Who am I?

I’m Ethan. I’ve been involved in OSM for quite a few years, both in mapping and in software development.

Where do I map?

I map predominantly in rural areas of New Mexico, Wisconsin, and South Dakota. I also enjoy mapping POIs in dense metro areas and airports.

What do I actually map?

I do a lot of tracing (buildings and footways/paths) and lining up of ways (roads and railways). You’d be surprised how expansive and old the TIGER desert truly is, especially in the above rural areas. Simple alignment with satellite imagery goes a long way for routers and aesthetics.

I also add POI information in areas that I am familiar with. I sometimes target areas and manually survey addresses or POIs, then come back home and add them. I never import data on this account; everything I add is entered or drawn by hand.

Check out my stats.

What about software development?

I’ve been a maintainer on the Tasking Manager v2 and v3. I’ve also worked on a monitoring suite called the Hall Monitor that is focused on tracking edits to objects and by users.

What’s a difficult way to get in touch?

OSM wiki, Mapillary, OpenStreetView, Tasking Manager.

What’s an easy way to get in touch?

An OSM message goes to my personal email. Or, check my personal website for up-to-date contact info.

Other notices

I used to serve in the Data Working Group, where my work was relegated to the account FTA_dwg (now FTA_dwg_archived).