*UPDATED* Ramp naming convention proposal

[jasonh300]

I just sent an e-mail to Dror asking about some of the things we were promised at the Wazemeet that seem to have been forgotten. Hopefully, this will speed up the process of getting the slashes converted to a pause.

One thing I can say for Sketch is that if we ever get that pause inserted for the slashes, he will probably immediately go back and change all of those second colons to slashes. He's been very consistent in the past about going through and fixing these kinds of things when Waze implements the changes on their end.

[FrisbeeDog]

Could we wait until Waze implements the slash pronunciation delay before abandoning our ramp syntax agreement made at the Meetup? Slashes ruin TTS, but I got onboard with it (at the Meetup) predicated upon Waze making it sound like a comma. Now because there's impatience waiting for Waze to implement it, there's a move afoot to make another change to try and finesse TTS into doing what we want. At least that's the way I've read this thread. Have I got it mostly right?

I am having to go back and fix ramps were people added the double-colon in my local area to get those segments into conformity with our agreement. Of course, there's no such thing as "my local area" under this editing system, but I'll keep fixing them as I find them. When Waze gets the slash pronunciation change implemented and if it doesn't meet our expectations, then it would be fruitful to reopen this discussion.

The only two solutions I can think of at this point are as follows:

1. AMs to agree on some etiquette that if they want to implement a syntax change, they need to keep in in their home area. That etiquette would have to manifest itself in gentlemen's agreements between neighboring AMs not to fuss in the other AMs home area and agree where the border lies between the two.

2. Less desirable would be to stop the ability of AMs to edit or unlock outside the area where they live regardless of what level they are, including me.

I am as eager as the next AM to reach resolution on syntax and TTS, but I ask we wait for Plan B (slashes creating a TTS comma-like pause) to take effect before considering a Plan C. As I recall, Waze said TTS is a 3rd party product, so they have to submit a ticket to the 3rd party. That's why I am not surprised the change has not occurred, as yet.

Thanks for reading.

Total agree. No need to edit now for something that will likely need to be reedited in the (hopefully) near future.

Double colons are the devil.

[sketch]

The double colon proposal is not an interim solution. I feel strongly that the double colon is more logical than the slash in some places.

I-110 S takes you to Biloxi. What's the clearest most logical way to signify this while using the fewest characters possible?
"I-110 S: Biloxi"
"I-110 S / Biloxi"

It's the colon. A slash implies an option, a choice. You are not choosing between I-110 S and Biloxi, you are taking I-110 S to get to Biloxi.

And, you know, now that I've been thinking about it, I don't like the "to" either. It can be ambiguous: is it "US-90 to Gulf Shores" or "US-92 / Gulf Shores"?

The only objection to the double colon, as I see it, is that it's not accepted in English sentence constructions. But we aren't constructing sentences here. We're trying to get our points across logically and clearly, both visually and aurally.

I am having to go back and fix ramps were people added the double-colon in my local area to get those segments into conformity with our agreement.

In the interest of fairness, just about all the ramps I have edited or am planning to edit were either not named at all or named incorrectly.

[jasonh300]

In the interest of fairness, just about all the ramps I have edited or am planning to edit were either not named at all or named incorrectly.

That's another point I wanted to make...they're certainly more correct now than they were before when they were blank.

[R4CLucky14]

The double colon proposal is not an interim solution. I feel strongly that the double colon is more logical than the slash in some places.

I-110 S takes you to Biloxi. What's the clearest most logical way to signify this while using the fewest characters possible?
"I-110 S: Biloxi"
"I-110 S / Biloxi"

It's the colon. A slash implies an option, a choice. You are not choosing between I-110 S and Biloxi, you are taking I-110 S to get to Biloxi.

And, you know, now that I've been thinking about it, I don't like the "to" either. It can be ambiguous: is it "US-90 to Gulf Shores" or "US-92 / Gulf Shores"?

The only objection to the double colon, as I see it, is that it's not accepted in English sentence constructions. But we aren't constructing sentences here. We're trying to get our points across logically and clearly, both visually and aurally.

Actually, it's probably the worst I have seen visually. A double colon really makes no sense visually, esp. in this scenario, at least to me. At a quick glance (which is all driving allows), a double colon will not tell me where the information required is, as I'll read after the colon, and half the sign is missing. . .

I also agree that the to is very ambigious, esp. when signs actually have "to". However, this actually works well in those cases, to me, at least.

For example, we have a BGS that says "US-129 N to US-321 N" with the cities "Fontana" and "Atlanta" underneath it.

With double colons (not an exit, it's the straight through):

"US-129: to US-411 S: Fontana / Atlanta"

If it was an exit, for example, we would end up with a triple colon:

"Exit 00: US-129: to US-411 S: Fontana / Atlanta"

That looks rather complicated to me, honestly. I would personally perfer:

"Exit 00: US-129 to US-411 / Fontana / Atlanta"

The to conveys to US-411, but also to Fontana, and to Atlanta, with a quick glance easily denoting where the exit number is, and a longer glance allows seeing at least US-129 to US-411 really easily, to me, at least, again.

With the double/triple colon, it really blurs to me, without being able to quickly glance, since a colon (which is really distinguishable) means absolutely nothing now with that. Before the colon was an exit number, quick to read, after was the sign (thus, a colon marking a very good starting place, since, to me at least, they are very easy to depict), but with double colons, I need to identify the colon I am looking at in order to be able to know where the sign begins. It's not a good visual reference.

[bmitch3020]

A slash implies an option, a choice. You are not choosing between I-110 S and Biloxi, you are taking I-110 S to get to Biloxi.

FWIW, I also see the slash as a way to imply a line feed or generic separator on a single line of text. Many of the BGS contain the cities listed on separate lines, but since we can't put line feeds in the ramp text, the slash is the next best option. It would be nice if the display created a mini BGS on the screen by parsing this text, using the highway shields, putting the exit ## over the sign, and separating the lines on the slashes.

[FrisbeeDog]

Beyond my initial feelings that multiple colons just look wonky, there are several other reasons why I think it isn't best practices to use them.

Suppose we have an exit sign as follows:

Exit ##
I-XX US-YY US-ZZ
City 1
City 2
City 3

The exit sign gives you all of those options so having "Exit ##: I-XX / US-YY / US-ZZ / Town 1 / Town 2 / Town 3" is a valid segment name. It also provides all the information available on the sign, in the order that it is presented.

It can be argued that having the city name linked to the road options provides more information. I can understand that, but I don't think that can be achieved easily and consistently.

If we start linking roads and cities then we start reorganizing the signs. So no longer do the segment names correspond to the way people read (right to left, top to bottom), but start jumping all over the place. I think this becomes confusing to the driver and is distracting. It also introduces further complexity for the editor because they then have to link the roads and city names. This requires even more work and sometimes isn't the easiest thing to do as that information is not always apparent from what is provided on the exit sign.

Also, exit signs farther down the road (or as Exit ##A, Exit ##B, etc.) will provide you with more information about which roads/cities are linked when you need to exit to those roads so we are not losing information by not linking them on the initial sign.

Finally, I don't think that an one easy rule can be applied for colons. Take the above exit sign example and suppose I-XX and US-YY overlap and US-ZZ leads to both City 2 and City 3. Then you going to have the segment labeled:

"Exit ##: I-XX / US-YY: City 1 / US-ZZ: City 2 / City 3"

To me, that gets really confusing because we are mixing the slashes for the overlap and using a slash to parse the second road out (US-ZZ) and then using another slash for City 2 / City 3. So the slashes lose their meaning rather quickly becuase they are used in multiple scenarios.

I'm sure we can come up with multiple if/then scenarios for colon use, but that again because for confusing and makes editing more difficult.

What we should strive to do is to have segment names that:
1) Provide as much information as possible;
2) Are intuitive for the driver; and
3) Are easy to implement for the editor.

And then further down the list we try to minimize the number of characters, but not at the expense of the other three, which I think the double colon does.

[AlanOfTheBerg]

...Take the above exit sign example and suppose I-XX and US-YY overlap and US-ZZ leads to both City 2 and City 3. Then you going to have the segment labeled:

"Exit ##: I-XX / US-YY: City 1 / US-ZZ: City 2 / City 3"

To me, that gets really confusing because we are mixing the slashes for the overlap and using a slash to parse the second road out (US-ZZ) and then using another slash for City 2 / City 3. So the slashes lose their meaning rather quickly becuase they are used in multiple scenarios....

I've got some signs that are nearly as messy. The way I'd like to hear this read to me is:

"Exit to the right at exit xx <pause> I-XX <pause> US-YY to City 1 and US-ZZ to City 2 <pause> City 3"

Just like the second colons actually sitting there meaning the word "to", the second slash really is meaning "and." If we just had that TTS field which could read different text than the segment was actually named...

[R4CLucky14]

...Take the above exit sign example and suppose I-XX and US-YY overlap and US-ZZ leads to both City 2 and City 3. Then you going to have the segment labeled:

"Exit ##: I-XX / US-YY: City 1 / US-ZZ: City 2 / City 3"

To me, that gets really confusing because we are mixing the slashes for the overlap and using a slash to parse the second road out (US-ZZ) and then using another slash for City 2 / City 3. So the slashes lose their meaning rather quickly becuase they are used in multiple scenarios....

I've got some signs that are nearly as messy. The way I'd like to hear this read to me is:

"Exit to the right at exit xx <pause> I-XX <pause> US-YY to City 1 and US-ZZ to City 2 <pause> City 3"

Just like the second colons actually sitting there meaning the word "to", the second slash really is meaning "and." If we just had that TTS field which could read different text than the segment was actually named...

I don't know. I'd perfer to hear:

"Exit right at Exit xx <pause> I-XX <pause> US-YY <slight pause> and US-ZZ to City 1 <pause> City 2 <pause> City 3"

Even though it does not convey where the roads go to (which isn't important, what is important is good directions that match what the driver is reading and seeing), it does clearly convey the reading order of the sign, exactly how I would read it. . .

[harling]

The point of naming a ramp on the Waze map is to help the driver identify the proper sign, either by seeing or hearing its contents. We shouldn't be trying to parse the sign and use punctuation in place of prepositions, to make the meaning of the sign clearer or bring out its structure. The sign is what the driver should be looking at; we only need to help him recognize which one.

I put a colon after the exit number (if any) because the signs around here generally make that look like a heading, under which is an (often indented) list of destinations--which I list using slashes as a delimiter, like a line-feed as bmitch3020 mentioned. I use an initial "to" with on-ramps because that is how I interpret the arrow that is typically on the signs around here. Granted, TTS threw us a curve ball, but if it just gets the pauses right and reads the words on the signs, that's all a driver needs.