+1000
This is what I was talking of … You are absolutely right my dear friend.
AM : Maharashtra, MP,TN, AP, Goa. iphone 5 iOS 6.0.1 Waze : 3.5.2
Agreed. 1 post per working day is 260 posts. But of course… your also stating that you would help an average of 1 person per working day. Which makes me think someone else may be a better fit. Personally, id change the criteria a little. Instead of ‘300 posts’ id say ‘300 quality posts’ 
lets face it… a post of “+1” PROBABLY SHOULDNT qualify.
We have all seen the results of what happens when people are promoted based entirely off numbers… country managers who used extended tools get edit counts… and still cant figure out how to do basic edits… and other assorted issues. I say we should raise the bar, not lower it.
Just my two cents, of course.
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Hi all,
Following the introduction of the reorganization plan, a few questions came up and we would like to address them:
What is The role of coordinators and experts?
The Coordinator is a sort of an ambassador. He will be a part of both global and local champs’ groups, and will be in an ongoing and direct contact with the Waze team.
With the help of the community manager from the Waze team, he will help promoting initiatives and issues that are important for the local community that he represents.
He can also contact the community manager regarding unsolved issues that require Waze’s intervention and to inform us if there are any burning issues that require our attention
The Experts are more like “ministers” of their relevant expertise. The experts are users who accumulated a high knowledge level in a specific area such as editing, translation, routing, iPhone etc and have the will and the ability to take an active role in the community by helping others where they can and help elaborating issues that need to be addressed.
What does it involve?
First, it really depends on the area of expertise but generally:
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Experts will be moderators of the relevant professional forum and have access to the local champs group of their community.
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Experts will be informed by Waze of news and updates which are relevant to their expertise, For example a client experts will be in the loop about new features on the way etc.
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They will have direct contact to relevant Waze team members like mapteam supervisors, qa testers, product members, social media etc (as much as possible)
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If there are relevant tools that we can provide, the experts will have access to them. For example, bugs list from our bug system will be accessible to client experts.
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Experts will handle (with the tools and contacts they have) high level issues and other problems that couldn’t be solved locally.
Some clarifications about experts:
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A user can have multiple expertise (he can be for example coordinator,client expert & social media expert)
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Each area of expertise can have multiple experts from different communities.
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The official requirements to become an expert:
6 months of Waze- seniority
editing level 4
300 forum posts
Of course these requirements are not set in stone, we wouldn’t like to block enthusiastic and motivated users who wish to contribute with their knowledge from participating. We will consider any request separately - so please don’t hesitate to apply even if you don’t quite meet the conditions
Some of you asked what’s the amount of time that needs to be invested in these roles:
It really depends on how much activity there is on the specific forum, it not suppose to be different from the existing structure, just now the experts know they are managing the forum and they are the professional authority for any questions.
And of course they can communicate with waze team easily,
I hope that’s answer the main issues, i’m here for any anther thing you need:-)
I never said that. We are discussing criteria to become expert, not how many people expert will be willing to help
I totally agree.
My hope is that Waze staff will evaluate each Country separately as each Country presents unique situation, challenges and number of members. Also in this day and age I think it would take just a few minutes chatting/talking to every applicant to see if they are fit
Cheers and have a great weekend!
I’ll be cheeky and ask for a name badge with UK English super person then please lol
Do I get any super powers like being able to fly or invisibility or anything? 
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Maybe extra-visibility rather than invisibility :lol:
I’m not sure about the flying powers though
I want to seriously respond to this topic. :mrgreen:
I’m CM in the Netherlands but work most of waze in other countries
I have make the map of waze in Suriname and have contacts there with users,
https://world.waze.com/editor/?zoom=2&lat=5.83299&lon=-55.17021&layers=BFTFFTTTFTTFTTTTFTTTTFT
I work at this moment in Luxembourg and the borders of this country.
https://world.waze.com/editor/?lon=6.11354&lat=49.55356&zoom=0&layers=BFTFFTTTFTTFTTTTFTTTTFT
I have there contact with users .
Now I am working in French Guiana. There lies the whole map broken.
https://world.waze.com/editor/?zoom=1&lat=4.90505&lon=-52.2975&layers=BFTFFTTTFTTFTTTTFTTTTFT
I also work in a number of other areas where I often go on holiday like this.
https://world.waze.com/editor/?lon=-13.9329&lat=28.5524&zoom=0&layers=BFTFFTTTFTTFTTTTFTTTTFT
What is my specialty?? :geek:
George
A Universal Manager!
AM : Maharashtra, MP,TN, AP, Goa. iphone 5 iOS 6.0.1 Waze : 3.5.2
How do we apply to get involve? as community manager or as waze expert?
Fill in the questionnaire linked in the Community Manager introduction post for your specific area or country.
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One issue…
I have a problem with the minimum forum post requirement.
Granted you want people to be active…but that should not be a rule and guide by how many forum posts one makes to scale how valuable they are. Example…someone can just go in the unlock forums and type “fixed” all day long to everything and anything, just to drive up their forum posts… I think that should be secondary consideration if some other requirement is not met.
I find it useless sometimes to get involved with every forum post that don’t necessarily pertain to contributing. Meaning, I could go and talk everywhere in the forum, and I might not know what I am talking about anyways, and then I ruin my reputation all for the sake that I was trying to build forum post count.
Other part of the equation here is, out of the millions of users, I imagine there are not as many active users who could care about the forums. Not to say they shouldn’t be up to date with information from user experiences and reports, to planning and organization. It is just that for that to be listed number one for each requirement for this new direction, it puts those who have been active just in different ways, out on the door step.
With that being said, I imagine the responsibility by Waze to continually admin users and managers of millions of users, is probably going to be handled best by local AM’s and CM’s. So I applaud this direction. So I look forward to these design improvements and the better of the community and app at large. But please, the forum posts shouldn’t be in my opinion, the only reason here, or I envision more useless posts will start to propagate, which really won’t be beneficial but more of a nuisance I do believe. Thanks!
I agree-- I generally don’t post on things that have been covered well by someone else. And I communicate a lot more one-on-one (via PM, IRC, email, SMS, whatever). The lack of a good infrastructure (check out any of StackOverflow’s sites for a good example of how things should work) makes me cringe at the thought that I’d need to spend even more time sifting through more noise (since now there will be even more incentive to make junk postings) to find useful information.
The first time I suggested a minimum forum post requirement, I also specified that it should not be widely known that forum participation is one of the metrics, let alone a specific number of posts. Otherwise, making enough worthless posts to qualify becomes just another “game”.
If the folks at Waze want to put their maps–perhaps their most valuable resource–in the hands of people according to their ability to game the system, rather than according to evaluation by other concerned parties, that’s their prerogative; but it isn’t a formula for success.
Massive +1. It should be based solely on proven ability and by peers in the community who are established, not by any numbers or stats (except the edit requirement).
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While the hierarchy makes sense, using a forum to track issues/requests is inappropriate-- things can definitely start out as a discussion in the forums, but once something is identified, it should be tracked using an appropriate trouble-tracking tool. If nothing else (as I offered to do elsewhere) set up an instance of bugzilla (it’s $10/month at the most – for unlimited users). You can anoint folks with different capabilities, isolate issues, etc. If you really want to do it right, get a full-featured CRM or look at something like Lithium.
Even better than forums (for problem-solving, etc.) would be to use a stackexchange (http://stackexchange.com) instance. That would basically be self-policing (users would reward – and punish – the deserving) and power-users/champs would percolate naturally to the top.
I agree with what was being said there. I wasn’t going to try to create an argument or flame war etc, just to emphasize what jhfrtonz said, someone may have already posted fluently about the topic already, me just adding to the thread, makes the posts get deeper and deeper. At some level we need to keep it simple.
Second part, not to self bloat, but the USA is made up more than just states, it is rather regional in some regards, like the Midwest. Until recently, editor activity was rather sporadic if not minimum here. Granted some other states have had more rock solid foundations with editors of all levels working together. But that hasn’t really been the case here in the Midwest. I have some CM’s neighboring, but it probably isn’t overlaid as deep as say probably CA or Boston? I appreciate the new levels of help that I have been getting here lately with new AM’s and it seems a new CM or two, but to assign someone this area more responsibility over me because they have posted more in the forums, sort of puts me on the porch if you get what I am saying.
I feel like there is a fine line being walked here, some are going to feel it more than others. Until mapcat’s freeway adventures, I had strived to connect major metropolitan areas here by correctly making the freeway structure more prevalent. To have a system that overrules all of my efforts because of forum posts would chaff me a bit.
I am sure it will all get sorted out. I look forward to change, it will be healthy for the community and us all. I just hope some things are grandfathered in here.
Edit: I don’t want to distract where we are going here, I felt like I was rambling a bit there, but I hope that someone at least follows what I am saying there…let me know, thanks.
One form of expertise that should be covered (and does not seem to be) is ‘communications’.
If you look carefully at many of the problems that WAZE has, they amount to communications problems.
There are several different channels of communications involved. Many of them interact.
Much of the time, the WRONG channel is invoked when a problem is noticed and rather than quickly solving the problem, it escalates.
Let me mention a few of the communications channels.
The MAP itself is the most important communications channel. It allows ‘the end users[the drivers]’ to receive timely instructions so that they can cope safely with all the problems of navigating a massive implement of death and destruction from one place to another safely. It MUST be the primary focus of everyone’s efforts. Of course, the GPS reports of the vehicle’s location travel over a communications channel and must be kept ‘up-to-date’.
As the territory is always in a state of flux, the MAP is never the territory and the map must be adjusted constantly to reflect changes.
By editing the map, the editors are using a communications channel. They communicate with the drivers and they communicate with other editors. They communicate with the programmers that write the editing software. The importance of these communications channels can not be over stressed. The ‘rules’ for editing have two functions: 1) to inform the editors HOW to make necessary changes so that the drivers get the proper cues, and 2) to allow the editors to communicate with other editors the information the editors need when they are called upon to modify the map to match changes in conditions.
Then there are the forums. They remind me of a room full of people milling around and conversing in small groups. Some are very useful, others just add background noise and make communications more difficult.
There is also PM, e-mail, and other channels. Sometimes these are used effectively but often they are neglected. If I find a new editor making mistakes, my first communications effort is to PM them and bring the mistake to their attention gently, educating them as to the right way to do things and why.
When I see someone in a forum asking a question about a problem attributable to some particular editor, my first impulse is to PM the editor and alert them to the problem. Some editors have disabled PM. This cuts a very important communications channel.
The vast volume of traffic seems to have caused WAZE to shut down some important communications channels as they seek to streamline things. This Community reorganization appears to me to be an effort to bring these communications problems under control.
Perhaps looking at things in this light will help some to see the situation in a new light and may even bring some new and better solutions to mind.
When looking at our problems, as someone once said “what we have here, is failure to communicate!”
Let us all do our best to find the fastest and most effective way to communicate at each particular point.
I see your point and agree. But I think that’s what breaking the US into regions is suppose to do. Instead of 50K users trying to tell Waze of a problem, we report to a region manager who is in contact with one person from waze. A chain of command.
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Agreed.
I guess what I am trying to say is that for each type of information flow, a careful look at ‘what needs to be communicated’, ‘from whom’, and ‘to whom’, will often make it clear HOW the information can be best communicated.
Also, it is important to improve the ‘signal to noise’ ratio of some communications channels.
The automatic map problem reports are an example of ‘poor signal to noise ratio’ because many of the reports are ‘noise’. The ARE some reports that ARE useful, but clearly the problem detection criteria need refinement.
Improving communications with users so that they use the hazard and map problem reporting properly is another area where looking at the communications channels available may provide an insight to where changes can be made that improve things.
+10,000 I also think client map problem reporting should be a focus effort of refinement. My suggestion, combine some existing functionality of the live map and editor to make a problem report interface. You can keep the quick map reports, but put an option in there that will email the account a link to a reporting map where they can type details, maybe even highlight or draw boxes around issues etc.
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