There’s a green one and a pink one and a blue one and a yellow one

16,400 little boxes – one for each person who’s contributed to oldWeather. The area of each box is proportional to the number of pages transcribed, between us all we’ve done 1,090,745 pages. (Higher resolution version).

The final numbers for the Royal Navy WW1 logbooks are in, and I count 16,400 (exactly) people who have transcribed at least one page. As we’ve transcribed more than 1 million pages between us all, some people must have done more than one page – and some people have indeed done very many more.

The colours of the boxes are arbitrary, but whether green, pink, blue or yellow, each one represents a solid and valuable achievement – all our checks show that the transcriptions are being carefully done and yielding excellent data. Each one also celebrates an individual: participants in the project cover an enormous range in sex, age, nationality, personality and motivation; and everyone has, I think, got something a little different out of their contribution.

It’s worth emphasising that the number of pages transcribed is only one measure of contribution to the project – some pages are much harder to read than others, and people also edit the ship histories, provide support and advice on the forum, and act as ambassadors for the project with other communities. I hope everyone is proud of their contribution – the message I take from this figure is that it’s taken all of us to do the job and that we should be pleased with the success with which we’ve supported and encouraged one another to build our joint achievement.