I just wanted to dump some thoughts and questions regarding the issue as I do find it odd in how little information there is on the subject.
To get the obvious out of the way, I’m new. So new I haven’t been able to edit so I’ve been creating a list of all sorts of stuff from my local areas.
I suppose firstly, I don’t have any experience of the feedback loop from Waze and only have basal expectations — what information have they provided thus far?
Not to be a negative person but Level 1 editing perms being broken, and having it fixed being their highest priority seems a little bit of a stretch even in the short period I’ve been a forum user if I’m to be truthful. Are their developers paid per hour?
I have a decent technical background due to my business and when certain levels of membership or access etc are broken (that badly that a quick fix isn’t possible) you would usually create a temporary solution. For example creating Level 0 perms or Level 716 — whatever, it wouldn’t matter and say asigning that to new users with the same permissions as Level 1. Fix level 1 and merge both levels so progression can be resumed.
I gather that the largest group of Waze editors not having access is a big problem, one that puts additional load on those higher up and one that certainly deters new people.
Is there any dialogue to be had? I would consider myself a fairly impatient person so you’ll have to give me a free pass but to not have a timeframe and also not communicate anything seems, at least to me, to be terrible form.
Is this to be expected or am I missing something as the forums are incredibly quiet about it.
I understand your frustration. I’ve felt the same myself when coming up against Waze-shaped obstacles since I started editing.
You’ll find various threads around this forum where you’ll see that editors often find themselves in a head-banging-against-wall sort of situation, and any attempts at dialogue or resolution involving Waze staff are indulged initially, and seemingly then ignored when they become too troublesome. Take the recent B&Q issue as an example - pretty much every B&Q store in the UK seems to have had its information broken by a Waze bot. There are editors who, while we can’t understand why it happened, would be happy to put it back to how it should be - but we’re being prevented from doing so by Waze staff, who are now seemingly refusing to contribute any further to the discussion around it.
It’s very discouraging, and if they don’t do something about it they’re going to start losing decent people.
In the same boat as you bud apart from the odd post for emergency edits from a higher level editor. What I have been doing is keeping a list of edits to do once they give back editing permissions. My only advice would be to prowl the wiki and kind of refresh knowledge on difficult areas.
One key thing I learnt was that Waze works better with minimal segments and minimal lines, for example marking a car park with every lane possible causes more problems than just one line going in to the car park etc…
For now, I know you may already be aware but just keep an eye on Ianinessex’s thread.
Some of the following is speculative based on what can be easily found in forum posts and on Discord, however most is personal opinion.
The most common reason for the Level 1 restriction I’ve seen is that a large attack (vandalism) of the maps happened. I’ve also seen a few others say it’s due to “technical reasons” or a similar wording, however I’m not personally inclined to believe this as much. If widespread vandalism is the cause, then (in Waze’s defence) this would be difficult to roll back or correct as differentiating between the genuine edits and rogue edits is not going to be simple given the shear volume of edits made every day.
Someone knows the actual truth, however until it actually comes from Waze itself we won’t really know.
I agree that this situation is confusing and frustrating to those like yourself who want to edit. On top of that frustration, it’s also increasing the workload of higher level editors due to the amount of edit requests/reports/forum posts to fix simpler issues. Fortunately I don’t manage a large or overly-busy area, but I respect those that do that are having to deal with the increased workload due to losing their L1 supporters. After all, it’s not just Level 1’s that are being affected here - it has a knock-on effect across the entire community.
In my opinion, Waze has already started to alienate and deter would-be editors by not providing an explanation. Posts like this are a perfect example of that, along with numerous others across the forums and WME chat. The maps rely on this very community to keep them as accurate and up-to-date as they are. The ability to fix most problems myself and make a difference to others is what attracted me to Waze in the first place.
It’s also worth bearing in mind that this situation is potentially leaving known problems unresolved as well because users could feel that the system is broken. For those that don’t submit an edit request, do they just give up? I imagine that some of them do, despite having that desire to help by fixing problems they know about.
I believe there’s respect to be gained in admitting that something went wrong, and furthermore explaining what will happen to reduce the chance of it from happening again. Mistakes happen, just take ownership of it.
For context, I’ll be honest, reading the B&Q post is exactly what spurred this post. I read it through in it’s entirity. With that context, it may explain the delicate langauge used in terms of asking about the dialogue/feedback loop. Was kinda shocked, but ultimately I settled on the fact we are just a tiny little island and problems be a plenty elsewhere.
Yeah agree with all that. I’ve been taking the time to learn as much as possible. Unfortunately learning requires real practise and I’m the practical learning sort.
And yep, got it bookmarked to load when I open my browser!
I suppose it was this sort of response I was craving and I do appreciate the candor even though it’s not always nice to be negative about a cause you support etc.
I’m fully immersed in the current tech world, whether that be tools for work or play. Tech leaders always have big problems and the key as you say, is transparency and open dialogue. It always has been. I imagine the pragmatic solution is lying in wake, right here in the forum. They’ve access to a hive mind for free.
I would be inclined to agree that this isn’t a technical issue because that’s incredibly easy to communicate openly about.
But yeah, my initial enthusiasm to get stuck in improving my local area has dissipated really, which I would expect anyway but at least I would have got a serious amount of edits under my belt first and I’d be a lot closer to being able to improve more important things and better help out.
If the issue really is vandalism I’d support an ID verifcation system. I’d also certainly support a system whereby new editors have to have their edits approved by those higher up for the first X amount of edits of anything. I imagine that’d be a good system where you annotate each edit for those more experienced to either approve or give feedback.
Just a shame that there’s no intermediate solution. I’d happily make requests for the good of the cause so to speak but this is naturally also about leaving your own mark and getting points for edits as they’re required by design.
Just a shame that people like me or Scawtteh (that are obviously avid to get started) cant be taken under the wing of an area manager or something on say L2 or whatever. I’m not even suggesting something to take advantage of the situation either because it’s clearly needed if an immediate solution hasn’t got as much as a timeline.
apart from the odd post for emergency edits from a higher level editor. What I have been doing is keeping a list of edits to do once they give back editing permissions. My only advice would be to prowl the wiki and kind of refresh knowledge on difficult areas.