I guess, that @Peter_Elderson put it best here Proposal:Trailblazed=poles;cairns - OpenStreetMap Wiki
The tag trailblazed=yes is important because without it the way isn’t there.
Looking at the photo above, trail_visibility=no + trailblazed:visibility=excellent is just not the same as trail_visibility=excellent.
Speaking as the one, who probably tagged trailblazed=cairns first in OSM history, yet “had comments” during vote.
The one trailblazed=yes “path” I mapped has seasonal/intermittent visibility, when disregarding the coloured poles. It’s sand dunes with sparse to medium low vegetation, and the poles are mostly on the dune tops. Hikers tend to walk in the valleys between dunes. Though some like to show off and climb every dune to touch the poles, sometimes literally.
If there is snow or overgrowth, or a storm has wiped out all footprints in the sand, the first hiker to pass would say invisible, the second just follows the footsteps, and after that it’s a visible path until the next snowfall or stiff breeze.
I didn’t bother to tag trail visiblity at all.
I did bother to map the most likely trail from (or around) pole to pole, because several hiking routes use the “swerve area” as a section. Not much of a swerve though, if you get too far aside there is a fence. We’re not allowed to waymark the hiking routes in that area with their own route symbols, so we need the ‘trailblazed’ key to count it as a waymarked, hence mappable, route.
Not very helpful for the current discussion, I’m afraid. Sorry!
I don’t know about that, Peter. Maybe tangential, but certainly interesting, if not somewhat helpful!
I’m not sure I understand the point here. To me, trail_visibility=no trailblazed:visibility=excellent is just a contradiction. Even the proposal you link to calls trailblazing a “trail visibility improving feature”.
To be clear I certainly wouldn’t consider the path in the photo with the cairns to be trail_visibility=excellent either, but something near the middle of the scale.
There is definitely some judgement required which naturally means some variability in how people use it. Still better than no tag at all, or only yes/no.
I have not used trailblazed before, such paths are actually rare where I live.
I see! My point was just that I don’t find the Wiki page contradictory, and I wanted to make sure that we’re all on the same page about what kind of markers we’re talking about. I’m not sure how consistent actual mapping practice is with the wiki definition…
I agree with both - the trail_visibility=* to me means how unlikely I am to get lost while attempting to walk that trail. If I’ll reach home by following that trail in the middle of the night after 4 beers, I’ll call it trail_visibility=excellent 
The exact method of how it might be visible can be done via many different ways: different surface (e.g. compacted vs dirt), by walls or fences on the side, by poles, via painted markings on trees (or rocks), via cairns, via posted signs, via solar lights embedded on the side of the path, or via millions of bones from skeletons scattered on minefields around safe path 
– the important thing is how (un)likely I am to loose the sight of that trail. 
And which of the methods are being used to improve visibility of the trail might be indicated by trailblazed=*
In my reading of the Wiki Documentation, a path with markers will always get visibility excellent (markers everywhere) or good (next marker always visible, but sometimes has to be searched for). Only paths without markings can go intermediate or lower. Perhaps, that is why I did not tag visibility, when I added the trailblazing key near Kraspes. Trust me, from cairn to cairn, there is just rocks; Likely, because people just navigate from their personal assessment of the terrain. There are lots of such paths in the so-called nival zone, For the Sherlock Holmes around, they can search for lichen scrubbed, but they will not make miles then. I just cannot map trail_visibilty=good for that.
In the end, maybe the key should more explicitly say: It is about the ease or lack thereof in following the path as mapped in OSM. So to say, the navigational aids presented by not only human feet but also human hands.
I’ve been following this discussion without commenting so far, but now that everybody seems to have had their say, I think we can conclude that although the wiki description is clear for many, there are also quite a few for whom it is ambiguous. That means there is scope for improvement.
I suspect that part of the confusion is related to language. I’m not a native speaker of English myself (I’m Dutch), and realised that I misinterpreted 2 words: “trail” and “marker”. I always thought “trail” was a synonym of “path”, but after looking it up in several dictionaries, I now understand that its meaning is somewhere between “path” and “route”, so “trail visibility” is more than “path visibility”. By “marker” I understood “trail blaze”, while I now understand it’s “any visual clue” to where the trail is.
I think there are 2 possible approaches to clarification of the wiki text:
My original idea was that trail_visibility should be separated into “path visibility” and “quality of marking (trailblazing)”. This would then have to be clearly described on the wiki page, with explanation that for “quality of marking”, trailblazed:visibility should be used. (I already added links to trailblazed:visibility to the trail_visibility page)
We can clarify that trail_visibility is about how easy it is to follow the mapped way, and includes both the visibility of the path on the ground as well as availability of any visual clues as to where the trail is, including trail blazes, signposts, cairns, poles and other clues added for that purpose by humans as well as other signs of use such as the visibility of a treeless corridor through a forest (@IanH “lack obstructions”?), differences of vegetation on and next to the path, etc.
I now feel like option 2 is the best, if it is clearly explained, because it changes the meaning of the key as little as possible.
I think, you came to quite similar conclusions than I did in the post above. Two remarks though:
Not a native speaker here too, yet I got told from natives, that those terms are in fact synonyms and only due to American vs. British use. I cannot get rid of that though, that trail always rings route in my mind, something that path certainly does not do.
How do I tag path_visibility then?
I agree, to me (1) would be a redefinition and (2) merely a clarification.
On the linguistic confusion and American vs British English: This blog post is worth reading for anyone interested. Clearly, a lot of the things that we would call a route in OSM jargon are called “Something Something Trail”, which doesn’t help.
Not. If trail_visibility covers both path_visibility and trailblazed:visibility, I don’t see a reason (a use case) for also tagging them separately.
Not sure that you something a trailblazed if it isn’t visible. It would make more sense to apply normal life cycles postfixs instead.
@ezekielf What is it, that makes you cry when reading my post above? If I remember correctly, you belong the camp, that maps trail_visibility in the sense of path_visibility - not route_visibilty - something, that will become impossible when the documentation will be “clarified”, therefore my question.
Oops! I don’t remember reacting with a 
. I was reading the thread on my mobile phone and must have hit the button accidentally while scrolling. All too easy to do, and now it seems I cannot remove it.
Yes I generally think of trail_visibility as the visibility of the path on the ground, since trailblazed:visibility also exists to indicate the visibility of blazes and markers. I suppose if only trail_visibility is tagged and trailblazed:visibility is not, then interpreting the tag as a more general measure of route visibility makes some sense. Context dependent meaning doesn’t seem ideal though.
Looking at the path near Kraspes with excellent trailblazing by kerns but nothing else on the ground but scree, using Strava background, thanks to you only a few clicks, one more thing than trail_visibility I did not map: width=30m 
And the terrain there is not really contra GNSS being accurate.
For some reason we keep misunderstanding each other.
I don’t think anyone here wants to change the Wiki page of trail_visibility to be about route visibility, that is, the visibility of a hiking route relation.
The warning in the Wiki that the tag is not about route visibility is important and should be kept in my view, because it discourages people from tagging a path as trail_visibility=no when they get lost not because they lose the path, but because they don’t know which of many paths to follow to stay on their chosen hiking route.
You said yourself:
Or as Richard said:
I agree.
To draw a distinction between “trail visibility” and “path visibility” risks confusing things further. I think of trail and path as synonyms here, so trail visibility is the same as path visibility. It’s just that markers - of any kind - help me see where the path is without constantly looking at my phone. Do I know where I’m supposed to be walking or not? Do I need orientation skills to follow the path? Do I need to stay alert or can I follow it easily without paying much attention?
In the end, the Wiki page should not reflect how we want the tag to be used, but how it is actually used.
If we can’t agree on that, then maybe the best option is leave it alone?
I thought this is about making things going forward. The best to start by clarifying the existing trail_visibility tag. Then we can see if there is hole that needs to be filled. Preferably starting with other already defined tag.
In this case I think case there is a consensus that trail_visibility should only refer to the physical condition of the trail. The condition of associated marking and orientation should be handled by the trailblazed tag.
I’ll add to your consensus [quote=“IanH, post:26, topic:97865”]
In this case I think case there is a consensus that trail_visibility should only refer to the physical condition of the trail
[/quote]… or if the trail itself can’t be clearly distinguished from the surrounding terrain, the presence of markers of any kind helping to visualise the trail.
Yes but that means that the markers are present and no obscured.
Please help in deliberations: Here picture of cairn on Bietschjoch (OSM node) from South.
With markers considered, such a “path” would correctly get tagged trail_visibility=excellent, after all the markers make it impossible to miss? All the while, isn’t this what commonly gets called pathless terrain? If there were no markers, would there be a path?
SwissTopo does not show a path there. Neither does it to the North, where the “normal” route goes, there the path ends a hundred meters before the POI. Remember, a path is not a necessary prerequisite for a route (at least outside of OSM terminology.)
In this case, I’d say that despite the destination being marked with a cairn, it’s not at all clear how to get there from where the photographer is standing. Maybe I’d try to go straight up from the snow to the slight pass just right of the cairn (definitely sac_scale=5 (or 6)). I’d tag it as horrible
