Schools and Stop Points

Map Editors Community United States US Wiki Discussion
1

I am still quite new at all of this and realize it might take an act of got to make even minor changes to the wazeopedia, I was wondering what peoples thoughts were on requiring that schools have entry points. My experience has been that these often large area places frequently do not have a stop point associated with them and this causes poor routing to the wrong side of the property.

I think it would be prudent that schools be required to have an entry point assigned when creating them, this can then be something that WMEPH helps identify as it already does this for Parking Lot Areas.

2

If this is true on schools, would it not also be true on any area place?

3

It doesn’t take an act of God to make changes to our wiki, only discussion and consensus. I would support requiring at least one entry point on certain categories of area place. Not all, but some. Outdoors and natural features categories (parks, lakes) may not need them, but schools and shopping centers should get them, at least for verification purposes. This is the reason for requiring them on parking lots, as far as I can tell. Many small lots work best if navigation ends in the center, but adding and moving the point is verification that people will be routed to where they should be.

The simple way to require this on the places page is just to put a note next to each category that has been decided in the “area or point” table.

4

Good point, I wasn’t thinking about these kind of categories.

If using category dependent, I think that the options should be

Stop Point required
Stop Point not required
Stop Point recommended if area place is navigated to (some parks may need a stop point and others may not)

5

Concur. Many categories showing as an AP have a pertinent Stop Point that can occur well within the boundaries. Schools do stand out as such depending on the complexity of the PLR driveways to get to the main entrance. State Parks can do the same to get to the main office.

Enhancing the definition can help in this scenario.

6

Ok good to know the process.

Looking at the National list here are my initial thoughts: Yes, No, Sometimes
Gas Station - Yes
Airport - Yes
Bridge - No
Junction/Interchange - No
Rest Area - Sometimes
Seaport/Marina - Yes
Tunnel - No
Cemetery - Sometimes
College/University -Sometimes
Convention Center - Yes
Embassy - Yes
Fire - Yes
Hospital - Yes
Jail - Yes
Military - No
Police- Yes
School - Yes
Shopping Center - Sometimes
Casino - Yes
Race Track - Sometimes
Stadium - Sometimes
Theme Park - Sometimes
Zoo - Yes
Construction - No
Campground - Yes
Beach - Sometimes
Golf - Yes
Park - Sometimes
Ski - Sometimes
Canal - No
Dam - No
Forest -No
Island - No
River - No
Sea - No
Marsh - No

Did I miss any, I think I’ve seen regional variance but probably best for them to handle. Thoughts?

7

Hmm, seems like a lot of this comes down to what sort of place it is. Maybe we should let the PNH mods decide on categories and simply add general language on the page about how at least one entry point should be added to an area place that people would navigate to.

8

The Places article already says (emphasis mine):

This says everything we need already, does it not? But granted it’s not especially clear. How about adding something like the following to the Places article, as the first subsection under Entry Point (i.e. just before “Single” and “Multiple”):

9

I like that

10

I also forgot that I wrote this section when drafting the multiple entry points thing. We could strengthen it:

How about just adding section links on “point place marker” and “center of the area” in the section DL quoted, to this section and the corresponding section on where to put point places?

11

This all stemmed from wanting WMEPH to flag a location as not having an entry point. Apparently it needs wiki guidance. I think there are plenty of examples not needing an entry point however without wiki guidance apparently there is little that can be done for the scripts.

12

Thanks for clarifying (repeating?) your ultimate goal. I think I understand now.

I expect the reason for requiring wiki guidance is that it is not unheard of for some editors to fall into a mode of blindly doing whatever a script tells them to do without investigation or analysis. Most of the time the results are beneficial, or at least neutral, but on occasion they are disastrous. So yes, the community can be a bit sensitive about scripts suggesting changes that are not absolutely justified by agreed-upon guidance.

We’ve identified some ways we could improve the Places article, but it sounds like that would not actually solve your problem. What you need is wiki backup for a script writer to flag schools with no explicit entry point.

If that’s the goal, then I agree that something having to do with per-category Place harmonization would be the place for that wiki backup.

Schools are a very popular destination category and I would have no problem with requiring an explicit stop point for them. Since the purpose is not to educate editors but rather simply to give backup to script writers, I’m not sure I could get behind a huge new requirement list covering a wide variety of categories besides Schools and maybe a handful of other popular destination categories. The language could just say the list is not exclusive, or use your judgement, blah blah.

13

Not everything flagged by PNH is backed up in the wiki. For example, PNH will mark some categories as blue or red if they don’t have an address, URL or hours. Other categories are green with just a name. The guidance This is why each region has appointed one or more people as PNH moderators; they are given the authority not just to update the PNH tables but to make those calls in their regions. I see this as the same.

14

Just curious, where should the OP go for a nationwide PNH ruling? If we can accommodate him with a nationwide top-down call, I imagine that would be better than a number of bottom-up calls by regional moderators.

15

I would suggest bringing it up with their PNH regional moderator to bring up to the group for discussion. My only point that I originally made (in the WMEPH forum) was that the wiki does not state that entry points are required on AP per the wiki. The way it is written is that the editor should decide if an entry point should be added, not have the script require it to be added to turn green.

With the way the current wiki guidance is written, I could see (and support) having WMEPH flag for the editor to review if an entry point is need but it should not prevent any AP from going green but that would probably be a vote among the mods. And ultimately for Mike to decide if it is possible to add.

I actually tend to add an entry point to most of my AP and PP places. I think they have more benefit than negative aspects to it.

16

I honestly see very little reason not to add an entry point to nearly every area place. Even if you just leave it in the center, at least there’s now a visual indication in WME of what it’s going to do.

Very limited exceptions for things like natural features (rivers, lakes, forests). But even on a smallish park with no defined entrance, it may be beneficial to have the “you are here” point on a certain road and not on another.

17

How does this move forward? WMEPH said taking it to the wiki, wiki is saying taking it to PNH? I’m confused on how to get this implemented?

18

Have you brought it up with your PNH moderator to discuss with the rest of the moderators?

NOR is Joyriding

19

I agree, but that would be a wiki change.

20

It certainly wouldn’t hurt to have an entry point on any area place that will be driven to. I’m cool with a blanket recommendation to add entry points to any area place that people would drive to. How about in this section:

Coupled with links in this section: