As I get more busy here at work I have been trying to get more organized with my Waze work. I have edited quite a few long term road closures in the state and would like to set up a list for the road closures so that everyone in the state can see and edit as needed.
I believe I have three options:
NC State to do list in the wiki - Might be an option but the US wiki pages by state probably needs to be reorganized to the new structure.
A common post here in the North Carolina State Topics
A post here linking to the Google Doc
What do you all think would work best for the community?
I do like the idea of a google doc. It was my first inclination of how to set it up.
Andy your wiki looks good as well. Have you had much success with others editing it though and keeping it up to date. I think a Google Doc is the way to go with permissions and such. It just seems to make things more fluid and easier than a wiki page could be. One benefit I can see is that there is no owner of the wiki page which is why I was considering it.
Yes, others have updated it several times. The nice thing is that changes can be easily tracked & rolled back if someone butchers the table code or vandalizes the page. And you don’t need a gmail account to access it.
You should have access to the wiki from the day you joined Waze - you may have to login using “Anotherhiggins” as your username over there. If that doesn’t work PM me and I may have something else for you to try.
I just can’t seem to find where the main Connecticut page is linked anywhere in the wiki besides doing a search. Do you just link to it through your signature? Also, do you care that I use your main page as a guide for North Carolina?
Ignore my previous comment. When I tried to log on to the wiki the other day with my Waze credentials it denied me. I poked around and found a page that listed criteria you should meet before editing the wiki, and 100 forum posts was listed.
I just tried logging into the wiki again so I’d have the exact message for a PM to Andy… but now I’m in.
What is the best way to close an intersection where the intersection is still there, but the road is blocked off as a permanent closure? Just restrict all turns? Disconnect the road from the intersection? I’m thinking restricting turns makes the most sense because the road still does connect and it will look odd on a map if it doesn’t connect. Eventually, the connection will probably be removed and then it would make sense to remove it on the map, but until then I’m thinking turn restrictions. And I would be interested in some place we can mark permanent and long term closures for the state so we can limit the number of people “fixing” the closure.
Along the same lines, what is the best policy for temporary road closures that are still going to last for months due to construction? I saw an old post saying not to do anything because it took so long to update the maps and it would be open by the time the map was updated, but from what it looks like now, map updates are daily in the US so that wouldn’t apply anymore.
Hi there, Riamus. Welcome to the wild world of Waze editing! Out of curiosity, what area are you editing in?
For a permanent closure, the segments should definitely be disconnected in the Waze Map Editor (WME).
Waze uses “penalties” to decide which route to take. A turn restriction is considered a penalty so Waze prefers not to route that way, but depending on other road conditions Waze may still tell someone to turn there.
If the segments are not attached, that route is not even available to Waze.
As far as it looking funny on the client (phone app), if you get the segments close enough together then it shouldn’t be noticeable.
That’s what we’re discussing in this thread - Roads & bridges that are closed due to construction and how to share that information with one another. You said you saw an “old post,” so I assume you mean in the forums? If so, then you should always consider that any post that is years-old may be out-of-date.
But the gist is that you are correct - the North American tiles are (usually) updated several times a week. So any road that is going to be closed for several months should definitely be disconnected in the WME. I’d personally close a road that’s expected to be closed for more than a week (unless I know of a problem where tiles are not being updated). Just make sure you stay on top of the situation so you can open it again when the construction has been completed.
If you’d like us to take a look at the intersection you’re talking about, select the segment in the WME then click on the word “Permalink” at the bottom right of the screen. That will create a unique URL that will take us directly to where you’re talking about (just like the link I posted above).
I’m starting around the area ranging from Kernersville though Stokesdale and up past Summerfield. I’ll probably expand some as I get more used to editing. The first things I’ve been working on are getting gas stations placed correctly as none of them in my area seem to have been set up and are mostly off on the center of a road up to half a mile away. I guess that’s probably not uncommon in an area with few people who use Waze.
I’ve been doing a lot of GIS work lately where I work, so a lot of this is very similar to what I do, though I work with far more layers and break down the look of them a lot more than what we see here. I find it interesting to do, so I’m looking forward to seeing what I might be able to help with here. I’ve corrected the closed road so it is disconnected. If you’d like to take a look, here is the permalink: https://www.waze.com/editor/?zoom=10&lat=36.1982&lon=-79.98532&layers=BFTFFTTTTTTTFTTTTTFTTTFTT&segments=68149491
I’m concerned about the idea of routing through invalid turns. Having it specifically programmed to do that is a guaranteed way to eventually be sued and lose. What happens when someone using Waze follows the directions to take an illegal turn and gets into an accident, possibly killing someone? It is one thing if it was an error on the map. It’s something entirely different when it’s programmed to route you through illegal turns just to save a little time. All it takes is a lawyer to realize what Waze does and Waze will be in trouble quickly. Also, even if Waze didn’t have to worry about being liable for providing potentially dangerous routing, you are going to potentially waste a lot of someone’s time who is unwilling to break the law. If you’re routed one way to supposedly save a lot of time only to find that you can’t legally go that way and if you aren’t willing to break the law then depending on the routing, you may have to turn around and drive a long way to get around onto another route. So not only are you risking lawsuits and causing accidents, but you are also potentially adding a lot of time to some people’s routes instead of saving them time. It’s one thing to route someone through a parking lot to avoid slow traffic (that isn’t really legal in the US, but it’s rarely enforced) and something else to suggest clearly illegal turns.
I was looking at your example with the additional road saying it’s permanently closed. I’m not really sure I’d agree with that. I know I’m new here, but that just seems like a bad option to stick a fake road that would be visible on the map just to say the other road is closed. I saw other posts suggesting using non-displaying features such as railroads if notes are needed. That would at least be a better option, I’d think. Though personally I think Waze should create a layer that is non-displaying everywhere except WME (an editor’s note layer) that can be used for adding notes that don’t display on any other map - client or web. Through my work with GIS, that wouldn’t be all that hard to set up and would solve a lot of communication problems without making fake roads or other features in order to make notes on the map. I’m not trying to sound like I am criticizing it. I’m just trying to get a feel for what is considered the right way of doing things here.
Thanks for the comments and help. I look forward to helping out.
Speaking for myself I can see why he did that. The aerials show the road connected but it isn’t connected now. He disconnects it but leaves no trace of why the road is disconnected. For some reason or another a MP or UR gets tagged at the intersection. New editor (or unfamiliar editor) comes by sees the aerial and say oh this must be connected and proceeds to connect the roads erroneously. The tag should help out with keeping this from happening. It should a prompt to email the editor of the segment at the very least otherwise you just aren’t doing your job correctly.
Now the road ranks may not necessitate this exactly anymore. Just lock it down at the highest level you can get access to. Still, as a level 5 If I had an UR stating turn allowed here an old MP rear its ugly head for some reason. Looking at everything I might be tempted to connect the roads. Now if I recognized the editor of the segment or such it probably would prompt me to send a quick PM to him about it.
I do understand the reasoning, but using a road segment that is visible in the client seems wrong to me. From reading the forums, railroad segments seem to be recommended for this because they don’t currently show on the client. Of course, the recommendation apperas to also say not to do this often or to keep track of everywhere you did it so that you can remove or change them if railroads start appearing in the client in the future. And I added my thoughts on what I think would be better (a feature visible only in the editor specifically designed for leaving notes on the map for other editors). But that would mean a change versus just using railroads, which can be done already.
I am making an assumption that you are talking about permanent road closures that don’t quite match with the aerials and the gps tracks that could contain some old data depending on the road.
If that is the case, I would tend to agree with you about using a segment type that isn’t showing on the map. But, that isn’t foolproof as well.
Now if you are talking about short term road closures then I think a type that will show up on the map could do two things. 1) Allow a end user to report an update request if the road is opened earlier (via the segment marked closed til XX/XX/XX) or 2) On the off chance that a road is going to be closed longer report that via an update request. If the road is separated but not marked (even if marked), there is a chance that a user may report a wrong driving directions uselessly.
Hopefully, down the road (near future would be nice) we can close roads as editors for specific lengths of times which, again, hopefully will eliminate these types of needs. This will not solve the permanently closed roads issue though so this will probably need further tweaking.
There is same major reconfiguration going on. I have over the past few months got conflicting info about which ramps are closed now and which are opened. As a matter of fact I received UR’s on two separate days (spread apart by a couple days). One said new ramp is open, then a few days later got one that said ramp is not open yet. Conflicting info to say the least and the dot website hasn’t been too helpful with it as well.