I would go for basic if there is no build-up water access (so the site just being next to a natural creek would not cout). The best is to map the latrine on its own, that is the most useful (and will definitely get better rendering :-)).
that gets shown in apps and so on if I am not mistaken. Danish still according to my translation tool uses “without facilities”, which is not the defining feature.
Well, I guess such places should not officially be tagged. However they frequently are, especially along long distance hiking routes (just look at the Lyccian way in Turkey; or the three places in Capri of all places when I last looked [I guess the only three places there where wild camping is possible]). I do not have the heart to remove them – and indeed they are quite useful when you walk such a trail. I would not map them myself (when I meet them, I just add the backcountry/informal/etc. keys). There is a bit of a question if wiki should be descriptive or prescriptive, I am more on the descriptive side, such ambiguities should be documented, otherwise it takes new mappers a long time to square what they see in OSM with the wiki.
Updated translation now. However, I still hope people will also visit the wiki-page when mapping. It’s a bit difficult to get the message across in a short translation when there is (as far as I know) no actual word for ‘backcountry’ in Danish. I am sure some Danish non-OSM users would think of the primitive campsites in Denmark as “remote”. Even when they are only a few minutes walk from the nearest paved road.
I would use the equivalent of “wilderness” - we have that in Czech (I do not normally translate the wiki but did here and that is what I used, I was also specific about it not being reachable by car) and it works quite well. Sure mappers should consult the wiki! But people are lazy :-(.
Maybe the parentheses of the backcountry definition should read
(wilderness inaccesible by car)
than the current
(a remote, undeveloped area)?
The current definition sounds a bit like countryside to big-city people (no judgement if they are right).
I have actually considered doing this also but not sure if that would be narrowing the definition of ‘backcountry’ too much? Not being a native English speaker I am not sure if backcountry can also be places that are not wild nature?
Well, I only have a degree in English :-D, but already from reading the Wikipedia article it is clear the term has different meaning in different geographical varieties so there is no fixed meaning (which is further complicated by the fact that OSM is supposed to be British English, but this is a North American term according to BACKCOUNTRY | English meaning - Cambridge Dictionary ). I think the OSM meaning should be somewhat connected to the plain-language meaning of the words it uses for keys; however, with language being amorphous and ever-changing, any OSM definition will never precisely map onto the language meaning; and in the same vein the actual usage during mapping rarely precisely maps with what the wiki says:-).
I’m a native speaker of North American English. Backcountry for sure applies only to wild places. A rural road with a few homes on it accessible by car, even if very remote is not backcountry. You are in the the backcountry when you are far away from the nearest road.
I added a Danish translation for the wiki-page. However, I am a little puzzled by the last sentence:
“Note that some mappers tag mere suggestions where they think there is a good place to sleep. If that is the case, you might find no traces of people using such a place for camping.”
Should such informal sites with no visible trace be mapped at all? Shouldn’t informal use have at least left traces that can be confirmed in the field?
Sorry for the probably wrong looking quotation, I am still figuring out how it works
For me there is no simple yes or no answer about mapping such spots but I am more on the not mapping them side except for areas where it is difficult to find a spot.
I am hiking quite a lot in northern Sweden and Norway - countries where you are allowed to camp nearly everywhere. If I look around Kungsleden and other popular hiking trails there are just masses of campgrounds mapped and it is not an area where it is hard to find a good spot.
And yes, if I come over such a spot with no traces on the ground in an area where you have no problems to find a spot - so not if is 99% stones - I have the heart to delete them.
I think the informal tag was developed by mappers
interested in paths while impromptu was developed by those interested in camp sites. They appear to mean the same thing and can probably be considered synonyms by a data consumer. With informal being the far more prevalent tag it likely makes sense to nudge mappers towards using it over impromptu.
Now that it seems we are agreed on the correct meaning of backcountry=yes, is revisiting campsites with the tag and changing them ok? To me it seems obvious that few, if any, campsites in Denmark can be described as being in the backcountry / wilderness. However, even though it has been discussed thoroughly in this thread, only a handful of us have actually participated in the discussion. Is that enough to start making sweeping changes?
I think that many of these places marked with the key:impromptu are better off on websites park4night like or ioverlander . On the other hand, there are certainly areas and places in the world where this type of overnight stay with “overlanders” is tolerated, allowed and even established.
Does anybody know if any renderer or something else is using the key?
To me, if it is a place where you would regularly see campervans/tents etc., it meets the criteria for being on the ground and verifiability. Not sure if, instead, it means “we stayed here one night and it was great”.
My heart certainly does not cry when you delete them either :-).
Maybe we could start by messaging some of the people who have used the tag to ask them what they were trying to say when they added backcountry=yes and if they agree that camp_site=basic fits?
In Denmark I suspect most editors have (understandably) used it because the ‘backcountry’ checkbox was previously translated as ‘Primitiv overnatning’ (Primitive overnight stay), which is very similar to the term our state nature management organisation uses for their basic campsites.
supsup
