Enforcement (gun) and interpretive (fun) rangers are different and have different duties - the latter cannot cite people. I usually run into a few rangers a summer if I’m mostly in NPS territory, NFS I can go a summer or two without seeing one. FWIW I’ve had my permit checked four times this summer, twice in the backcountry and twice at a trailhead parking lot.
I don’t agree that regulations are useless if they aren’t enforced - as of now they are people (here and elsewhere) that have looked up Inyo’s regulations and have a different interpretation of them than Inyo does. That isn’t great. 100% compliance even with enforcement will never happen, but most people do try to follow the rules.
I don’t see sharing conditions / hazards information as a ‘burden’ in the same way that taking responsibility for bringing a dog into the wildness is (unless the person doing the warning created the hazard). I do disagree with people that can control their dogs choosing not to, forcing me to try and interpret their dogs behavior as they approach me - that’s the burden I have been referring to. In terms of self-regulating I don’t think that behavior should be celebrated or encouraged in terms of community consensus, especially as HST often sees content as written for the internet as a whole vs in-community conversation.
I agree with WD’s take on where that burden lies - people should be able to opt-in into interacting with someone else’s dog, not have to explicitly opt-out of doing so.
There isn’t any real in-community debate whether people littering or camping on grass right next to water etc is good or bad behavior, which I imagine why it isn’t a topic of conversation aside from occasional griping.
In my recent attack I was ~30 feet away from some people, stopped to say hi to them, and their dog ran up barking and then was snarling and lunging at me. I’m not sure that can be explained away by me having poor dog etiquette, and the owners genuinely thought their dog was under voice control.
I don’t mind off leash dogs that stick tight to their owners when I’m in eyesight, but would prefer that when we’re close that they are restrained. Leashes are meaningless in tight quarters.