The reality is is that you're not the first person to want stuff removed from OpenStreetMap. Requests come in to remove all sorts of stuff including laughable requests to remove official sanctioned trails because they're "too busy", official emergency cabins because "it might get used incorrectly", and even innocuous things like boat launches because "it's meant for locals". This is why OpenStreetMap has a policy and has even gotten so frustrated with repeating why it exists that someone has created a wiki page to provide the rationale for it. You're more than welcome to post your opinion on the OpenStreetMap Community Forum to get a better understanding of why the policy exists.

OpenStreetMap has the Trails Working Group whom works with park agencies, land owners, app developers, trail associations, and others to further develop the tagging schema to handle the issues you mentioned.

- Land ownership is handled through marking trails with their legal access.
- Conservation related to sensitive trails is handled through marking trails as sanctioned/unsanctioned.
- Difficult trails is handled through marking trails with the Swiss Alpine Club rating and/or IMBA rating.

You might not know this but most of TrailForks tagging schema is based on OpenStreetMap's.

Speaking of TrailForks, TrailForks is owned by Outside Inc a venture capital and private equity behemoth that wants complete control over outdoor information. The only thing preventing companies like Outside from locking features behind paywalls and jacking up fees is the free opensource database provided by OpenStreetMap. TrailForks allows trails and other features to be hidden for no rhyme or reason. There is no policies. In some locations the government now has administrative access to TrailForks or has significance influence on the trail association and therefore controls what is shown on TrailForks. It’s only a matter of time before TrailForks only shows what is approved by the government. OpenStreetMap balances this control.

The easiest solution is for you and others you know that disagree with OpenStreetMap's policy is to boycott products that use OpenStreetMap. Close your eyes, walk away from the computer, and switch to back to NTS topo maps.

Continued vandalism will not be tolerated. 