User Requests (URs) Canned Responses

Map Editors Community United States
1

The contents of this thread, especially the top post, are not standards reached by consensus, except for the state of Pennsylvania. Other areas have different approaches. Please check your state forum and Wiki page.
[size=50]Hello PA Editors,
After discussing it with Orbitc, we thought it would be a good idea to establish some uniformity when responding to URs to help improve communication between editors and reporters. Listed below are some canned responses which can be copied and pasted into a UR and then sent the reporter. SEE: Stored UR responses for Browser Plugins that can be used to help with easier and quicker access to these canned responses.
Blank or Empty Reports
Hello, Thank you for your report. However, we are unable to determine a problem with your routing. Please provide additional details about the problem you experienced and your approximate departure & destination address so we can resolve your issue. If no response is received, this report will be closed after 7 days.

Missing Road
Hello, Thank you for your report. However, we are unable to determine any missing roads in the area of your report. Please provide additional details pertaining to the missing road & the missing roads official name if available. If no response is received, this report will be closed after 7 days.

Destination or address at the wrong location
Hello, Thank you for your report. If Waze is routing you to the wrong location for your destination, it likely is due to Waze getting the wrong GPS coordinates for the destination. In most parts of the world, Waze relies exclusively on 3rd party content providers for address and POI locations. Waze sends your address or POI search to these 3rd parties, and they then return to Waze GPS coordinates for that destination. Waze then routes to the closest location on the Waze map for the GPS coordinates. For example, if Waze routes to the street behind the location, that is because the GPS coordinates for that location are closer to that street behind the location than the street you actually access the location from. To solve the errors in external providers’ data, you need to update the GPS coordinates with the 3rd party provider who is supplying the bad information to Waze. In the US & Canada, address lookups are handled by (http://maps.google.com) To confirm, look up the address on Google and verify the pin for the location corresponds to the location being used by Waze. If the pin is wrong, you can update its location. Instructions on how to do so can be found at (Report data or content errors on Google Maps - Google Maps Help)

Waze Routed Longer &/or Out of the way
Hello, Thank you for your report. Based upon your report, Waze instructed you to take a route that is longer or out of the way. Waze should always pick what it believes is, mathematically, the fastest or shortest route, depending on your settings. If, in your estimation, it doesn’t, that means that there could be an error in the map somewhere along your preferred route, or there is a lack of correct speed/traffic data for that route, or lack or correct speed/traffic data on the route it is trying to send you on. If it isn’t too far out of your way, take the suggested route a few times and Waze will collect and start to use that data in its routing decisions. The reason just driving the expected or preferred route won’t work automatically is because Waze could have incorrect speed data on the segments it wants you to take. If Waze thinks another road is 2x as fast as your preferred road, no amount of driving on your preferred road can change the data for the other road. Waze needs accurate data for all neighboring segments and routes in order to always compute the fastest (or shortest, depending on your app setting) route. If you would like to provide your approximate departure & destination address & we will further look into the issue.

GPS Signal Issue
Hello, Thank you for your report. For GPS signal related issues first verify that other similar apps or GPS utility apps do or do not show similar symptoms. If the problem is only occurring in Waze, try rebooting the device. If that does not resolve the problem, try uninstalling Waze, then re-download it & install Waze again. Other things to consider: Where is your phone when this happens? A windshield mount? On your lap? In a tunnel? Tucked into the console somewhere? To operate properly, the device running Waze needs to have an unobstructed view of the sky. If you are reporting an issue with actual Waze map, please provide additional details pertaining the problem you experienced.

Routing servers or displays no network connection available
Hello, Thank you for your report. Waze sometimes fails to connect to routing servers or displays no network connection available when returning longer routes where the straight line distance is significantly shorter than the actual route over the roads. The common cause of this is having avoid toll roads turned on. You should verify that you have “avoid toll roads” turned off, having this feature turned on can cause Waze to not use known routes which in some areas, maybe the only known route by Waze routing servers and then causes the routing servers issue. For No Network Connection issue, Verify you have good cellular/network coverage on your mobile device. You will need an active cellular or wifi network connection to connect to Waze servers to calculate a route. A weak signal or slow data speeds (2G speeds) can often cause these types of errors. If the issue is occurring with good cellular/network coverage, try rebooting the device, if that does not resolve the issue try uninstalling Waze, re-download it & install Waze again. If you are reporting an issue with actual Waze map, please provide additional details pertaining the problem you experienced.

General Error:
Hi, I am a volunteer editor for Waze. Can I ask what went wrong here?
Incorrect turn direction:
Hi, I am a volunteer editor for Waze. Can I ask which turn was wrong and why?
(credit to: PhantomSoul)
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Some of these responses are actually long. We should try to keep them short.

If you like to add yours, just respond to this post. I’ll compile all and put it as a sticky on top for us to refer them.

Thanks.

3

I’ll update my initial post to reflect the appropriate responses we have deemed most suitable so editors won’t have to scroll through the entire post. :slight_smile:

4

I challenge you to boil the long ones down to three brief sentences or less. If you want to get decent responses, there is way too much text, the users eyes will glaze over. Put a wiki link at the end if you feel there needs to be more info for the user.

5

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nepysk5rOf4[/youtube]

6

Gotta say, the standard Waze response of ‘not our problem, so kill, delete and reload’ is totally lame. Blaming everything else is so a third world mind set.

7

I’d suggest moving this to the US forum rather than stickying in every state forum as every editor can use those responses. I like them.

8

Can an Admin move this to US Forum please?

9

Let’s clean some of these up a bit before we do that. Let’s shorten some of these as Jondrush suggested.
I also have few of mine and some from qwaletee that we can add.

10

Working on that now…

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Okay, I think I “trimmed the fat” from my suggested responses earlier… Thoughts?

Blank or Empty Reports
Hello, Thank you for your report. However, we are unable to determine a problem with your routing. Please provide additional details about the problem you experienced and your approximate departure & destination address so we can resolve your issue.

Missing Road
Hello, Thank you for your report. However, we are unable to determine any missing roads in the area of your report. Please provide additional details pertaining to the missing road & the missing roads official name if available.

Destination or address at the wrong location
Hello, Thank you for your report. If Waze is routing you to the wrong location for your destination, it likely is due to Waze getting the wrong GPS coordinates for the destination. To solve the errors in external providers’ data, you need move the map marker in Google maps closer to your destination. Instructions on how to do this can be found at (http://goo.gl/3jNdGV)

Waze Routed Longer &/or Out of the way
Hello, Thank you for your report. Based upon your report, Waze instructed you to take a route that is longer or out of the way. Waze should always pick what it believes is, mathematically, the fastest or shortest route, depending on your settings. If you would like to provide your approximate departure & destination address & we will further look into the issue. For additional details & solutions visit (http://goo.gl/cxZFQV)

GPS Signal Issue
Hello, Thank you for your report. For GPS signal related issues first verify that other similar apps or GPS utility apps do or do not show similar symptoms. If the problem is only occurring in Waze, try rebooting the device. If that does not resolve the problem, try uninstalling Waze, then re-download it & install Waze again. For additional details & solutions visit (http://goo.gl/sAOXVV)

Routing servers or displays no network connection available
Hello, Thank you for your report. Waze sometimes fails to connect to routing servers or displays no network connection available when returning longer routes where the straight line distance is significantly shorter than the actual route over the roads. The common cause of this is having avoid toll roads turned on. For additional details & solutions visit (http://goo.gl/dmmTu0)

12

Looks good to me. I also added 2 at the bottom. Take a look.

13

Request post be moved to: https://www.waze.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=129

14

I’m sorry that I’ve been absent from the discussion. If the real deadline is 4 days, why say 24 hours?
Has anyone found that telling the reporter that he has 7 days to respond improves the number of responses received? I usually give seven days from the date the first request goes out regardless of how old the request is. I’ve even receive a response on a report that was 500+ days old.

Being given a deadline makes it sound like the reporter is under pressure to respond.
On the flip side, being given 7 days can lead to postponing a reply. I’m not going to tell a reporter to reply within 7 days when I might not be back within 7 days to read his reply.

I’m not going to say 'I’m still willing to work" as if it is trouble for me. I’m not going to say " I’d like to close this out" when I would rather fix the problem. In fact, the standard wrapper text supplied by Waze states “An editor from the Waze mapping community wants to solve the problem, but needs some more information.”

I know we all interpret the tone of statements differently, so most people might not feel the way I do. Before I became an editor, I received a lot of requests that came across as rude and demanding. I might be in the minority, but if I were the recipient of some of these messages, they would not strike me as invitations to contribute to the Waze community.

I can see the harm in giving a deadline as it could cause offense. I’ve been on the receiving end. What is the benefit of stating a deadline? What harm could there be in not mentioning any deadline?

I never mention a deadline and I haven’t seen any problem from that. At least one editor became an editor specifically because I invited him to become an editor along with my response to the issue he reported.

15

I too am not sure what is the advantage of stating that “if no response is received, this report will be closed after 7 days.” What you are really stating is that the report will not be closed for at least seven days. If I’m responding to a UR that has been sitting there for several months, I’m not responding by stating there is some rush to close the report.

What I am doing is including an email address with the initial response (a habit developed back when the conversation feature was less reliable). Then before I close the report, I add message that I’m closing the report. That way the reporter can still contact me if the reporter wishes to.

I also won’t be using the “Destination or address at the wrong location” response. If the waze appears to be getting the wrong coordinates from a third party, then I attempt to correct the coordinates with the third party.

16

Well… There kind of should be some pressure to get them to respond. Most people don’t remember everywhere they have driven yesterday let alone after a week. So trying to get details from them might be hard. If they reply to your request for more information, then the clock for 7 days starts over again. And the cycle continues til the issue is resolved or the user no longer replies.

17

For context, I should explain that these canned URs originated from the the editors in Pennsylvania who have cleared the vast backlog of MPs and URs from most of the state. I too spent months going through every report from Lancaster to Pittsburgh, not merely closing reports, but fixing those that I could, and requesting more information on the others.

Mgodlew has seen to it that most of the state is swept clean. There are enough active editors to keep up pretty well with new reports in most places.

This situation (impressive as it is) is different from most areas of the country whether in major cities or rural areas.

These time frames probably seem reasonable for these very active editors in a mostly rural area with little new activity (relative to CA or TX). In CA, we don’t have enough editors to maintain the interstate highways and other freeways with all the ongoing construction projects.

18

I also find the this statement to be quite odd:

I see the FAQ has been edited to say essentially the same thing, but the information seems misleading to me. Waze will give me an error that it has failed to connect to the routing servers when I am not asking for a long route and when I do not have avoid toll roads on. On the flip side, when I do ask for a longer route where the straight line distance is significantly shorter than the actual route over the roads, waze does not typically give me a failed to connect to the server message, but rather waze gives me the message “Uh-oh!, Could not find a route.”

19

My goal is to give some guidance to those answering UR’s. Polite and professional responses. We are representing Waze while we are interacting with those reporting. I’ve seen some of the editors simply asking: “what is the problem”, which turn".

Please post the changes you’d like to see, I’ll update them.
Thanks.

20

So, if I understand correctly, not to give a time frame at all. Just ask for clarification (with email included), wait for 7 days and close it. Regardless of the initial report date as long as you are the first to respond?