Hello,
I am just wondering how you find out who the area manager is for a certain area?
Thanks,
cvlngineer
Look up the area at https://www.waze.com/cartouche_old/ – make sure that the “Area Managers” layer is turned on (in the “Layers” menu), and the manager’s username will be displayed there. If there is no name listed over the area, then that area does not have a manager yet.
Thanks for the information! There is a large void of Area Managers in my region. I have been editing the map quite a bit myself. I have browsed through the Area Manager information, but I have a question. Are there any special benefits that go along with being an Area Manager? I am fixing problems and adding missing roads already, but I’m just curious if it would be beneficial to go ahead and request to become the Area Manager for my area.
Thanks,
cvlngineer
The Wiki is your friend. 
cvlngneer,
I have been area manager for a short time ( approximately 60 days) so I do not know the answer to your question; but I shall tell you that the reason I became an area manager was to be able to do a more thorough job with my edits. It was very frustrating for me to have to wait for an area manager before I could delete roads that clearly did not exist, and to be able to resolve update requests. While I have not noticed any special benefits since becoming area manager, I do have a feeling of greater accomplishment when I am able to address issues in their entirety. To put it simply, I think you should become an area manager, since there never seem to be enough of us.
Sincerely,
Larry D Williams (Sonlar)
Area Manager in parts of Northern Virginia, USA
In the new editor you don’t have to wait for an area manager to approve deletes.
So the current benefits, is not having to wait for your permission area to grow based on your driven areas, and to be able to modify locked roads in your area even if done by a higher ranked editor (though you might pay attention if you are working on work previously done by a higher rank).
I have a few streets in my area that have been previously edited by a higher ranked editor, and certain side-streets have spelling mistakes, and other streets which I have driven earlier today that do not allow me link up to a Main Road.
Short of clocking up more driving miles to increase my status, what do you suggest I do to have these errors corrected. There is no current Admin allocated covering my area, so I can only assume it was entered in by a previous user.
I have tried the Map Issue button on my Android (Samsung Galaxy S2), however this tells me it cannot send the request.
Thanks in advance.
You can also use the “Report a Problem” option on the Live Map this also puts a flag on the map so that AM’s & the like can look at your problem.
Be aware that this currently only posts the update request to Cartouche and not to Waze Map Editor.
Becoming an Area Manager should require a minimum of 50,000 edits before their application is accepted. Too many inexperienced, rookie, low ranking users are requesting to become an Area Manager simply so they can become a level two editor without having honed any editing skills, and they often have only rudimentary mentoring abilities due to their untried and unproven map editing skills. (The logic behind requiring 50,000 edits is because it is half the 100,000 edits required to become a level 3 map editor user, and becoming an Area Manager is an instant promotion to a level 2 map editor.) How can an Area Manager mentor new users when they themselves need mentoring?
YES, I believe that becoming an Area Manager should be earned and not given out Carte Blanche.
I also like the new 3 Month rule for allowing edits within a one mile radius of where a Waze Map Editor has driven. This forces map editing Desk Jocks to get out from behind their dektop computers and drive into their local community which can only further improve their overall mapping experience when they visit neighborhoods and user request locations before making an edit.
I’ve purchased a GNS-9870 Bluetooth GPS receiver (because is uses WAAS augmentation and because the GPS built into my Smartphone doesn’t use WAAS augmentation… only achieving a 5 foot accuracy when outside the vehicle and a 10 foot accuracy at best when inside the car & docked on the dashboard) It’s improve the accuracy of my Docked Cell Phone to less than 2 foot and I use it to confirm Wazes street mapping. I spend a considerable amount of time proofing roads, and adding neighborhoods that haven’t been mapped. Before adding new neighborhoods, I ALWAYS reference the local County GIS data when adding new roads, because their database is often very up-to-date. (Rarely more than a couple of weeks old, and often only 2-3 days old)
That, to be honest, would mean I wouldn’t be helping.
If your saying that editors like me - updating an area that desperately needs work - should have to drive throughout every square mile ( after installing Waze), then I would not have started Waze editting, TBH. Why should I waste money, fuel, and time to improve an area that has never been touched (except from WeeeZer in certain areas). I shouldn’t have to drive all the way to North Carolina or Georgia multiple times just to expand editing rights. Unless if Waze wants to reimburse me on all the wasted time and gas money. It’s much cheaper for me to do what I know needs to be done without having to go through every suburb.
I’m willing to say that within the next 3-4 months, Southeast Tennessee will be much better than it is right now.
Having said that, I am still learning. If you notice, I ask questions - a lot of them. I do my best to check and double check everything I touch. I attempt to improve efficiency.
With your plan, editors like me would be left out in the cold. I wouldn’t be able to help in an area that has never been touched. But if that’s what you want.
While I respect the quality of your work, others might have different priorities in their work on the map, and they are also valid.
Pin-pointing map quality down to 2 feet will not help much for better navigation, the accuracy of a driver’s GPS is usually within 15 feet, and with spikes up to about 45 feet which is the base accuracy of GPS. Waze and all road-based navigation knows about this and uses sophisticated snapping technology to keep a user on the correct road, most times succeeding.
So, the average waze consumer (not editor) will not gain better routing precision from improved street-accuracy.
This is reflected in my area of responsibility: The streets were already in the map - up to about 99%, the rest being small streets with a couple of houses, and usually designated as private roads.
Anyway, the routing was horrible, often leading drivers to the target in a half-circle around the destination’s quartier. This happens simply because the roads have no attributes for directions and turns. Besides, about 50% of the streets had no names assigned, resulting in quite a lot of terra incognita and waze only finding the destination through Google’s address web service.
You can correct these things quite well from your desk, using Street View and OSM as a reference.
Therefore, the work of a novice user will mostly be beneficial for Waze, and I suggest that you reconsider your attitude towards the work of novice users and users with a different approach for work on the map. Actually hitting the street is not bad or wrong, but it is not the only way to improve the map, and it is often not the economical way to improve the map.
Best regards,
Detlev
I think this touches on a chicken and egg type of situation. If the roads haven’t been touched, it probably means that there are no active Wazers in the area. But with poor roads, there is no reason for a new Wazer to stick around.
So one role of an Area Manager is like a trail blazer. Try to get the major roads to at least work going straight. And hope that others will follow down that road and start branching off. I know sometimes I feel like I am leading a wagon train with a machete through the mountains of TN :lol:
Anyway, I think the roads need to be a minimal level of functionality before we can retain users. Sometimes we can get a user who wants to be a trail blazer (most of them are the current Area Managers I’d bet). But most general users just want their free app to work perfectly. 
So it is up to the Area Managers to beat back the weeds and reach at least that minimal level of functionality.
Even if those weeds are on a road that we haven’t ever been on since no one else is there to do it.
Once there is an active user base in an area, focus should then shift to URs. And once there is a more local AM, shift to a mentoring role. At least that has been how it has worked for me and some editors in both TN and NJ that I’ve helped out.
You need to be careful in what other sources you are referring to. You can only reference sources that allow for copying of their data based on the license. Street View is also questionable.
http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/OpenStreetMap_License
http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Legal_FAQ#I_would_like_to_use_OpenStreetMap_maps._How_should_I_credit_you.3F
OSM clearly states in their license that you must credit OSM for any data you copy. There is no way to do this in the Waze Map Editor so you cannot copy OSM data for Waze mapping.
Maybe someone else can look into the licensing requirements for Street View…
I’m sure this all varies from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, but there is a real difference between 1)using Street View and OSM as a reference to determine what is the road configuration in reality is and 2) copying their data. That being said I would expect that waze would want license restrictions like these to be read broadly.
As we’re not actually copying the map, only using it for research, right? Does this not come under the same umbrella as ‘fair use’? A map cannot claim copyright over a street name any more than a dictionary can over a word, or a recipe can over an ingredient.
The License Use Cases talks about ‘the production of a hand-made map’, which is effectively what we do. (Yes?)
Here’s an interesting discussion on the OSM about using Google Street View. One argument is that while the images are copyrighted, the ‘facts’ within those images are not.
There is still the risk that the data from Google Maps / Street View / OSM / etc. is out of date (or contain deliberate errors), so using multiple sources is always recommended.
I don’t know what government published resources are available in other countries, but here in the USA there are sources that can be used which allow for the data to be copied per their licensing agreement. Many of these sources also have imagery (high quality airplane fly-overs) that may be newer that what Bing provides. This is a better option than using copyrighted commercial sources that have licensing that prohibits using their data for the purpose of updating Waze’s map data.
True, but be aware that “their data” does not include the location of the roads or the contents of the road signs.