To take on a decision in AZ as expressed by nnote, I would like to start locking all highways and major highways to at least level-2. Even with the eventual auto lock from Waze, lots of critical RURAL minor and major highways were never above level-1 (in last test and in beta).
No need to rush, but let’s do this as we work on other things. Freeways and their ramps are, of course, at level-5.
You realize that in many cases that means pretty much everything paved outside of any town needs to be locked? Short of Waze auto-locking it that’s a lot of work, and for what reason? So newer editors can’t learn by making a mistake in their local somewhat rural area, and then figuring out how to fix it once they realize it is no longer routing correctly? And a few others might be inconvenienced during this learning time? Now I’m not special enough to be made a Champ, but this seems to me to be counter productive to letting newer users learn to edit, by fixing or updating the roads they use every day.
Daknife,
I pretty much agree with you, so not a lot of argument there – even though this was my post. I was really looking for a debate on the topics, especially one that would limit such locking. But… the auto lock feature promises to lock out a lot more users.
I think the rationale was to prevent critical main arterial in rural areas from being damaged and causing routing errors in a way that Interstates are often locked at high levels. Locking at 2 would keep the newbies from messing up, but would allow the next level of editor to access it.
I think there are a lot more side roads and neighborhoods in rural areas that can be edited too, so I don’t think this is a big lock out issue. I didn’t want to presuppose those in AZ were right or that I was right in wanting to follow. I just realized that a lot of MAJOR highways in rural areas were not auto locked and I saw some mess-ups from new editors.
Waze is currently beta testing traffic-based segment locking. Segments get a minimum lock level based on the level of traffic they carry.
Hi Andy – yea, I know that. Last time I saw it implemented in the editor and beta, this may have worked well for highly populated areas, but didn’t seem to work at all for rural and low-population/traffic states like New Mexico. There were critical Major Highways that were still auto-locked at level-1. Who knows if the new system will change that. I could go check the current beta editor.
I think as vector said, all minor highways and up should be at least a level two, to protect infrastructure. Also as he said it keeps newbies from messing things up, until they get a basic understanding of editing. Fortunately and unfortunately newbies have plenty of parking lots they can practice on, us more experienced people load up on the editor Monday morn to find some newbie trashed an important interstate or long distance route over the weekend, which is very important to traveling wazers.
In AZ it’s like this and works very good, and even most primary roads in AZ are also getting converted to at least a level 2. Ive seen a dramatic decrees in rampant parking lot mapping and also Monday morning oh craps “look at all the URs!” on primary and minor + roads. Only twice have I seen someone just flat out draw over the primary roads, but since they can’t connect them they have no affect.
Another reason the level 2 works well is I know more rural editors (if they even exist) know the rural highway areas better than us city folk, so if they put just a bit of time into learning to properly edit, they can edit the local more important roads.
Also, it may seem like a lot of work, but the “select whole road” makes quick work of it.