Hello! I’m a resident of Metro Vancouver volunteering my free time to contribute local geographical data.

Criminal Threats, Harassment, Hacking, and Mischief

Unfortunately, OpenStreetMap volunteers, including members of my family and myself, have been subjected to a sustained campaign of criminal threats, intimidation, harassment, and other concerning conduct by a small subset of individuals associated with the local mountain biking community. I have a zero-tolerance policy for such criminal behaviour and report each occurrence to the appropriate authorities.

My main contributions to date have been:

1. Trails and resource roads including operator data, legal access restrictions, difficulty, visibility, and blazing
2. Waterfalls
3. Emergency shelters, fire lookouts, and wilderness huts
4. Park, recreation site, recreation reserve, and conservation area boundaries
5. Paragliding takeoffs, landings, and wind socks
6. Rock & ice climbing crags and routes
7. Campsites and camp pitches
8. Park amenities (bathrooms, fountains, picnic tables, waste & recycling bins, interpretive boards, guideposts, trailhead signage)
9. Mountain peaks, passes (saddles), pinnacles, and ridges
10. Natural landscape including wetlands, streams/creeks/rivers, boulder fields, rock outcrops, and cliffs
11. Habitat restoration projects (Fish and Wildlife Compensation Program, Watershed Restoration Program)
12. Rural properties
13. Bicycle lanes, racks, repair stations, wash stations, maze (baffle) gates
14. Indigenous reservation boundaries and feature names
15. Whitewater put-ins and rapids
16. Golf courses
17. Sidewalks and crosswalks
18. Accessibility information
19. Business listings
20. Emergency equipment (AEDs, life rings, sirens, help phones)

Questions/Concerns:

If you have a question, notice an issue, or have concerns about any of my mapping or OpenStreetMap in general, please feel free to get in touch or create a discussion topic on the OpenStreetMap Community forum. I welcome constructive feedback and am happy to provide rationale, revisit or review edits, and answer questions. Community input helps keep OpenStreetMap accurate and useful for everyone.

Rumors:

From time to time, rumors, speculation, and outright lies circulate about my mapping activities and those of others. Many of these claims are inaccurate, based on misunderstandings, or become exaggerated as they are repeated.

If you have a specific question or concern about my mapping, I encourage you to contact me directly.

Trail Safety

A significant portion of my work, amounting to thousands of volunteer hours, has been dedicated to improving trail safety and trail information. This includes refining trail alignments, adding land management information, adding difficulty ratings, documenting legal access restrictions, labelling social and unsanctioned trails, and maintaining a wide range of trail metadata in line with best practices developed by the OpenStreetMap US Trails Stewardship Initiative (a collaboration of government, volunteer, and private sector stakeholders working to address issues in trail mapping, outdoor recreation, and public land management).

I do my best to keep this information accurate and up to date, but it’s impossible to be everywhere at once. If you notice an issue or spot information that needs updating, please don’t hesitate to reach out. I’ll be happy to review it and see what can be done.

Regarding “informal” tag

I mark informal trails (commonly referred to as unsanctioned or pirate trails) with informal=yes to follow best practice guidelines developed by the OpenStreetMap US Trails Stewardship Initiative (a collaboration of government, volunteer, and private sector stakeholders working to address issues in trail mapping, outdoor recreation, and public land management). Many applications such as AllTrails, Gaia GPS, and OnX responsibly deemphasize these trails and prevent automatic routing.

osm.wiki/United_States/Trail_Access_Project

Removal requests

Chances are you want a trail or other backcountry feature removed. Please read the following wiki page in it’s entirety.

osm.wiki/Why_can%27t_I_delete_this_trail%3F

After reading the wiki page in its entirety, please feel free to contact me if you would like me to review the feature in question. I would be happy to work with you to find a solution that aligns with OpenStreetMap’s policies. I am also willing to work collaboratively with landowners, government agencies, and other stakeholders to identify appropriate in-person solutions that address concerns.

As a last resort, you can reach out to the Data Working Group, the moderation group of OpenStreetMap, to request a removal.

osm.wiki/Data_Working_Group

If you like my edits and want to support my work

I encourage you to donate to an outdoor organization of your choosing. Some I recommend are the BC Mountain Foundation, Nature Trust of BC, BC Parks Foundation, Metro Vancouver Regional Parks Foundation, Hope Mountain Centre for Outdoor Learning, BC Marine Trails, Chilliwack Parks Society, North Shore Mountain Biking Association, Fraser Valley Mountain Biking Association, Squamish Access Society, and the Sea to Sky Bolt Fund Society to name a few.