Displaying a closed trail on a map (like OSM) does NOT cause people
to navigate that trail. Such behavior is completely up to the
individual who "concludes" from reading said map "hey, I'm going to
hike that closed trail anyway." (Bzzzt; fail, human logic).
OSM is not responsible for human foolishness, scofflaws or illegal
(stupid, dangerous...) behavior. You simply can't say "the map
made me do it."
On the other hand, I do hear loud and clear the "natural preserve"
areas which ARE open to human recreation, DO have "closed trails"
(often with fragile and easily-human-damaged natural resources) and
people, stupidly and ignorantly I might say by way of being
candid, decide to hike (or bike, or motorbike...) there anyway.
This is not the fault of a map, any map, including OSM.
OSM does its best to map "what is." Period. It doesn't "make
people" engage in activities people shouldn't engage in. Anybody
who says so hasn't got it right, but MIGHT be worth listening to at
how the map can be improved. This includes better instructions to
end-users ("downstream apps...") when warranted.
Steve, this is a restatement of the "guns don't kill people people do"
argument.
Guns and maps are not morally responsible for what people do, they are
inanimate objects. They can never be guilty.
But the issue is not whether the guns and maps are morally
responsible, the issue is what kind of world we want to live in. If we
can't control what some people will do with guns and maps and we
can't, we have the choice of making guns less available and maps not
render tracks into vulnerable ecosystems.
Its not a moral decision, its a utilitarian decision. I am very happy
to live where guns are strictly controlled. I would rather maps be
more nuanced on the implementation of the "if it exists map it" rule
which does us very well 99.999% of the time.
Tony
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