areas or routes on MP with No Trespassing

Does MountainProject have a policy about retaining or creating Description pages for climbing Areas or Routes with "No Trespassing" (or "No Climbing") signs currently obviously posted on or close around them?

I tried a quick search of the MP website, and was unable to find any guidelines about this for an MP member creating a new Area or Route description on MP, nor for an MP Administrator making decisions about existing Area pages on MP.

There are more subtle questions, say about an Area where the cliff itself is legal for climbing, but the easy obvious access trail which lots of climbers use is posted "No Trespassing".

Or cases where there's some clause against "all other uses not explicitly permitted" as the fourth sentence in some paragraph on a Park regulation book -- but there's no posted sign either at the trailhead or near the cliff, and no history of Park authorities caring to enforce a particular interpretation of that paragraph.

But how about let's start with the un-subtle case in the first sentence of this post.

Ken

If there is no legal access to a cliff, please don't post it on MP.

So then are existing MP description pages for "No Trespassing" areas "grandfathered"?

Or are they temporarily "grandfathered" while the creator/owner of the Description page argues that the owners of the land "don't really mean it" with the No Trespassing signs, and the owners or land-managers put those signs up only because some lawyers told them to do it? ... and so really most locals "sort of know" it's OK to climb there anyway?

Or is it the policy of MountainProject that Description pages of Areas or Routes with "No Trespassing" or "No Climbing" obviously posted ought to be removed immediately by an MP Administrator who becomes aware of the situation?
or what?

Thanks for your help on this.

Ken

These issues can get incredibly complicated - there might be no trespassing signs, but if you ask the owner, they let you use it, for example.

So there's no precise rule. If you see something that should be taken down from the site, please send me a link to that area.

Nick Wilder wrote:If you see something that should be taken down from the site, please send me a link to that area.

Nick, Can you define what "should be taken down" means?

If MP already has a disclaimer that climbing is illegal for the area, is it ok to not report the MP page to you?

Or if the page concerns private land? Private land without locked gates and without "no trespassing" signs? Or perhaps with those things? This can change as ownership changes.

What about periodic closures? Should the page disappear when it is closure season? Ok - now I'm being silly.

Without spending one minute thinking about this, I can think of MP pages that fit all of the above.

See what I mean? Does MP really want to be in the business of deciding what should be a page and what should not? I recommend they should not be in that business.

Bill - there are some areas that just shouldn't have ever been posted but were because someone was eager. The issue is that when those areas hit MP they instantly will attract crowds of people. So now you have a place where a guy ignored a sign and went climbing, shouldn't have, posted it up, and now a bunch of people are there and it creates access issues for that and other areas.

Seems like common sense would dictate to anyone familiar with a local area what should and should not be listed on MP.

Local definitions can vary. I believe something like this should be defined in a globally consistent way.

Edit to add: By the way, the places I have in mind - the ones that are already MP.com pages with disclaimers - are NOT drawing crowds of people.

By the way, it's pretty "easy" to find these MP.com pages.

An MP software developer can search the access-issues tags. There might be some need for human review to zero in on the ones that are not just periodic closures and not about something else like a bolting ban. I suspect most people who post pages are pretty up front about any access issues.

And even for basic users, it is pretty easy - well maybe a medium amount of work - to take a tour of local areas and see what pages would be so deleted. Would that really be value added?

And there is a benefit to keeping the pages with the access restrictions.

For example, I just drilled down pretty quickly to a crag not familiar to me that had this statement:

"... this 20-foot volcanic boulder is currently off limits to climbing. Listed here for historical purposes only."

I say this without being snarky: MP is doing a service by identifying that, yes, the crag has already been climbed, and no, it is not legal to climb.