Place Phone Number Standard

Map Editors Community United States
1

Based on a conversation in the waze.slack.com #editing channel, I started thinking what’s a proper telephone format. As an experienced raider, I’ve seen that both (XXX) XXX-XXX and XXX-XXX-XXXX format is acceptable. But why and is one better than another?

There appears to be a consensus among various organizations (North American Number Planning Administration and the W3C - see section 3.5.6) to represent phone numbers on mobile devices as a 10-digit code, excluding country code +1.

Our neighbors in Canada have discussed adopting the 10-digit practice keeping the country code outside the 10-digits.

For those who use point that Google uses (XXX) format, take a look at the code in this best practice.

Not knowing how Waze converts phone numbers displayed in the app, shouldn’t we future-proof phone numbers by adopting the 10-digit format in some manner? The options in this case could be:
+1 XXX-XXX-XXXX
+1-XXX-XXX-XXXX
XXX-XXX-XXXX

The final listing will assume they are calling from 1 of the 20 countries within the +1 country code. Thoughts on the proposed?

2

I’ve come across several places with just straight numbers without separators: XXXXXXXXXX

Just did 3 tests with the app for locations with numbers in the following formats:
(XXX) XXX-XXXX
(XXX)XXX-XXXX
XXXXXXXXXX

They each displayed in the app the same way they appear in WME (I did not try calling those numbers). Verified that it was the Waze Place with the picture(s) shown in the app matching the pictures show in WME.

3

So, as mentioned in the slack channel, digits in a phone number in parentheses mean that they may or may not be required when dialing, but that determination had to be made outside the context of distributing the phone number.
That being said, the parentheses are really only valid for area codes that do not require you to dial that area code when calling from within it. All other phone numbers really should be in a XXX-XXX-XXXX format.
In either case I would definitely recommend some kind of punctuation to visually break numbers up into 3-3-4. If not for any other reason, it’s just easier for human eyes to read.

4

If you look at that code, it’s displayed (in blue) one way & linked to (in red) a different way…

I think this is more up to the developers - the app/WME should either force a particular format or accept everything, strip out everything but the numbers & store that in the database so it can be parsed & displayed in the client in any way desired. In computer terms, it’s pretty easy to turn 1234567890 into (123) 456-7890 or 123-456-7890 and vice versa.

Also, how do most users expect to see the phone number displayed - here in the US parentheses are pretty standard - users expect to see them, even though most places have moved to mandatory 10 digit dial these days.

5

The editor should allow any sort of input; the app should display it in a single format. I don’t think we need to be adding +1 to anything. I do think we should follow the 234-567-8901 format recommended by NANPA and the W3C.