Mapping Project Status Update

Posted By: John McNeely
Date: 7/13/09 5:13p.m.

Report: outside forum guidelines

In Response To: Massive mapping project completed...for better or worse (John McNeely)

The final step in this project will involve a reordering of the markers on the map. Those who have responded to emails to update their info will be listed in the first group of P-15s and P19s in alphabetical order. Google Maps will show only 200 markers at a time (you change pages at the bottom of the list of names to eventually see all 1,300 markers). I believe that Google Earth will show approximately 1,000 markers at a time. This reordering will ensure that even in Google Maps the first markers seen will be of the Potter owners who responded with current info. There are a number of markers with either no owner name or contact information or both. Those will go in the third and last group as they are of limited value and Google Earth may not even show them. The second group will be everyone else. At the point that the final step is completed, we will be in maintenance mode backing up the map regularly and putting new markers in the proper order that people have added themselves. But we are not at this final step yet. Far from it. We have completed sending out and dealing with the responses of over 350 P-19 owners with properly formatted email addresses. About 140 of those bounced and those email addresses have been taken off the map. We have sent out over 450 email messages to P-15 owners, again with validly formatted email addresses, and over 150 bounced. We have over 50 responses from P-15 owners. Serious challenges at work have limited me to flagging every email response I have received for handling in about two weeks. The next things we have to do are: 1) Catalogue every bounced email address and associate it with the owner's name. We pass this info on to others who may be referencing these same bouncing addresses, so they can clean up their lists too. 2) Add or update the markers of every owner who responded with their desired information 3) Then the final step refered to at the beginning of this status report of reordering the markers, must be completed. One thing that has come up recently that I am excited about is that some owners have realized that they can add a photograph to their marker (it is a link to the file of the photo on a website somewhere). Some are adding their Potter fleet club burgees and some are adding photos of their boats instead. There is no reason you can't do both; I have. I doubt Judy B. in Danville, California would mind my mentioning her marker. It is very tastefully done. You can search for your marker yourself without signing in to anything. If you have a Google account you can add or update your marker yourself. If you wish us to do this for you, you need to send us the web address of the photo itself as well as your name and location. Thanks everyone for your patience with this project that is taking longer to complete than we had hoped. Thank you for your expressions of appreciation and suggestions. To see the map, click on the link below entitled: Worldwide Potter Map. We think it will be worth it when it's finally done. John McNeely