Not explicitly. What you did say though is that people will agree on what a scramble is in most occasions. Which strongly implies there is some underlying truth about the facts of what a scramble is. Although I will grant that you backtracked and added multiple caveats to it over the course of the conversation. But your position originally was that people will agree on what a scramble is in most occasions and the only way that would be the case is if there’s some kind of objective facts when it comes to the “scramblyness” of something.
Here are some videos that show scramble sections. The difference between walkable path and a scramble is quite clear when you experience it first hand.
https://youtu.be/lesYrcaDHlk?t=233
https://youtu.be/30u7IX0VKUg?t=190
https://youtu.be/3xnJXnVem7k?t=75
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OpenStreetMap’s absolute strength is the collection and curation of crowd-sourced, expert, local knowledge.
It is not just a project for armchair mappers. We value, and since day 1 have always valued, on-the-ground survey.
Our entire point of differentiation from AI-generated, imagery-derived algorithmic mapping is that we go there.
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What you say about local consens certainly does not apply to the German community. Many T6 paths in my area were mapped by Germans.
I was referring to recent discussion on the Italian mailing list, looking at the map, there are some T6 paths in Italy as well
“signs of actual use” as in traces/manifestations that humans use the path, it’s not referring to a physical sign or board.
although you will often find waymarks on scramble sections. I would not expect so much signs of wear on rock, depends how popular the route is. Prefer not finding signs like candy paper 
The difference between walkable path and a scramble is quite clear when you experience it first hand.
the second example, the T4, is not what I think we map as path in OpenStreetMap.
The proposal clearly states: Source own hands on. This is not something that can be mapped from aerial. How can this be conceived of as a deficit?
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They are there, in the thousands. They are mapped as path of course, how else? The sac_scale tag makes this easy. I do not want to delete them. They are fun. Still, I think, OSM should have a means to at least make it easy to refine them in a way, so to at least rebase the scrambling sections hidden there, so they cannot be confused with what key path is used for in 99.83% of its uses. If this breaks rendering and routing, I could not care less.
A new tag may uncover scrambles hidden, where no sac_scale got applied - not every mapper is an expert in sac_scale grading. The SAC had a working group with seasoned practitioners to grade its routes. I think the task should be easier, more OSM like.
Now watched the videos: The second one is not a T4. It is a Sierra club class 4, more commonly referred to as YDS class 4. Perhaps it is in SAC T6, perhaps it is not. No own hands on to tell that.
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Even though I joyfully hiked, erm scrambled, class four trerrain, that was classified as sac T6 on OSM, I see no resaon to change the proposal, to include yds4 
No matter what the wikipedia comparison table with UIAA says.
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If you scrambled the terrain then you already know it’s a highway=scramble without checking against a rating system. That’s kind of the point right?
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there are even people who furiously argue that climbing routes with uiaa scale 7 are paths
for sac scale T6/T5 I don’t see what else they currently should be tagged as, if not as path, or where this is discouraged. The wiki for sac_scale says applies to highway=path/track/footway
Hi,
I haven’t been following this whole conversation, but it seems it’s becoming a bit “heated” in some replies and there are multiple discussions about OSM in general that are not fully related with the original feature request.
I would recommend to start separate topics (for example about remote vs on-the-ground mapping) in #general to avoid adding too many conversations here at the same time.
Thanks!
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After some thinking highway=demanding_trail + demanding_trail=* would be even better name, to further distance it from word “path” which is often used in OSM in footway / cycleway combination. (demanding part should stay in the name to make it absolutely clear so nobody could mistake it is for normal footway-alike trails - like e.g. shorter highway=trail might mislead them).
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the T4, is not what I think we map as path in OpenStreetMap.
They are there, in the thousands. They are mapped as path of course, how else?
I was specifically referring to the first of the videos, second route starting at the linked position.
If this breaks rendering and routing, I could not care less.
if it breaks rendering and routing for applications that do not specifically cater for these “highways”, it is intentional.
From the looks of it, its quite similar to what - again from the looks of it (photo linked from the proposal page) - the SAC T4 hike up Guggihütte has on offer. (The route relation in openstreetmap grades it T5, but the ways are all T4.)
Unfortunately “trail” in American English means “path”, as noted above at https://community.openstreetmap.org/t/feature-proposal-voting-highway-scramble/5228/32, so it’s not a great option.
I wish you good luck in arguing, that a demanding_trail actually is not a trail at all; because, as said above, in my research I looked at highway=trail and I learned, that in colloquial language this only applies where trail_visibility=excellent and sac_scale=hiking, perhaps mountain_hiking where trail_visibiliry=excellent. Fortunately, the English language is quite rich in its terms, and from a post of a South African mountain rescue member to some openstreetmap mailing list I learned the term scramble, that I could readily translate. Unfortunately, scramble does not cover all of your use cases. You did not oppose, did you?
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Oh, I was not aiming at avoiding the similar meaning in English (although that would be even better, if someone with better control of English would suggest one) , I was trying to avoid it being similar in OSM tag name.
Other possible alternatives to demanding_trail:
demanding_byway(I’d like to avoid frequently used OSM term “way”, also it is more road-like)demanding_bypath(more correct, but I’d like to avoid having “path” anywhere in the name, so it can’t be by accident matched by humans, regex or substring)demanding_route(“route” is OSM term for different element type, so best avoided)demanding_course(meaning similar to “route”, so people might be inclined to incorrectly tag it on OSM route instead of a way)demanding_spoor(might be a good match, but maybe somewhat obscure term for non-English speakers, and kind-of implies there is visible track or trail of an animal or person, which while often is a case, might not be really visible at some parts, which is a problem many other terms share too)demanding_progress,demanding_movement, etc. not nouns, but as values ofhighway=key might fit.
Other suggestions?
Well, same colloquial usage caveats apply to “path” as used in highway=path, don’t they? And still, it gets used with all different trail_visibility and sac_scale values. Also note that trails usually get trailblazed exactly because their trail_visibility is way below excellent. So much for precision of colloquial speech.
I would also like to note, that we have (although not quite at Humpty Dumpty level) some artistic freedom in use of words in OSM tags.
So we have shop=massage or shop=hairdresser which are not really shops, highway=bus_stop which is not a highway, waterway=fuel which is not a waterway at all etc. We have cuisine=heuriger which is not even an English word, or cuisine=brunch which indicates time of day for meal, and not cuisine.
Tags mean what we define them to mean in the wiki. It is nice bonus if it makes sense in colloquial (and/or British) English when you read key and value aloud, but it is not requirement at all. What the specific key=value means is what you define it means in a wiki.
Unless its name is hugely different (e.g. intentionally opposite) of what it means, such minor deviations from British English Dictionary de jour are not really a problem, as long as exact meaning is clearly explained at tag wiki page (and in proposal before that!)
So yeah, if we can agree on highway=demanding_spoor for example, we can define there that the actually visibility of that spoor is defined by extra tag trail_visibility=*.
We should also define there, what it means if trail_visibility=* is not specified: for example, that the trail_visibility=intermediate is to be assumed (or, trail_visibility=no is to be assumed, or whatever we agree on as most likely scenario. Or, we can even clearly define on that wiki page that no assumption about trail visibility may be assumed if it is not explicitly specified – what is important is that we be crystal clear about it upfront, before tag becomes official and starts being used).
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I was just researching the geograph picture location from the proposal page and found Way: 825811006 | OpenStreetMap - From the looks on the picture, the terrain on its own likely does not warrant a sac_scale T4, can be T3 just as well, but maybe there are other things that make it merit that. What do I know? All I know is, SAC T4 breaks routing in graphhopper.