The wiki says that locking should be used for “high value roads and complicated intersections.” I’m wondering what that means. I already know interstates and their interchanges are done regularly but locking elsewhere seems inconsistent. Is there an agreed upon standard? I haven’t found anything specific on the wiki or forums.
A potential national standard has been discussed here as well as in a few separate “traffic lock” threads: https://www.waze.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=129&t=91632
I have been locking Major and Minor highways as I upgrade them to FC, to try to make people think twice before changing them back to what they were. In my mind, those roads are pretty consistent and I’d rather not have a lower level who’s just starting accidentally disconnect a segment or enable a turn restriction the prevents people from travelling that road at all.
I read through the national discussion but I agree with the oft-made point that differences between different regions and states make such a national standard untenable–instead regional or state standards may be more appropriate. The problem is that there is a big difference between an urban highway and a rural highway. In downtown Greenville, for example, major roads need to be protected to prevent people from making mistakes, but downtown Orangeburg may not need those same restrictions due to fewer editors there.
I do think there needs to be some sort of guideline for locking highways though. One of the roads in Cola. for example, a Major Highway, was just locked at 4. That seems extreme to me…a Lvl 3 should be experienced enough to edit those roads. Other Major Highways though aren’t locked at all…which is dangerous, of course. If we could develop separate guidelines for urban and rural areas (as well as guidelines for what is “urban” or “rural”) it could help a lot.
For the record, my opinion right now:
5-Entrances to military installations (to protect entry restrictions) and other special cases.
4-Freeways and all interchanges along those freeways.
3-Major Highways, separated-grade interchanges not involving freeways, complex at-grade intersections, and roads at SC’s 4 major commercial airports (Charleston, Greenville-Spartanburg, Grand Strand, and Columbia).
2-Urban and suburban minor highways
If we start shutting down primary streets, I think that will put off a lot of new users. And due to low traffic volumes and low editor density minor highways in rural areas don’t need locks.
I agree. I generally only lock the highways in the city or where there are several editors who can help maintain them (or in my managed area), otherwise I leave them unlocked, so that someone can easily make additions. As for the list you have, I would agree, with a few changes. Freeways are supposed to be locked at 5 (even though 77 between Rock Hill and Cola is only locked at 3). Also, with the automatic locking coming in to play now, we might not need to worry about manually locking the roads except in extraordinary circumstances (such as military entrances).
I really wish the auto-lock was dependable. The more traffic it gets, the higher it gets locked. That would work both in urban AND rural areas. =(
Right now, the auto lock is not enabled at all in the USA, since Waze still has to address some concerns editor have raised about it. Once those are addressed, then the champs will asked for it to be enabled. It will be interesting to see how it works once it does go live, though
That’s not a bad idea, though I’d argue that there still be “max locks” for road types.
I want to get some feedback on a locking scheme I’ve been thinking about:
Statewide: MH - 3, mH - 2, PS and streets at 1/auto (except when needed to be locked higher)
Coast/Grand Strand: MH-4, mH-3, PS-2, everything else 1/auto
My thinking is the coast is a major tourist attraction and, in my mind, it should be “protected” a little more because of that. I’m still not sure whether it should be everything east of 95 or just close to the coast, but thought I’d throw it out there. We could even discuss whether 4/3/2 is better for all urban areas, but I kind of like have 3/2/1 for most of the state so more people can help maintain
I like the 3/2/1 plan as well and after I finish FC I plan on working on locking up Columbia under those kind of guidelines. Just a couple of days ago I had to fix a disallowed turn preventing people from using part of Devine St. in Columbia. Just to recap my opinion taking the earlier bits of this post into consideration, these are my feelings:
5-Freeways, ramps between freeways, and special case roads like military entrances
4-Ramps involving at least one freeway and non-freeway.
3-Major highways, ramps not involving freeways, and complex at-grade intersections.
2-Minor highways, particularly those in urban areas.
1-All else.
As for locking the coast higher, that isn’t really my concern, but I’d definitely leave the rural areas east of 95 at the 3-2-1 system. I also would be careful about locking PS’s because I don’t want to put off new editors by blocking them from editing. If you decide to lock it like that, I’d only do that for Beaufort County, parts of Charleston County, and Horry/Georgetown to the East of the Waccamaw River since those are the tourist hotbeds. We got to make sure though that high enough editors can be found in these areas to maintain these roads though.
That’s one issue I’ve been debating and I think it’d be good to leave those a little lower, too, since those areas don’t draw as much attention. Just wanted to see if others thought that, too.
That’s my biggest concern with this scheme. It could mean more work for me, since there are only 2’s in the area at the moment. Then again, it’s mainly them and me (and sometimes ct13 and the random SC editors who’ve have been there recently), so, right now at least, it’d be easy to keep up with.
Here’s what I’m thinking on adding to the wiki for SC:
[table][tr][td]Locking standard[/td][td]Rural[/td][td]Urban[/td][td]Coast (Grand Strand)[/td][/tr][tr][td]Freeway[/td][td]5[/td][td]5[/td][td]5[/td][/tr][tr][td]Major Highway[/td][td]2[/td][td]3[/td][td]4[/td][/tr][tr][td]Minor Highway[/td][td]1[/td][td]2[/td][td]3[/td][/tr][tr][td]Primary Street[/td][td]1[/td][td]1[/td][td]2[/td][/tr][/table]
I was thinking about the rural locks and thought going with 2/1/1 might help editors in the rural parts more to work with and if they break something, it won’t matter as much
True. Couple of things though.
What is your definition for the “Coast (Grand Strand)”?
Certain MH’s in rural areas should be locked at 3 (or higher), particularly those routes connecting Myrtle Beach, Beaufort, Hilton Head, Greenwood, Anderson, and Sumter to the interstates.
For the coast, I just mean the major cities, Myrtle Beach, Mount Pleasant, Charleston, and Hilton Head Island. Might lock the areas between those at the Urban level, but not sure about that, yet.
Ok. How do we decide what counts as “Urban” and “Rural”?
I’m thinking the urban would be “well-travelled” cities, such as those with AMs (Greenville, Columbia and surrounding areas, Sumter), Spartanburg, Rock Hill/Fort Mill, Gaffney(?). Obviously, any no city segments would be rural. I’d also lump in most of the state in that category for now, since we don’t have a large editor presence most places. Maybe once areas expand and I (and other, future SMs) get to editing more cities, we can follow the stricter urban locks. What have I missed?
Gaffney has an AM?
No, I included that and spartanburg because I thought they might be good candidates for urban locks vs rural, but wasn’t sure if Gaffney should really need it or not
Gaffney is pretty small. Florence, Greenwood, Anderson, Orangeburg, and Beaufort are better candidates.
How could I forget about Florence? This is why we have the forums [emoji2] Like I said, I want sure about Gaffney and can easily be convinced against higher locks. Beaufort and Anderson I’d agree with too. Greenwood and orangeburg child probably go either way. I guess, for the most part, it’s up to whoever can edit there and if there is need to lock it higher to prevent things from being broken. I think we all agree that it’d be better to have lower level editor who can edit more freely than being to request unlocks for every other segment.