Letter "a" appearing all over maps and editors

[vectorspace]

As an AM in New Mexico (Albuquerque), I started noticing errant letter "a" symbols in the editor. I figured someone had named a city "a" and it was coming up as a city name since the letters were about that size. Then I started seeing them all over New Mexico, so it wasn't just an "Albuquerque" thing. Then I started seeing them on the client (iPad) maps. Then I traveled to Washington DC and saw them there. What's going on?

I tried to search the topic for this but had not seen it reported.

vectorspace

[CBenson]

Hmm, I have no idea. I commute into DC daily and have not noticed this.

Edit: Oops, left out the critical not.

[dmcconachie]

Screenshot?

via Tapatalk

[vectorspace]

Can you see it at this Permalink? Is center screen for me in the new editor.

https://www.waze.com/editor/?zoom=0&lat=35.07112&lon=-106.62321&layers=BFTFTTTTTTFTTTTFTTTTFT

I have not tried to capture a screen from my client (iPad) and don't know how at this point.

[valerieb]

This segment here has a as the city name

(and I see it was edited by you )


ETA To take a screenshot on my iphone, I press the home button and power switch simultaneously - not sure if it's the same for an iPad, but worth a go? If you mean you're not sure how to post the shot, you need to use an image hosting site such as www.photobucket.com - once photo is uploaded you get a choice of links to copy and paste - you need the IMG code to post on this forum. Apologies if I'm teaching my grandmother to suck eggs, but I remember when I first joined a forum and it took me ages to figure out how people were posting photos!

[vectorspace]

This segment here has a as the city name

(and I see it was edited by you )

Bizarre, thanks for finding that! I had actually have not edited much around that location because another local AM was working a major construction project along a street there. Not sure if I did that or someone else put in "a." No matter, I changed it. I had looked around for "a" in city names in other cases and could not find it. I'll look for similar items again.

Strange though that I found the letter "a" in my client in the Washington DC area, where I have never edited, although I guess I could given the one-mile rule outside of AM zones. There still may be a mystery on my hands, or some psychosis given others have apparently not experienced this before.

Appreciate the suggestion on the PhotoBucket. I had never used that before because I am a webmaster on about 10 web sites and have access to a bunch of online storage and URLs that I can store photos in seconds. PhotoBucket seems like a better option in some cases.

Regards

[AlanOfTheBerg]

Once a bad city name gets in, especially a letter like 'a,' because it comes first alphabetically, it can grow because other's may just take the first item in the list without looking. I've accidentally entered the first letter of a local city, and jumped to street name without selecting the actual city name from the nearby-cities list. Once I apply that edit, it will show up again the next time, so even if I do select the first item in the nearby-cities list which appears after I type the first letter, now the first one in the list is just the single letter. And so it grows...

That comes from overly-fast keyboard usage usually for me.

[vectorspace]

Once a bad city name gets in, especially a letter like 'a,' because it comes first alphabetically, it can grow because other's may just take the first item in the list without looking. ... And so it grows...

Thanks Alan -- That makes sense. I don't see "a" appearing in the list when I type a city name into new roads, but that is probably location dependent. Is there a way you can think of that we can easily "search and destroy" such names in our areas?

[AlanOfTheBerg]

Is there a way you can think of that we can easily "search and destroy" such names in our areas?

One way is to notice wrong city names appearing on the edit map and then searching right in that area. If it's only one or small number of segments, they will be very close to the location of the larger font name displayed. There is also a community-written extension or plugin tool you could use, though it also is used for cheating editing points. Link can be found in the wiki.