Monday, August 9, 2010

Derbyfy the Earth

A few years ago I spent over a couple of weeks creating a Google Map of every roller derby league in the United States. It showed the exact bout location and address, team colors, contact info etc. and was useful for finding leagues that you didn't realize were close to you. Sadly, I had to abandon it because it turned out that there were more leagues that you could fit into one map. Well due to the continued rapid growth of the sport, the numbers problem has gotten much worse since then as www.derbyroster.com is now listing 570 leagues and I know of at least a couple more forming that haven't even reached the list yet. The huge and ever-growing number of leagues with constantly changing information pretty much kills the whole project because anyone trying to wrangle all that information into one map would have to be some kind of idiot, right?



Calling all idiots!

That's right, I'm starting a project to put every derby league on the planet into Google Earth.  The number of leagues and the time involved per league is such that in order to finish this before the world ends in 2012 (you knew about that, right?), I need a few volunteers to help me track down a set of information for every roller derby league in existence and key it in to the Google Earth interface.  Volunteers should have a strong interest in roller derby, a high tolerance for pain, no need for any form of compensation, some spare time to kill and the ability to accept the fact that Derby Helper will shamelessly hog all the credit when this thing is done.  If you're willing to take on a few states, provinces or countries worth of leagues to key in, email me at the contact address listed in the column on the right.  Oh and just kidding about hogging all the credit and no compensation.  I'll list the names of all contributors and they will be rewarded with unlimited nods of approval from derby lovers around the world.

Edit:  Thanks to those who have responded so far, however I need to point out that if you put your willingness to help in the comments section, I have no way of contacting you to coordinate our efforts.  Please send an email! (Address is in the right-side bar.)