Originally posted on opensource.com and licensed under Creative Commons BY-SA.

Have you ever seen results from your community engagement and realized the impact of your efforts? We recently told you about the LocalWiki project and shared some of the results from the Triangle Wiki day event. But then our friends at Code for America took it a step further.

The co-founders of LocalWiki were in the Code for America offices last week to see how they could build on the success of the Code Across America event. They took the data–633 page edits, 100 maps, and 138 new photos–and amplified it.

The enthusiasm from the event is captured in a simple graph that tracks edits since the start of the TriangleWiki project in October 2011. You’ll notice a significant spike on February 25. It graphically shows the impact of  engaging community members with multiple talents—citizens, writers, historians, photographers, and yes, developers. As a result, the impact has been dubbed ‘the brigade effect.’