[talk-au] "Removing closed or illegal trails." (in Nerang National Park)

[Warin]

On 29/10/21 9:33 pm, forster at ozonline.com.au wrote:
> Hi Frederik, Thorsten
>
> 1. "a park manager would prefer them not to, and therefore deletes the 
> track in order to keep people from exercising their rights".
>
> Does this happen, has it ever happened? I would be surprised if it 
> happened here. Anyway its not what I thought we were talking about, 
> illegal trails.
>
> 2. 3. and 4. "knowing which informal trails they might have taken can 
> be helpful, might even save lives" possible but very unlikely. I could 
> equally argue that the types of illegal trails that I am seeing, the 
> "I rode my mountain bike down this way" type of trail (see #951362516 
> later) can reduce map utility, they are often barely visible but are 
> rendered the same as the type of trail a lost person would follow. 
> Neither Frederik's nor my argument is particularly strong.
>
> I mentioned women's refuges earlier. Its irrelevant that we map the 
> polygon but not the label. Its not because they are not verifiable, I 
> could ground truth them by knocking on the front door and asking. We 
> do not map women's refuges because that is the right thing to do. We 
> search for justifications later.
>
> Finally Frederik and Thorsten stress the importance of lifecycle 
> tagging, access tagging and rendering by the data users. I agree with 
> them.
>
> We at OSM are not doing a great job of rendering. Go to 
> https://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=19/-37.93168/145.30667
> There are 3 trails,
> Way: 476219417 which is access=no
> Way: Granite Track (56176535) which is legal
> These 2 tracks are rendered similarly, very few map users would notice 
> that one of them was closed


Some renders can show the difference. OSMand has a setting to show 
access... and it works.

>
> We are not doing a great job on tagging either
> The third track Path #951362516
> is illegal but not tagged as such. The editor should know that it is 
> illegal
> they say "Probably unofficial but reasonably well used" there is a 
> good chance they knew. It was clearly signed at every entrance to 
> "stay on formed trails" and there are lots of maps on sign boards 
> showing all the legal trails.
>
> Now this trail is mapped, it is going to attract lots of traffic. Its 
> never going to save a lost walker's life. Its going to take many many 
> hours of volunteer labour to keep it closed for long enough to 
> revegetate and get deleted from the map. That's the consequence of the 
> Parks Service respecting OSM's consensus policy.


? I have a trail that is mapped in OSM but not on the official maps.. I 
strike very few people on it. It was mapped in OSM before I came along 
... rather hard to see the start point unless you know it is there. It 
is more visible that the adjacent officially mapped path and I believe 
more attractive, though a little more strenuous. I don't see a trail 
marked on a map as attracting lots of traffic. I don't see any 
'legality' attached to official maps that would keep me to only using 
those mapped tracks.  A simple sign that says 'closed' will keep me out, 
but I'd like to know why. All of the local signs that I have seen have 
some explanation as to 'why'.

Is 'off track' walking now banded too, simply because 'it is not on the 
official map'? A local fire trail has been 'closed' for track work. I 
have taken an off track route to bypass the track work and get onto a 
path. I see nothing wrong with doing that - little damage is done .. I 
even removed some weeds (not strictly legal, but no ranger is going to 
object)!


>
> I support OSM's consensus form of government and as a consequence 
> support the consensus position on illegal tracks. But it causes others 
> a lot of problems and I think we can be more responsible and nuanced 
> within the consensus position.
>
> Tony
>
>> Hi,
>>
>> On 29.10.21 09:08, forster at ozonline.com.au wrote:
>>> You could map a track under the "if it exists then map it" rule but you
>>> don't have to. We do not map women's refuges and they exist. We don't
>>> have to map every informal trail.
>>
>> This is true, and we shouldn't go out of our way to thwart the efforts
>> of park managers. Having said that,
>>
>> 1. Sometimes the matter can be a civil rights issue - depending on the
>> legal situation, people might have the *right* to use a path but a park
>> manager would prefer them not to, and therefore deletes the track in
>> order to keep people from exercising their rights. In that situation,
>> while the park manager might want the best for the environment, the park
>> manager would have to work to change the legal situation instead of
>> trying to mislead people about what they are allowed to do.
>>
>> 2. In similar discussions we had people working with search and rescue
>> teams say that they prefer to use OSM maps because those show the
>> informal trails, and if you're searching for someone who got lost,
>> knowing which informal trails they might have taken can be helpful -
>> might even save lives.
>>
>> 3. If you have an emergency out in the wild, knowledge about informal or
>> even prohibited/closed tracks can be helpful and again, might even save
>> lives.
>>
>> 4. If you are navigating without a GPS, you might use trails for
>> orientation ("take the second left after entering the forest" or
>> whatever). In these cases if there's a trail that exists and is visible
>> but is not shown on the map, you will mis-count.
>>
>> Therefore I would like to agree with Paul and Thorsten, and stress that
>> we should (a) map access tags properly, and (b) lobby web sites and apps
>> using OSM data to properly process these access tags, by not including
>> access-restricted trails in routing or route suggestions, and by clearly
>> marking these restrictions on maps.
>>
>> Bye
>> Frederik
>>
>> -- 
>> Frederik Ramm  ##  eMail frederik at remote.org  ##  N49°00'09" 
>> E008°23'33"
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Talk-au mailing list
>> Talk-au at openstreetmap.org
>> https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-au
>>
>> _____________________________________________________
>> This mail has been virus scanned by Australia On Line
>> see http://www.australiaonline.net.au/mailscanning
>>
>
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Talk-au mailing list
> Talk-au at openstreetmap.org
> https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-au