People are still using satellite images to do their edits

[dmcconachie]

Until such a time as waze can actually capitalise our hard work then financially speaking it has no value and so free or cheap sources are all you can expect.

I believe Israel, where the whole process started, never had an aerial to work from in the first place so it can be done. It just requires buy-in from local users.

As for basemaps, it's still possible to work without one. I had my local city working pretty well before the UK basemap was introduced. It takes time. It takes patience!

[rwstout]

Yes, and it is wretchedly incomplete for Japan.

There are several splendid paid and free map and navigation app options available for Japan, with extraordinary accuracy and functionality, which I strongly suspect Waze will NEVER have. There is no language localization, they seem clueless to the fact we don't use street names and house numbers, there is ZERO basemap (we do it all from scratch), and even for a major city like Tokyo you will never see more than two or three Wazers active so it is useless for traffic information. When I first checked out the forum, I was amazed at all the posts about problems with the navigation function....because Waze is so poorly implemented here it never even dawned on me that it HAS a navigation function. Over here we mess around with Waze pretty much for the same reason you might while away some idle time pointlessly working on a jigsaw puzzle.

They are crap for map or point updates, the app is bloody useless (at least here) for what it purports to be, and the users apparently do 99% of the work on the thing. Yeah, I called it a half-assed app. And that's a charitable assessment of it.

Got it...

I agree with you that there are better alternatives, either or not for free.
What I like is the community aspect, although I sometimes wonder why I just copy the TomTom- or Google Map into Waze.

What I do like is:
- The system automatically and very fast adapts to the traffic flow. And you are right that you need a certain amount of Wazers on a road for that. Here in the Netherlands the Waze community is growing fast (in my opinion), which greatly improves the system.
- The fact that one can edit a map and that is implemented within days (when they overcome the server capacitiy problems, that's to say).
- The feature that warns you for traffic construction, hazards and so on. I don't see that elsewhere.
- The feeling of being part of a community that spends time in improving a system from which everybody can benefit, for free!
- Warning messages al almost instantly put into the system, which prevents hazardous situations.

What I don't like is:
- Beause a lot of people do the editing, it's very hard to make the maps consistent (roundabouts, for example).
- The planning algorithm is bases on supposed average speeds for certain types of road, irrespective of it's location. This can lead to driving more kilometers and more minutes than you need to.

So, what's my mission:
- Improve the system wherever I can.
- Tell people about it.
- Spread the word, spread the word, spread the word...

That will lead to:
- A routing system that gets better by the minute.
- Safer travelling
- Enjoying the trip, because you really can attribute to the well being of others by the push of a button.


And yes: I still have my TomTom standby, since the routing depends on Internet servers, that are not always in the air...

[mikecash]

Until such a time as waze can actually capitalise our hard work then financially speaking it has no value and so free or cheap sources are all you can expect.

I fear you may misunderstand me. My disparaging remarks are about Waze....not the Bing aerial photos. If there are no other free options out there, then the editor shouldn't make it look as though there are.

As for basemaps, it's still possible to work without one. I had my local city working pretty well before the UK basemap was introduced. It takes time. It takes patience!

Uhhhh......I know that. Every inch of roadway in the Japan Waze map is user-generated. Unlike your country, I believe our prospects of someday having a basemap are very poor. We also suffer from tons and tons of spurious crap and fragments on the map and from editors who make a mess out of things (half my edits are cleaning up the junk and errors put in by a guy who is area manager for about half the country). I seriously don't know why Waze even bothered opening up here; the implementation would have to improve tenfold to rise to the level of being merely farcical. As I mentioned earlier, we do it for points and the idle distraction like you would get from working a jigsaw puzzle. It is not now nor is it ever likely to be an even marginally useful map/navi app here.

[dmcconachie]

I fear you may misunderstand me. My disparaging remarks are about Waze....not the Bing aerial photos. If there are no other free options out there, then the editor shouldn't make it look as though there are.

And how should it differentiate? It just downloads the aerial tile from Bing - if the tile is crap it has no way of knowing it.

Uhhhh......I know that. Every inch of roadway in the Japan Waze map is user-generated. Unlike your country, I believe our prospects of someday having a basemap are very poor. We also suffer from tons and tons of spurious crap and fragments on the map and from editors who make a mess out of things (half my edits are cleaning up the junk and errors put in by a guy who is area manager for about half the country). I seriously don't know why Waze even bothered opening up here; the implementation would have to improve tenfold to rise to the level of being merely farcical. As I mentioned earlier, we do it for points and the idle distraction like you would get from working a jigsaw puzzle. It is not now nor is it ever likely to be an even marginally useful map/navi app here.

Which is exactly how it used to be here. Crap aerials, "Red spaghetti" everywhere for all sorts of reasons. Clean up was a nightmare and that was before you tried to actually add anything!

Waze hasn't officially launched in Japan, yet. It's only "open" there in the same way it was in many other places before it reached a level deemed fit for launch. If you know of any free sources for a basemap then get in touch with http://www.waze.com/support and they'll be only too happy to try and arrange implementation

[mikecash]

Thanks for further illustrating my point about how half-assed Waze is.

1. They didn't even do the bare minimum of offering a Japanese interface for the app.

2. If Bing is my only choice, the editor shouldn't make it appear otherwise.

3. It isn't incumbent upon users to do their work by going around hunting up a basemap for them.

Any day now I expect to receive a notification from Waze giving us a schedule telling each of us what days we are expected to come clean their offices and make coffee.

[Timbones]

Waze have provided a form where you can Report outdated aerial imagery.

(Sometimes the aerials shown in the editor are newer than those on Bing)

[dmcconachie]

Thanks for further illustrating my point about how half-assed Waze is.

1. They didn't even do the bare minimum of offering a Japanese interface for the app.

2. If Bing is my only choice, the editor shouldn't make it appear otherwise.

3. It isn't incumbent upon users to do their work by going around hunting up a basemap for them.

Any day now I expect to receive a notification from Waze giving us a schedule telling each of us what days we are expected to come clean their offices and make coffee.

You're welcome to pay for the service you clearly expect by using one of many other offerings on the market!

[jasonh300]

I fear you may misunderstand me. My disparaging remarks are about Waze....not the Bing aerial photos. If there are no other free options out there, then the editor shouldn't make it look as though there are.

Where and how does the editor make it look as though there are?

[mikecash]

You're welcome to pay for the service you clearly expect by using one of many other offerings on the market!

When I expect to actually derive even the most minimal map/navi functionality from an app I already do that, as Waze is entirely useless for either purpose.

You can try to twist it around to make it look like I'm expecting services for free, but I've said nothing of the sort. I think the people who own Waze are clearly falling far short in what they should be doing on their end of the provider-user relationship, especially since they so clearly expect so extraordinarily much of their work to be done by the users.

It wouldn't kill them to actually update points every 24 hours as they say they do instead of maybe once or twice a week as they actually do.

It wouldn't kill them to update the map more than once every month or two.

It wouldn't kill them to at least produce a local language menu for the app before opening it up in Japan.

This app entails a two-sided relationship between the provider and the users, and the providers aren't holding up their end of the bargain. But they have their devoted lickspittle apologists to tell anyone with the temerity to point it out that they can just go elsewhere and that we should be grateful for the opportunity to do tons of work in return for nonexistent functionality. I presume when the cleaning and coffee schedule gets released you will dutifully book your airline ticket and show up. Make sure to take your own cleaning supplies along. Maybe some sanitary wipes to clean their backsides with prior to planting a big smoochie on them.

[llayden]

As I mentioned earlier, we do it for points and the idle distraction like you would get from working a jigsaw puzzle.

Hi Mike,

Your jigsaw analogy is exactly correct. In fact, over the Christmas holiday, I usually do a jigsaw to while away some of the idle time. This Christmas past, I didn't... I Wazedited instead. I agree with most of what you said. I have described the Waze devotees as hobbyists here many times. ("lickspittle apologists" is a good one - I must remember to use it elsewhere!) My main gripe has not been the things that they have failed to do but the little obstacles they put in the way that reduce productivity of editing - in effect saying that some of the jigsaw pieces are not available to you and you can only do it the slowest possible way.

As far as the OP is concerned I would say that of course people edit from the aerial images. It will take for ever otherwise. They should of course pay attention to other people's edits and the GPS layer but it will take forever if people don't edit from the aerials.

I too am in a mapped-from-scratch country. When I started, in February of last year, Ireland's maps were similar to yours - perhaps a bit worse because two individuals had driven around madly and never edited anything - all their crap was in the way and back then you could not delete other people's roads unless you were an AM. The leader board for the country had, typically, five people per week on it and I was on the all-time leader board within a few days of starting. A little over a year later this is what Dublin looks like
https://world.waze.com/editor/?zoom=0&l ... FFTFTTTTFT
It is practically complete and if you look at anywhere in the east of the country, you will find that all the major and minor routes are in and considerable progress is being made on the lesser roads. I say this by way of encouragement (and slightly bragging). Its not completely hopeless but it will take a big effort - an effort that could be reduced considerably if Waze looked at productivity seriously. There are about ten active editors in the country but still not enough people driving to remove the guesswork about the fastest route home in the evening. I begin to despair that it will ever provide me with that. The drop-off rate is horrendous - a friend who started about four weeks ago has amassed 7608 points and has a world ranking of 92258 i.e. in a month he has passed 2.3 million people who download the application and gave up.

The bad news is that it has cost me 232,526 map edits, 1591.516 new kms, 41,773.61 existing kms, 716 resolved URs and 1,632,881 Waze cookie eating meters giving me 944,430 points and a world rank of 13, I intend to stop shortly (on 999,999 points with any luck) as the portion of the jigsaw I am interested in is effectively finished.

I would encourage you to keep giving the "lickspittle apologists" a hard time!