We are building a record of every hot air balloon in the world.
Every balloon below is a gap someone can close. You do not need a date, coordinates or a perfect photograph — you need to have seen it. If you have a shoebox of old balloon photos, this is what it is for.
Nobody searches for G-CJEZ. They search for scarecrow hot air balloon. Look at the picture and say what it is — that is the whole job.
One picture is a record; several are an archive. Different weather, different year, different angle — they all add something.
Separate from the sightings leaderboard on purpose. An archive upload has no date and no coordinates, so it must never move a sightings position — but filling a gap in the archive is worth something, and this is where it counts.
| # | Curator | First photos | Archive uploads | Tags kept | Score |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | g-dash | 766 | 990 | 1 | 6,802 |
| 2 | Dave | 773 | 2 | 450 | 4,772 |
| 3 | G Duke Archive contributor | 306 | 334 | 0 | 2,532 |
| 4 | Mike Clarke Archive contributor | 208 | 222 | 0 | 1,706 |
| 5 | Mel Kirby Archive contributor | 190 | 198 | 0 | 1,544 |
| 6 | Bill Teasdale Archive contributor | 163 | 187 | 0 | 1,376 |
| 7 | Andrew Garrett Archive contributor | 126 | 142 | 0 | 1,056 |
| 8 | Kevin Boon Archive contributor | 63 | 76 | 0 | 543 |
| 9 | Paul Coman Archive contributor | 61 | 73 | 0 | 524 |
| 10 | A Gibson Archive contributor | 56 | 62 | 0 | 466 |
| 11 | Cera168_ | 4 | 141 | 0 | 443 |
| 12 | slowfly.it Archive contributor | 51 | 53 | 0 | 414 |
| 13 | Richard Gahan Archive contributor | 34 | 40 | 0 | 290 |
| 14 | UltraMagic Balloons Archive contributor | 35 | 36 | 0 | 283 |
| 15 | Mark Stelling Archive contributor | 32 | 37 | 0 | 271 |
| 16 | Christoff Deyaert Archive contributor | 31 | 35 | 0 | 260 |
| 17 | Bob Garnett Archive contributor | 21 | 49 | 0 | 252 |
| 18 | Cameron Balloons Archive contributor | 29 | 31 | 0 | 238 |
| 19 | Keith Sowter Archive contributor | 27 | 31 | 0 | 228 |
| 20 | Mark Duffy Archive contributor | 23 | 26 | 0 | 193 |
| 21 | Trev Read Archive contributor | 19 | 32 | 0 | 191 |
| 22 | Greyson | 20 | 25 | 0 | 175 |
| 23 | Ian Grove Archive contributor | 17 | 21 | 0 | 148 |
| 24 | Chris Lane Archive contributor | 16 | 16 | 0 | 128 |
| 25 | George_Madd | 1 | 38 | 0 | 119 |
Scoring: being the first to photograph a balloon is worth 5, an archive upload 3, a tag that survives review 2, and a vote 1 up to 25. Weighted by how hard the gap is to fill, not by how much effort the click takes.