To err is human

Recent changes to RIP.ie made our layman’s method unworkable. So, we have paused our project for the moment and are reflecting.

One of the key things emerging from these deliberations is that our numbers could be, and need to be, more accurate.

As pointed out here, our one-county-at-a-time approach meant there would be some duplicates across two or more counties. We assumed this wouldn’t be a big deal as our intention was to encourage others to look at trends within a chosen county.

But as people did so and the county graphs accumulated, it became more apparent that comparing trends in one county to those in another might also be desirable. Additionally, duplicates across counties would mean the final national total would be exaggerated – thus undermining this project’s credibility and usefulness.

We realise now a better approach would have been to start at national level, remove the duplicates there and then count the notices in each county.

If we can manage to do that we’ll update our website. One thing is certain though, it’s going to take us some time.