixture of once-off mapping, dormant accounts, while others are do appear to be active. Indeed, there are even some that I see involved in other HOTOSM and missing maps tasks. So regarding humanitarian mapping I guess #MapLesotho is like a holiday resort, a bit of a hotel to park your single node. And its not a high priority task, so that’s ok isn’t it…?

Between 50 and 100 is an interesting space. Most of the mappers here I have met and taught to map. They are mostly Irish schoolkids from Portmarnock or Basotho Planners. Mapping didn’t really grab this group as their favourite activity, of course they can have up to 10 mapping days and over 10,000 nodes. But those that are not new are attenders, they sit back… others will organise the Mapathons. Others will map alone. They feel safe in the big group and have mainly helped the mapping by making the feeling of a flock. But when we get to the 50th mapper mark we still have have 94% of the mapping done by those above.

The mappers in the top 50 are a blend. There are far more Basotho people in this group. In fact I can see that 36 are Basotho, and 14 are not. Of the 14 around 7 are from Ireland, while the other seven are international crowdsource contributors who simply like #MapLesotho. However, these 14 are more likely to be at the upper end of the register. For example in the top 10 provide 75% of all the mapping, and as many as 5 are international, leaving 5 Basotho. Tshedy is a Basotho Physical Planner and is at the top of the tree for all of us all, but the next biggest Basotho mapper Lineo is 6th.

While its always good to know that such a large number of people are involved I am learning that quality control is best exerted with the top 50 people. The others help out - of course they do. Is every node cherished - of course it is. Is it all a caste system where mappers not in the top 50 can’t get into the club - of course not! However, the end result is best affected by talking to the top mappers, engaging and even debating things with them.

Want to play with the top 100 data?