User:FTA
About me
My name is Ethan and I go by FTA in OSM; I live in the US. Professionally, I work with remote sensing of the atmosphere. My DWG account for reverts and other related work is FTW_dwg.
OSM involvement
I first joined OSM in April 2012 at the encouragement of a friend. We had initially been discussing my volunteer contributions as an editor and reviewer with GMM, who as a side note formally recognized my work with a Top Contributor Award for my involvement with that community. Companies must make money off their products to stay afloat, and that is okay because that's how the world works. But our discussion inspired me to start contributing to a map with data that everyone can access for free. After studying contributions of other users, reading on the wiki, and becoming comfortable enough, I made my first edit in October of 2012. As they say, the rest is history.
I enjoy editing in more rural regions than urban areas. I often work on smaller roads, railways, walkways, and often large campuses (universities, colleges, zoos, etc.), but my focus on any given time is a cumulative function of what I have been working on the past few weeks in OSM. In addition to general editing, I've worked on projects specifically like the USBR, I've contributed some GPS traces in places where none previously existed to aid in mapping, and I've made some edits on the wiki. In March 2014, I began to contribute to HOT with disaster response mapping--bringing full circle my work with emergency preparedness and amateur radio hobbies. I've also been contributing to software development for OSM-related projects. Lastly, I'm a member of the OSM Data Working Group where I try to innovate user and vandalism tracking, monitor for bad edits (particularly in the South China Sea), and contribute to some of the administrative duties.
Besides the whole open data aspect of OSM, one of the things that has really kept this project near and dear to me is the grassroots concept. There is no centralized administrator system that decides whether every editor is worthy or not of making edits. Sure, we have the DWG and intervention for people maliciously editing or violating copyrights; but aside from cases where that is required, everyone is treated as an equal. It is our collective knowledge that, when brought together, powers the largest editable map in the world! Users have different interests--some prefer to focus on bike paths, others choose to draw buildings, and other others develop software tools--and our community provides the space for all these contributions to work in synergy.
OSM and HOT presentations
| Date | Group | Location |
|---|---|---|
| Mar 3, 2015 | American Planning Association Wisconsin Chapter | Pfister Hotel, Milwaukee, WI |
| Dec 9, 2014 | Maptime Madison | Madison Public Library, WI |
| Nov 11, 2014 | Wisconsin GIS Day | Union South, Madison, WI |
Local Madison, WI OSM group
I'm interested in starting an OSM group in the Madison, WI area. We had a great turnout for the OSM-focused MapTime meeting in late 2014, and other people I've talked to are particularly interested in HOT mapathons. MapTime has provided a great forum for OSMers to meet up and for people to contribute to OSM mapping, HOT mapping, and general awareness. We were even featured in a local newspaper!
"Regional mentors" project
This was something I have previously mentioned as a program I would like to start. We have active mappers that are spread throughout the whole world. Their collective expertise of OSM, GIS, and other topics is immense. We should have the opportunity for mappers to volunteer to serve as a sort of patroller of new mappers in their given region to welcome them to OSM and serve as a friendly contact point for someone geographically near who is in need of help. Patrollers not in the perjorative sense of a hall monitor, but rather someone who is a "regional mentor" for OSM. Coordination for this project would probably be best suited through the member chapters of the OSMF (e.g. OSM-US oversees US program, OSM-Germany oversees Germany program) while countries without a local chapter could fall under the purview of the OSMF.
In the mean time, I have been specifically contacting new mappers in the WI area who start editing (usually as a result of the announce-bot in the #osm-us IRC channel) and welcoming them to the project. I have found that other local groups do a good job at this as well.
Potpourri of other information
It is best to contact me through OSM mail at http://www.openstreetmap.org/user/FTA.
How I have contributed and where I have contributed to OSM so far.
Why is your username FTA? It stands for Fightin' Texas Aggie, a moniker for a student at my undergraduate university.
I ran for the OSMF Board in 2014 to catalyze ideas I hope would/will foster a more welcoming and close-knit community within OSM.
OSM tools:
- JOSM for my edits.
- OSMTracker for Android to record and upload GPS traces running on an HTC One M9 and a LG Optimus Zone 3 (with no cell service).
- Mechanical keyboard over a conventional one
- Two monitors when editing to have the OSM wiki or task manager within an eye movement
- Custom built Linux box for software development
- Raspberry Pi running Irssi for IRC interaction 24/7
- Rold Gold pretzels to snack on
Some of the pages I have helped maintain on the OSM Wikipedia:
- New Mexico
- New Mexico/Railroads
- New Mexico/State Road Relations
- Madison, Wisconsin/Bus Routes Project
- Soon to be a flourishing page about the South China Sea
- Information and terms for researchers to abide by related to contacting the community or using OSM data in peer-reviewed journals (under construction)
- Proposal for disputed territories (spoiler: nothing present right now)
- OSM Diff Tool for working with diff files from OSM in Python
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This user submits data to OpenStreetMap under the name FTA. |
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