What a difference a handful of motivated map editors can make!
In recent months, members of Spain’s map editing community have undertaken an ambitious project to fully map out specific cities in the central and eastern regions of Spain.
The initiatives, led by two power Wazers, have been dubbed “Waze Outediting Week,” or “WoW.”
The project, the brainchild of Plumaveloz, a map editor from Valencia, was launched in June.
The premise is simple: users identify a city in Spain where the map needs serious work. They alert their fellow Spanish Wazers of the geographical area that needs mapping in the Spanish forum, and a small group of volunteer map editors join together to map that area.
The result is an intensive collaborative effort to fixing up the map of a certain locale — and ultimately create a better map and driving experience for all of Waze’s Spanish community, which is nearing 1 million drivers!
During the first WoW in June, power Wazer Calandraca led the efforts to map the the city of Tordesillas, a city in central Spain. Six map editors undertook most of the work, with help from an additional 5 map editors on the Spanish forum.
The second WoW, led by Plumaveloz in July, rallied the same group to undertake a similar initiative for the Valencian city of Monover and its surrounding area.
The third and latest WoW, launched in late September, brought in a larger group of editors to the map editing community. Their task has been to educate one another on best map editing practices, as well as to polish up all the modifications made during WoW 1 and WoW 2, such as adding missing street/city names and segments.
With these guerrilla map editing efforts underway, it is no surprise that the community efforts in Spain are growing so quickly! Just check out a snapshot what’s been going on in Spain over the last 12 months.
What do you think of Spain’s ‘WoW’ map editing campaign? Could it be replicated in other countries?
