Just wanted to congratulate Waze on enabling the ability to choose what level to lock something at! Is there now going to be (or is there already) a standard for what level lock to use in different circumstances? It is frustrating as an AM not to be able to correct simple errors in my area just because they’ve been locked above AM level (3)
mikmyn,
The general consensus around the other Australian wazers is that we will leave the default lock at Level 1 (which is what is automatically chosen when you edit a new road), also this is where Waze road auto-realignment works best. At this stage, we’ll lock the Highways and Freeways at Level 4 as these don’t need to be touched after initial creation.
Also only some roads are to be locked at Level 3 if they specifically require to be locked for whatever reason (such as kiddies maliciously realigning roads, routing errors, etc…) Discuss these roads in the Forum first before setting the Levels, so other Waze Editors can comment.
Send me a PM of the Level 4 roads you are having issues with and I’ll drop them to Level 3 for you.
Cheers
Pete
Warning long post, I don’t intend to offend but just want more discussion on something that will encourage a more active community.
I agree because this will allow more new wazers to quickly and easily and encourage more users to be involved.
I disagree that all waze highways should be locked at 4 because in major cities waze highways have been used as major thoroughfares and many updates needed such as correct turn restrictions, junction angles tweaked for turn instructions and city names corrected. Locking these at level 4 will put off new wazers from making edits and discourage an active community.
I suggest that actual highways (M routes) should be locked but only when 100% complete.
I agree that any other locking should be discussed first because in order to build the community we need to talk more. The locking is usually because of a different view of what needs to be done and the editors need to encourage discussion to resolve the issue.
I think we should approach this differently because whilst you’re doing a great job unlocking all the problem segments, what’s to prevent the original editor coming back and locking it?
How about if first you try to contact the editor who locked it first. Then if after 2 days they don’t respond you send a warning that their edit rights will be suspended. If another day passes and no response, ask waze to suspend their edit rights. This will then get the editor to contact waze and see the issue of not responding to requests has caused this. They take this approach in the US.
While this will annoy the one or two editors but I think this will be better for the community in the long run.
Well said jeedo!
It’s not a bad idea, but those timescales are way too harsh. There have been a couple of rounds of “editing rights removal” in the US, but those have (I believe) been run by Waze and were only supposed to affect AMs who hadn’t done any editing in months.
You have to remember that editing is entirely voluntary - we don’t get paid, we don’t have obligations and it’s up to us how much effort we put in. If you want to cut off editing rights after a few days, what happens to the editor who goes on holiday for a couple of weeks, or just doesn’t feel like checking the forums this week?
If you make the requirements too stringent, you’ll start to make this feel like a real job - and how many voluntary editors will you get then?
I understand that locks can be frustrating. On the other hand they can be very necessary: in London last year, a “rogue” L3 editor removed a great many turn restrictions and one-way settings. It took 3 dedicated local editors several weeks to repair the damage.
I won’t butt in any further. :lol: It’s up to you guys how you build your local community - just wanted to add my 5c.
I agree with iainhouse’s comments. Australia is still a baby in the Waze world. We have to work at growing the community and editors, not squash them like ants if they don’t conform to certain requirements.
At present my RL work is quiet, so I have time to Waze drive and edit roads, etc… but come July, things start to ramp up at work and I’m pushing 12-14hour days at work, so the last thing I want to be doing is editing when I get home, so does that mean my edit rights will be suspended if I don’t reply to an e-mail in 2 days? (Just a thought)
You have to remember also that before the editor upgrade, the WMI locked the road at that Editors level. So yes, there are a huge lot of Level4,5,6 roads around Australia. Hence why I suggested that PM me with the areas you are experiencing difficulty with, and I (or another one of the CM’s) will be able to assist.
Perhaps you should try sending a PM to the user who locked the road first, then if you get no reply in a few days, upscale it to a CM who can remove the locks for you (post in the Unlock Requests) forum. There are other Level 4 AM out there who read these forums.
If a user gives you some grief, try to talk to them first and work as a team. If that doesn’t float your boat, then send a PM to one of the CM’s. If you have an issue with a CM that cannot be resolved (which I would be very surprised if it wasn’t), then PM Jonypony. He is the Australia Community Manager and Admin and he has the final say in things with regards to things in Australia.
Keep in mind that some Wazers like to do just that (Waze Driving and Edit), and not read the Forums. So let’s keep the system simple, so we can grow the AM’s and Editors (There’s a hang of a lot of roads to Waze!)
I think it’s good to have this discussion and thanks to everyone who is participating.
I agree that the rules for editing overall in general need to be relaxed and allow people to be on holidays or not check the forums for a while - making the role overly onerous will scare people away from making any contribution.
But, if you’re a level 4 or a level 5 it’s pretty safe to say you’re on the editor pretty regularly and jumping over to the forum to see if you can help anyone else out I think isn’t too much to expect. Maybe the time frames should be longer but if you’re reverting edits without any discussion, and not responding to PMs from the editor, or anyone else, then I think you need to do something to get their attention.
I’m not suggesting that suspensions will happen if you don’t respond to any PM in 2 days. It’s more the situation of reverting edits happens without any discussion.
So the measure I’m suggesting is to encourage editors to discuss why a change may not be so good and to learn from each other.
The situation may only come up only a handful of times but I think we need to find a way to address them.
I think I would be more than happy to try PMing well before advocating the removal of anyone’s editing rights. While I don’t always understand why a particular area might have been locked, there could be a bunch of reasons. I’ve spent the last week hardly editing at all (due to family staying with me), but still turning Waze on to drive. I would’ve been pretty unhappy if someone had PMed me on Monday, and I hadn’t seen it until today, and I couldn’t edit any more!
How about we just PM the Editor in question, then after 2-4days if you have no reply, Post the request in the Unlocks request forum.
As I have said before, if you have an issue with another User, try to sort it out yourselves via PM (we’re all adults here aren’t we?), then if no luck, upgrade it to a CM.
I don’t agree.
The reason is that people do other things at times also many many areas have been edited by people in other states, why I don’t know brisbane has a very bad case of this with beenleigh, browns plains and many other areas have been locked to lvl 5 (CM lvl) for just over a year and these areas can’t be edited they where all locked by jab_au? I can’t remember the name but the guy is in NSW.
Going by your rules this guy should have had all editing abilities wiped over a year ago.
And while I get really annoyed about this to the point it puts me off bothering to edit areas, I wouldn’t necessarily say he shouldn’t be allowed to edit just because I’ve never seen a forum post from in in about 2 to 3 years and therefore should be wiped.
People are going to ebb and flow all the time.
I actually don’t bother with the locking of areas anymore mainly due to areas will change or things will be wrong or names will be wrong and these things should be edited so they can be fixed up.
The gateway toll road still isn’t properly linked up even though editor have ok’ed the gateway toll road so while you don’t get any errors while waze isn’t on a route you will get routing errors while it is and trying to use the gateway toll road.
Should those editors be wiped as well? seeing as the errors are from edits back in 2011 and I tried fixing them up but again jab_au has part of it locked at lvl5 so the road can’t be fixed.
Also many of the lvl5 locks are mainly due to Waze changing the lock rules this has caused many problems all over the world bar the countries that are 100% self managed.
Waze used to say lock all the roads you edit but at the start of last year changed the Waze(comapny) rules to wanting people to only lock highways and toll road and leave all minor roads unlocked so they can be edited as needed.
Hey guys, I don’t come on the forums very often, but I do keep an eye on my local area and fix things when need be. Personally, I haven’t locked anything, but jpmanalo (lvl 4) has so much locked, and in area’s that are very incomplete. I’ve only noticed this today and being that I’m only lvl 3, I’m sorta stuck for now. I’ll need to contact him, or is there a way to do a mass unlock on an area?
Hi cjsimmons. please send us a permalink of the location you are referring to.
This is the area I work with. I’m an AM for some of it, but I haven’t got around to getting more area, I drive it very often, so I don’t need to at this stage.
https://world.waze.com/editor/?zoom=0&lat=-34.48475&lon=150.83995&layers=BFTFFTTTTTTTFTTTTTFTTTFTT
While I’m thinking of it, what required to get to lvl 4?
Take at look here for help with editing ranks: Editing ranks
The Zoom level you have shown is a bit too much to work out exactly where you are working, so I’ve done work up to Port Kembla.
No worries, thanks mate. I work in pretty much all that area. I’ll work with what I can, and if I need anything, I’ll submit an unlock request.