[Talk-us] OSM US Trails Working Group

[Frederik Ramm]

Hi,

On 10/8/21 20:31, Tod Fitch wrote:
> I am a bit miffed that this discussion will be on Slack.

Yes, not the best if you want to be inclusive. But, whichever medium you 
choose you'll exclude some people who refuse to use it. As long as it 
remains informal and you're not later told "this was agreed on Slack" I 
guess it's ok.

> In my experience there is quite a gulf between the desires and resources 
> available to the entities involved. In a nutshell:
> 
> 1. OSM’s philosophy is to “map what is on the ground”.
> 2. The land manager’s need to protect and preserve natural resources.
> 3. The land manager’s desire to nudge people away from dangerous situations.
> 4. A search team’s need to know all the places a missing person might 
> have gone and the ways those areas can be accessed.
> 5. The companies and/or projects that create the actual maps or apps are 
> not under the control of OSM or the land managers.

Yes, very similar situation here in Germany, where land managers and app 
providers and occasionally OSM representatives have meetings and 
conference talks about this too.

I think that - ignoring the clear-cut "illegal/private" tracks for a 
moment - there's a parallel to how people away from main roads in cities 
complain that they are seeing more and more traffic. It was always 
allowed for everyone to drive there, but without guidance by apps, 
nobody would do that for fear of getting lost, and everyone stuck to the 
main road. Now with everyone being steered by a navigation app, more and 
more people use side roads and residential roads to avoid traffic, or as 
a shortcut.

Same in forests, national parks and so on, where there's often not a 
legal rule that says "you cannot go there", but in the past land 
managers would post certain paths and thereby steer 95% of visitors who 
preferred to stick to the signs. With hiking apps and OSM-based 
knowledge about where paths are and which connects with which, people 
are suddenly much more difficult to nudge and steer. It has always been 
their right to go explore down a "social path", but it used to come with 
the risk of having to turn around halfway - not such much now if the app 
helps you.

So land managers are losing a power they once enjoyed - the ability to 
steer visitors, even in the absence of actual enforceable legal rules. 
Now, if they want to steer people away from something, they have 
actually close the path - and depending on the jurisdiction might not 
even be in a legal position to do so.

At least that's what we're seeing in Germany. Some of these land 
managers can be bellicose and make demands; often, they're just looking 
for a good way to get back some of their former powers. Used 
responsibly, these powers would help not just the land manager and the 
environment but also the visitors because they would be steered along 
the better paths giving them a nicer experience. Land managers often ask 
if it is possible to add "recommendations" to OSM, to make apps prefer a 
recommended path over another. This is obviously difficult because it 
could clash with on-the-ground rules - but in theory, if they were to 
grade their paths and signpost them accordingly, it might even be 
possible to introduce something like that in OSM...

> I suspect the partial solution is to come up with a tagging scheme that 
> the land managers can assure is enforced on their land. This will 
> require them to monitor changesets affecting their land and to fix them 
> as needed to fit the agreed upon tagging.

We don't usually allow anyone to "enforce" anything in "their" area in 
OSM so I'd try and be careful to not give them the wrong ideas ;)

Bye
Frederik

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