As a Director of OSM Ireland (osmIRL) chapter I occasionally get to do nice jobs for the community. Our chapter received a microgrant from the OpenStreetMap Foundation which we are using in conjunction with the agreed community task to map all 5+ million buildings on the island. With the support of this microgrant the chapter deployed the concept of rewarding mapping landmarks with a small token of appreciation for reaching the landmark of 10,000 buildings.

In this case we are giving our contributors a handy mouse mat, which is made with foam and nylon and carries a nifty design. Bias declaration: I designed it!

The background image is simply one part of suburban Dublin, showing the importance of adding buildings to the map. It also shows the campaign name #osmIRL_buildings. We have a task manager here to co-ordinate all this work.

Why is our community mapping buildings? Well after years of focussing on other things with more historic value we had a big discussion about what mapping focus would be scalable, and stimulate most map completeness. We picked something that would help us add more addresses and landuses (especially the human ones). More progress with these will, we hope, allow more commercial and environmental re-use of the database.

How are we doing with this task so far? Well we have almost 1.5 million buildings added, which is 25% completeness. This is why osm communities need to have multi-year projects. Do you want a mouse mat? You can have one if you map 10,000 buildings with us.* The first 18 are on their way to their new owners.

*while stocks last :)