📢 Calling all mentors! Join us to shape the future of new editor onboarding!

Map Editors Community Mentoring
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Hey everyone,

We’re very excited to invite our amazing mentors to an important discussion about a new project: Auto-Generated tasks for new editors. Your expertise and insights are crucial as we embark on this journey!

What’s This All About?

We’ve identified that new editors sometimes struggle to find their footing in the Waze Map Editor once they’ve made their initial fix. WME’s complexity can be overwhelming, and it can be hard for them to know what to do next. This can unfortunately lead to them losing motivation and becoming inactive.

Our new Auto-Generated tasks project aims to change that! We want to provide clear, actionable tasks to new editors, guiding them from their very second edit to becoming regular, confident contributors.

This project is currently in its very early stages – we’re talking ideation, not even mock-ups yet! We want to brainstorm together and leverage your experience to ensure we build something truly impactful for our newest community members.

We want to hear from you!

The main feedback we’re looking for on this call is: which automated tasks should editors who have completed their first edit be prompted to do? We want to leverage your insights into the common needs of new editors and the types of impactful tasks that would encourage them to continue mapping.

Call details

This call is limited to up to 30 editors (first-come, first-served).

Please complete this form to receive your invitation, and RSVP to the event so we can invite other editors if you are unable to attend.

A warm welcome to all editors!

While this call is primarily aimed at our mentors due to their unique experience in guiding new editors, we absolutely welcome any other editors who have ideas or insights they’d like to contribute! If this project resonates with you, please feel free to complete the form – your perspective is also highly valued!

Talya, our WME Product Manager, and I will be on the call, eager to hear your thoughts and engage in a collaborative discussion.

Thank you!

Maia on behalf of the team

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This is exactly the kind of initiative I’ve been hoping for!

I’m excited to join the call and contribute with ideas to make the onboarding journey clearer and more engaging for new editors. Count me in!

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Not being available on 7/20 at that time (being in the US), some thoughts…

As stated in the OP, the Waze map maps the very complex real world into a digital twin desgined for the best routing experience. So new editors need mentoring. In opposite to former days, the easy stuff is mostly done, one needs reliable and allowed sources to add new or update existing information to the map.

I hardly see any “actionable tasks” a new editor can do without any explainations how to use the options WME provides otherwise other more experienced editors will just need to fix the errors made frustrating these editors and wasting their time as well as frustrating new editors seeing that their work was not appropriate for the map.

Instead the current treatment of new editors (for the understandable effort to prevent map vandalism) is a major obstacle, restricting and frustrating new L1 editors even when being mentored. Only suggestings, those even limited in numbers, they hardly can do anything on their own. I have two new editors in my area and these L1 restrictions are the most serious problem preventing them from real contribution to the map and the community.

I would really prefer a more powerful mentoring system, emporing mentors to explore the map with their mentees.

  1. Allow to select any L1 working in the area assigned to a mentor as mentee (not only really new editors as it is right now).
  2. For L1, the mentor can select an autonomty level for each mentee iaw their degree of progress which includes steps like “suggestion only, add/edit/remove POIs and/or segments on their level” as well as different levels on restricting the number of edits per day.
  3. Add the ability to assign any editor to an higher-ranked editor as mentor and empower the mentor to let that editor work one level above his current rank with options to withhold certain functions (like JBs or Paths until specific training was obtained).
  4. Both options require that the mentor can access a list of all edits with clickable links to the editor to review the changes.

That would empower new editors giving them an incentive for getting trained by experienced editors and quickly achieve more options through training. And it would solve the present, demotivating delay for new R1.
For more experienced editors, it would allow to bring them to more responsibility by training and introduce them step by step to the next rank. At the same time, mentoring should be counted toward promotion of mentors.

So concluding… empower your mentors to empower editors on all levels especially the new ones to keep motivation up and ensure and reward a transfer of knowledge.

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Hi Everyone!

We still have some open slots! Don’t miss the opportunity to shape new editor’s on boarding :slight_smile:

Call details

You can sign up here

See you there!

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As a long time newby editor I fully support Alpha_VA his/her vision. The quality of the maps is what attracts me, and any addition should be reviewed and if possible graded. Voting systems can help to identify trustworthy editors and active mentors.

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Thank you Alpha_VA for your thoughtful insights! You’ve raised some very important points about improving guidance for editors.

You’re right that there’s a huge opportunity here. This current project is our first step, focused on creating a new view for the issue tracker that will offer simpler, more direct editing tasks. Our main goal is to help new editors feel confident and bridge the gap between their first and second edits. This approach was also shaped by community feedback asking for more automation and efficiency in general.

Your idea about empowering mentors to define editing tasks is great, and it’s definitely on our radar for a later stage. We believe that once we have this new system in place, we can build on it by providing tools for mentors like you to create custom tasks for your mentees.

We’re looking forward to discussing this in more detail on our upcoming call:)

Thanks again for the great feedback!

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@maiapas I have not received an email for the call this afternoon. Will there be a link to join?

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Hi Marcel!

Looks like the submission did not have your email. Would you be able to either complete the form again or send me your email address via chat?
EDIT: I’ve contacted you via chat :slight_smile:

Thank you!

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Sorry I couldn’t attend. Something came up unexpectedly.

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It was a pleasure to attend this meeting.
If possible, I’d like to ask whether the presentation could be shared in view-only mode via Google Drive.

Thank you very much, and see you at the next meeting!

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Thanks Mattia for coming and sharing your insights!
Are you referring to the “bubble” deck with your examples or the one we presented?

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Sorry for the late reply… I mean the one you submitted.

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I’ve shared it over email :slight_smile:

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Including to those who couldn’t attend? :grimacing:

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Yes please :smiley:

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Hi Rafa!
To avoid confusion or miscommunication, we won’t be sharing the presentation with those who did not attend as there might be a lack of context of what we explained during the call.
But fear not, we will be sharing more about this project in the near future, through a forum post.

Thank you for the interest! :slight_smile:

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