[Talk-us] Opinions on Devil's Slide Bunker (San Mateo, CA)

[Frederik Ramm]

Hi,

On 31.08.20 05:38, stevea wrote:
> I don't mean to sound argumentative or antagonistic, but if someone more clearly draws a line between "entered map data" and "encouraged people (in any way) to do anything illegal," I'd like to follow that line.  However, nobody has been able to do that (yet).

There *will* be a point where we will not be able to uphold this
distinction. The only question is, have we reached that point yet.

Imagine you set up a nice little web site where people can publicly say
something trivial about their lives. Nobody cares, it's a nice little
web site and of course if someone says something illegal it's not your
fault but that of the person who writes it. Fast forward a couple years,
and you're Twitter and the fact that people kill other people based on
what is written on your platform cannot be shrugged away; while you
would still like to shrug and say "it's not my fault if people abuse my
platform", the public won't let you get away with it.

The same *will* happen to OSM; it is possible that today we can still
get away with shenanigans like tagging a tourist attraction with "wink
wink access=no but everybody goes there anyway", just like in Europe
many people are adding mtb_scale tags to paths that are off-limits for
mountain bikers ("wink wink I am just recording how difficult it *would*
be for MTB if it *were* allowed to ride there..."), and if someone like
AllTrails ignores our "access=only_if_police_not_looking" tags we can
say "uh, their fault for misinterpreting our tags". But we won't be able
to deny this responsibility forever, at least if we record our data in a
way that can easily lead to misinterpretation.

And in my view, tagging something as "desirable to go there" via a
tourism=* tag, no matter how many
access=no/private/only_under_cover_of_darkness we add to that, that
would be disingenious.

I am all for tagging private/illegal/closed trails and paths and mark
them access=no or access=private; that's what DWG typically does when
land owners complain that they want "their" paths removed. We argue that
knowing about a private/illegal/closed trail can still be useful to aid
in navigation, and save lives in an emergency.

And I'd be ok with recording the fact that there is an old bunker at
that location. This knowledge, too, can be useful for navigation or
maybe even in an emergency. But tourism=*, I'd shy away from.

And @Mateusz, I am not convinced that "there are great views from here"
is sufficient for tourism=viewpoint because it is too subjective. With
that reasoning, someone with a personal low bar for "great views" could
plaster the map with tourism=viewpoint.

Bye
Frederik

-- 
Frederik Ramm  ##  eMail frederik at remote.org  ##  N49°00'09" E008°23'33"