McKulkin (2025-08-08 20:53:23+00:00): Thanks for replying. I appreciate the constructive discussion. 

You can't even imagine the sheer number of swear words in 3 different languages hurled by our group when they were following these "problematic" trail segments, directed at you (well, not you personally, but the one(s) who marked the segments -- I only found out who did that post-trip). The trail (https://www.wikiloc.com/hiking-trails/sabaduri-sioni-168194085) definitely didn't work for us, that's for sure. 

I'm glad you've got the first-hand experience with the location, but I'd like to point out that the end product should be equally useful to everyone. The basis of OSM is keeping things *real*, *legal*, and *useful*. That includes the data being verifiable. I totally understand the climate specifics of the region and would not expect the paths to be stale and stable year-round. But again, you can't lay a path where you just think it would be passable or is/was passable by you. It should be available(useful) to everyone in the narrow sense of the intended audience. There's still an ongoing debate within OSM over whether the hiking routes should be included at all -- it's a complex topic (I'm all in for including them), but under the context of this very changeset we're having discussion in, there's just NO path. We didn't make any helpful photos during this very segment, but, again, there's just forest, there's no path, no track, no trail, either marked or not, it's just plain pristine forest. There definitely used to be a forest road back then, maybe 20 years ago -- judging from the inscriptions on the trees ( https://foxly.me/sbd-tree1 , https://foxly.me/sbd-tree2 ), but the current situation (keeping things real) is that there's no trail. This, btw, is how the further trail segment looks like https://foxly.me/sbd-grass-trail . BTW, this path segment was crossing a river and the intersecting node is marked as a ford, however, the only thing we found there was a dead bird lying right on the bank of that stream. No ford, 1 bird. Dead.

Protected territory laws have been equalized across the region (if not across the globe), and thus the restriction on activities (including tree cutting, fires, species introduction/removal, picking plants, pets/animals, etc...) is quite similar in neighboring countries -- I'm not surprised you're not allowed not to just cut trees+undergrowth, but pick up fallen branches from the ground. 
And now considering this, just think what you're essentially doing - you're creating a trail that hasn't been authorized by the protected area's administration and encouraging visitors to alter/destroy the vegetation and disturb the environment in order to pass this impassable track -- I can't even imagine how many square meters we've stomped out trying to follow/find this very trail segment we're discussing. 

The argument regarding seasons doesn't stand. You can draw a billion tracks and paths across an agricultural field in the winter - assuming it's been harvested and there are no trees or similar obstacles. The same actually applies to Georgian forests at certain altitudes - they're way WAY more passable than rotting bogs in northern countries in spring or desert regions in Africa for months not seeing a single drop of water. But you can't just draw random lines through them pretending they're trails. That's definitely not how it works. 

When was the last time you were around the place we're discussing (Ikvlivi)? There's no usable water source there. Again, we stopped by a shepherd's house 30 meters away -- he said there's no well, no fountain, no spring, nothing that a human could use nearby. Cows, on the other hand... can drink from anywhere. But you marked it as "drinking". And that implies it's consumable without filtering or additional procedures. You should've marked it as a `natural=spring`, but there's no spring, there's a wetland/marsh/mud overgrown with vegetation. Yes, we wandered several circles trying to find the "drinking water". Locals get water from plastic pipes running from an unknown (to me) location (a well?).

To sum up: OSM's hard work - it's not just about drawing a couple of lines and polygons. Are you using it just as a note-taking app for personal needs, or are you trying to contribute for the good of the people? If the former, just get an app with a custom layer and draw there whatever you please. You could share that custom map with your off-road group when needed. If the latter, you'll be sweating out mapping the features out properly -- more than you'd sweat climbing the mountains. I see you're lavishly using the `tracktype=` tag - I recommend switching over to `smoothness=`. It's human-readable and provides finer granularity.

Speaking of notes, and my overall complaint -- did you enable/see the map notes? -- just look at this poor chap https://www.openstreetmap.org/note/4076485  (created on 18 *Jan* '24) -- that's exactly what I was talking about, and funny to contrast that with your stance about "easily found in February".

Thanks for attending my speech and take care.
Again, I appreciate the contributions you're making to OSM.