WME - Extended Tools (fka Plugin pour Papyrus) - English

[enhket]

A few people think that if you shouldnt be there, you dont have to be there

[jasonh300]

Look at the leader board up to today... 100k points in a few days? How do you explain that without ET? I don't see how anyone can stay up that long, especially with the new editor

I was referring to the All time top ten. However, on the weekly top 10, the highest one is 42,420. That's about 13,000 edits. At 1000 edits per hour, it's doable if someone has a lot of time on their hands. Most likely it was aided with ET.

[razor2k]

Look at the leader board up to today... 100k points in a few days? How do you explain that without ET? I don't see how anyone can stay up that long, especially with the new editor

I was referring to the All time top ten. However, on the weekly top 10, the highest one is 42,420. That's about 13,000 edits. At 1000 edits per hour, it's doable if someone has a lot of time on their hands. Most likely it was aided with ET.

You're right...I was looking at the leading score from the week before

[jasonh300]

You're right...I was looking at the leading score from the week before

Yes, I have no doubt that user used Extended Tools. However, that user has already been checked out and there's no suspicious editing that anyone could find. Not all use of Extended Tools is bad. But in the hands of a person with bad intentions, or to someone who just doesn't care, it can be very destructive.

Personally, I've done 100,000 points in a week without ET, but that was when business was slow and I was editing 6-8 hours a day.

[jondrush]

I've used extended tools very little. Almost solely to add city names where none existed. Since the advent of the highlighter tool and the new editor, I haven't touched it.

Unfortunately, it promotes low quality editing even in the hands of responsible users, because they don't get "intimate" with each segment and spy the real problems that cause bad routing. I've spent all week cleaning up after an editor who was apparently using it. From 10,000 feet, the map looks great, but when you get up close, it is a disaster, barely route-able and full of mistakes of names, cities and turns.

If I may make an analogy, in real life we don't give little children high-powered electric tools until they have demonstrated the maturity, wisdom and experience to handle them.

[AlanOfTheBerg]

Ok Alan, let me play devils advocate here. You have the respect of just about everyone on the forum. But how did you rack up your points? I'm sure it was with the use of ET...right?

Nope. I have previously used ET to look for city names incorrectly assigned to segments. I have recently (2-3 months ago) used ET to unlock a couple hundred improperly locked residential streets in Hawaii. So, you could give me maybe up to 300 edits using ET. Otherwise, no, no use of ET at all. I don't even have it installed. For the Hawaii unlocks, I downloaded it, used it, deleted it.

The majority of users getting 100k points in a day around the world now is almost exclusively attributable to abusing the current ET. There are other ways I am sure.

I am just as likely to site and make 100 changes to a single segment to align it to GPS points/aerials as I am to go solve map problems or update requests. And those 100 changes which can take up to 5 minutes, will get me 1 edit. But when you can easily spend 20-40 hours per week doing map editing, it's easy enough to rack up a lot of edits.

[doomedtx]

Edit: typed too slowly. I was responding to jondrush above you Alan.

Yes, but didn't the latest script iteration make all AMs wear diapers just because one AM pooped his pants? I don't think it was appropriate to take away "allow all drives" access from AMs. In my area, there are dozens and dozens of towns with little or no drive data. Fixing them requires comparison with authorized data, lots of straightening out, lots of deletion, etc. At the end of the process it's far too tedious to select every junction to be sure the drives have been allowed. I've come across too many previous edits of mine where I either missed a junction completely or accidentally hit an arrow as I tried to click off a segment. Allow all drives is a great way to finish the cleaning process.

Yet another counter argument: the roundabout tool can destroy more area far more quickly but is available to every level 0 (or 1, whatever they are now) editor right off the bat. Aside from a few notable exceptions, I don't think we've seen a need to take that particular electric tool from the children's hands. Why do the ET get so much extra scrutiny?

[AlanOfTheBerg]

In my area, there are dozens and dozens of towns with little or no drive data. Fixing them requires comparison with authorized data, lots of straightening out, lots of deletion, etc. At the end of the process it's far too tedious to select every junction to be sure the drives have been allowed.

Actually, it isn't too tedious. It's what the non-ET users have been doing for years. I do small towns all the time. There is a lack of patience in the world.... I, and many others, have gotten to hundreds of thousands of edits without using ET, or very limited usage. Why can't you and everyone else, do the same?

Using ET to select an entire town, turn all roads 2-way and allow all turns is sloppy. I've seen this done more time than I can count and had to clean up the mess, setting 1-ways back they way they should, disabling all those left turns across the median, etc. It wastes more of my time to fix the problems caused. Not the fault of ET directly, but without it, it would at least make it more painful to the idiot who misused it. Whole towns changed so all streets have the same name, some towns completely deleted.

In the hands of conscientious users, it can be used for great good. But in the hands of morons, saboteurs, or the inexperienced, it can cause great damage. And what measure do we use to filter those types of users out? Those who have been around long enough to make it to 200, 300, 400k edits already. If you stick around for that long, chances are you aren't going to be stupid. How else do you propose we ensure only the "good" editors are allowed to use it?

Yet another counter argument: the roundabout tool can destroy more area far more quickly but is available to every level 0 (or 1, whatever they are now) editor right off the bat.

Not true in my testing. A roundabout will only delete roads within its radius which are also selectable at that zoom level. ET is the same. So they both operate within the same selectability rules. They are pretty much equal.

[doomedtx]

Actually, it isn't too tedious. It's what the non-ET users have been doing for years. I do small towns all the time. There is a lack of patience in the world.... I, and many others, have gotten to hundreds of thousands of edits without using ET, or very limited usage. Why can't you and everyone else, do the same?

I'm just going to answer this part, because the other part is basically unanswerable. There's no perfect system that will allow conscientous users to edit properly that doesn't also allow bad editors the same level of access.

Perhaps I chose poor wording for my use of allow all drives. It's not really a matter of tediousness as accuracy. Even in small towns there can be dozens of junctions. Having to select each one means I have that many more chances to make an error, either by accidentally skipping a junction or by deselecting a valid turn as I mentioned above. I spend a lot of detail on making the roads conform to the aerials (where appropriate) comparing to authorized data sources, and doing the other things you know much better than I that need to be done. Why make allowing all drives be harder than it needs to be?

In any event, as long as no one's deleting the function for level 4 editors, it's all angels dancing on the head of a pin to me. I'll continue editing the way that works for me until I find a more efficient flow that ensures accuracy over speed without unnecessarily hamstringing me.

[daknife]

Count me as another major point scorer who has not used the ET, I tried it once, but saw the dangers and decided it wasn't worth the risk. So my total ET edit count is about 20 or less.