In response to requests from a few people, I have drafted a page on basemap. It can be found on Wazeopedia here and on the wiki here. I believe there are a few existing wiki pages that link to [[basemap]], but there was never a page for it, and I agreed to write something to define it, explain its history and how to edit it. This is a US page, but I believe just one section is specific to the US. Any suggestions or corrections are welcome.
Great start on this page! I’ll be sharing with mentees, as new editors are often drawn to basemap work, and maybe they’ll be joining this discussion.
The one suggestion I had relates to this item from the list of bullet point:
- Confirm the name and city. The road names page and approved sources can help determine names.
I think you might make it a little clearer here that checking the None box in the City field is a real likelihood, as most of these places are outside city limits. We want to avoid smudges, and new editors might unknowingly seek out nearby cities.
Something like:
Confirm the name and city; in many cases, these roads will be outside the city limits, so the None box should be checked. The road names page and approved sources can help determine names.
Just a thought.
I’d love to contribute! I wrote a best practices / how-to guide with some Nebraska-specific guidance mixed in back in January, but I never circulated it wider than some state hangout shares: Basemap editing practices.
I’m far better at instructional screenshots today than I was back then… I’m sure I can re-do most of those visuals without too much trouble. Still plenty of basemap to pull examples from 
Good point. I added clarification about roads not within cities and also roads that are unnamed.
Sure! Are you proposing combining content from your page with mine? I came across your page when I was near the end of writing my draft, and it made me think about needing to say something about helpful scripts and to give more images that show basemap road problems.
Whatever you’d like to appropriate (text/images/etc.) is now yours, and if you’d like me to re-do some example imagery I’d be happy to do so. I could tailor to however you’d like to present examples, whether that’s one image per, or combined like I’ve done. Just let me know what you’d like help with!
Might be worth mentioning (if not stressing) that the unknown direction and “soft” one-way segments will be hardened when touched by an editor and traffic passing over will no longer adjust direction. I have run into a lot of these while working on basemap. It is, imho, one of the strongest arguments against mass edit scripts. As far as correcting basemap, though, is good to know and to keep an eye on the one way segments that might not really be one-way.
Thank you. I added your section on useful scripts to the end of the page, taking out the bit on Nebraska 
I think a combined numbered image like what you have would be useful to put at the end of that section, showing how scripts help to see this stuff with a more succinct list. Could you retake one that is more compact? Then we could just list what the numbers mean without all the how-tos, since most of that is given in the editing section, and more could be added to that section.
I mention that in point 4 of the editing section: “Remember that once you edit a one-way segment, even if you don’t change the direction, Waze will consider its direction confirmed and will not route traffic in the opposite direction.” Maybe I should be more emphatic? Also, are you saying that unknown direction will remain unknown after a segment is edited, even if users drive over it, as part of the hardening?
That is exactly what I’m saying. Same for the soft one-way. Once they have been touched by an editor, they are hardened and no amount of traffic will change them.
So to extrapolate what happens with one-ways, that would mean they will not be routed across in either direction, correct?
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From what I’ve seen, if its been driven over enough to be soft one-way before an editor touches it (and thereby hardens)…the one-way (whichever direction) will still work, just won’t route against the one-way anymore. Is most troublesome (and most obvious) on dead end streets.
I have updated the drafts with a stronger warning about how directions and turns are confirmed, how traffic can’t change them once confirmed, and how that will cause valid routes to be prohibited if editors are not thorough.
This is definitely a good start. To get started publishing it, I recommend it as a USA page.
It should not be published on the global wazeopedia if it is only being proposed as a USA page, and it does not need to be in your user space in the global wazeopedia. That should make it easier as you develop the content.
As a next step, I suggest running it past all the state managers to see if they have any comments.
Many of us will learn / relearn a thing or two in the process of reviewing it, which makes it a good page for everyone. Any state manager can post a link to this discussion on the US State Managers forum - is the page ready for that?
At the same time, this step will bring the proposed page to the attention of several champs, who may have comments, and / or have the opportunity to come up-to-date on any items which might have changed since they learned them.
With a few reminders, this step can happen pretty quickly.
Thanks voludu2, yes I think this is ready to be reviewed by state managers. Would you or another SM please link this thread in the SM forum?
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I think this is a great page. I do, however, have a couple of minor comments.
The first is about the history of the TIGER data. The TIGER data came into waze without any elevation data. That meant no concept of bridges. Every overpass was on the map as a junction node connecting the roads separated by the bridge. This is why there is a specific bridge junction function in WME that eliminates the junction node between two segments while simultaneous raising the level by one. Its also the reason there is a separate UR for “Missing bridge or overpass.” These functions are almost obsolete in the US, because the overwhelming majority of highway segments have been edited and are no longer basemap. I bring this up not because this needs to be added to wiki, but only because it demonstrates that most highway segments have been edited. The fact that is relevant to the proposed page is that the imported TIGER data did have distinctions between highways and streets. There were many basemap highways (at least in the Maryland basemap). Thus, there were in fact distinctions between road types beyond Street, Private Road and Unpaved. I’m aware of no primary streets, major highways or freeways in the US basemap, but there were minor highways (they just don’t remain in their basemap state today).
The other statement I have a problem with is “Most basemap roads will have excess geometry nodes that should be removed to use less resources during navigation and to make the map easier to maintain.” I know there are differing opinions on the effect of excess geometry nodes. I don’t have a problem with the statement that they should be removed or that removal makes the map easier to maintain. However, I do not believe that there is consensus (or a reliable source) for the statement that excess geometry nodes use more resources during navigation.
These are great comments. Are you hoping Kartographer will run with those suggestions, or would you like to make some of the edits yourself? Or tag team that page?
These are exactly the kinds of comments I think this draft needs to be made ready for prime time.
I have made a post to the US State Managers forum asking everyone there to read this discussion and (hopefully) check the facts and add their knowledge to the discussion.
I am hoping Kartographer will run with those suggestions.
Did all of the basemap roads that imported as minor highways have “highway” or some variation of that in the road name? The ones that I’ve encountered have all been like that, was just curious if that was ubiquitous enough to mention in the guide. Since the real “highways” have likely been edited, the remaining basemap ones should always be FC-evaluated as they’re often only qualifying for Street or PS.
This is just me being me. But I don’t like the suggestion of scripts.
Scripts can be useful, but with as widespread as people push them, a lot of editors now miss a lot without them. Basemap is where you learn to look for everything and to catch a lot of the little things. If people want to use scripts that’s their choice, I just don’t think we should be advertising it at every opportunity.
Thanks very much for that info, Carl. I have corrected my draft regarding elevations, geonodes and road types. I have heard from people that excess geonodes on segments or area places can slow the app down, but I am not sure how or why, so I took that part out.
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I had the same experience as you. I can only recall coming across incorrect basemap highway and those were roads that had highway in the road name but otherwise do not qualify as a highway. Not sure what else may have come in as basemap highway, but by the time I began editing all the major highways in my area had been touched (and typed as freeway or major highway).