Why I started to edit Waze and Why I stopped

Map Editors Community General Topics
1

Since 80s I was a hanggliding pilot in Mexico (Mexican national team leader in 1991 world championship) and then I moved to compete, teach and guide mountain biking, and still do it. Mapping was a great issue for both activities. When first gps started to be publicly available, I started my first area Maps. They were not useful for other people :frowning:

Now I use Cyclemeter to share bike trails (over 15 years of scouting the area are sheared freely).

When my younger brother showed me Waze, It was an instant YES!!!

I live in a popular (for hang gliding, sailing, golf, horse riding…biking, etc) small resort town called Valle de Bravo, but the map was lame here (not even the famous lake was on the map). So I decided to join the cause.

As many others around the world (not around Valle de Bravo) for two months I improved the map with over 7000 editions. The map is quite decent now, and I relax at night doing some edition before going to sleep, so I decided to extend my Area Management to surrounding areas which are really crappy to say the less.

I applied for the new adjacent area BUT…. Now I need to do it in special format for Mexico…. I was turn down because I stated that I used the form before (This is a mandatory field YES/NO type with no further instructions) and I did not provide evidence of my editing (there is no field to do so in the form). Actually I wanted to explain why I was requesting the new adjacent area, but there is no field to add any written comment.

Very quickly I received an email from the Mexican Waze Community Manager, explaining the former and very quickly I answered explaining what I did and wanted to do. My shocking experience was to see my request newly declined with the recommendation (from the only authority I know from WAZE in MEXICO) to stick to my town and not to venture in to roads.

My sin… I followed two things first the already existing naming in the area which included “street” in the name of the street and the wiki stating that the primary source for naming is the physical sign. He did not comment on more errors. But that was enough to grant the recommendation.

Please see an example of the area I asked to be AM
https://es.waze.com/editor/?lon=-100.24023&lat=19.18436&zoom=4&layers=BFTFTTTTTTTTFTTTTTTTTTTFT

There are big holes with no map. And, what is in it is incorrect in several ways. Does no stick to actual roads and states incorrectly the type of road. Flagrant errors like that is what my area looked two months ago.

Now look to my current area (less than 5 miles away to the east). See if YOU can spot a diference. Because Mexican Coordinator could not and recommend me not venture further away. ORDER THAT I WILL FOLLOW AND STOP EDITING WAZE.
https://es.waze.com/editor/?lon=-100.02679&lat=19.20542&zoom=0&layers=BFTFTTTTTTTTFTTTTTTTTTFTT

This is to prevent further stress to your community.

BE HAPPY
Josedp123
José Manuel de Caso.
Valle de Bravo.
24/may/2013

2

When did Mexico go to Self Management?

3

I have no idea. I am pretty new. the manager is:

Edson Jiménez
Coordinador de Comunidad Waze en México
level 5 and 200k.

I did not like that response from waze at all. Please look at both areas.

4

If it helps here it is a copy of the emails They are in spanish, and in reverse order.

Hola Edson,

Casi no he puesto nombres de calles, Si puse alguno de esa manera (con “Calle”) pues TODO lo demás que ya había estaba así y lo hice siguiendo el PRIMER y PRINIPAL lieamiento que es el letrero físico pues quí vivo.

Pero primero corregí cosas más importantes para navegar, como que no había gerarquía de calles ahora el mapa hace sentido.
Muchas rutas estaban mal en varios sentidos: Falta de conexiones, No seguian las curvas reales. Incluso eran tramostotalmete aleatorios.
Lo más importante era el gran hueco : Faltaban incluso las vías más importantes como la que comunica Valle con la federal hacia guerrero…La maoría de los pueblos como Atesquelites, El Manzano, El Temporal, etc que he pedaleado muchas veces en la bici de montaña simplemte no exitian.

Un gran porcetage de lo que ves lo hice en un par de meses…(más de 7000 ediciones, con con ese grave error de poner el nombre como está en el letrero, yo si lei la wiki).

No he visto a nadie más haciedo una labor similar en calidad por aca. Pero seguro que es ignorancia de mi parte y hay gran cola de editores para estás zonas rurales.

Pero no te preocupes ya solo reportaré algun error que vea manejando. Seguro tu podrás hacer un gran trabajo en la zona.

Ya no ensuciaré más tu mapa.

Mucha suerte.
José Manuel.

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: Solicitud de AM
From: Edson
Date: Fri, May 24, 2013 11:46 am
To: “jm@jmdecaso.org” <jm@jmdecaso.org>

Hola de nuevo
¡¡Me gusta mucho la idea de poder confiar en Waze la próxima vez que vaya a Valle de Bravo! Sin embargo por el momento no es así; estuve revisando la zona y parece que estuviste editando como se haría en Google Maps, no según Waze. Tampoco sé de dónde sacaste la información de los nombres ya que mucha de esta no corresponde con lo que tiene el INEGI.
Ya inicié algo de correcciones en las carreteras pero te pido que completes Valle de Bravo / Avándaro antes de “salir” hacia las carreteras.
Por favor revisa en el Wiki nuestros estándares de clasificación de calles y aplícalos. Como nota: no solemos poner “Calle X” sino sólo “X” y en caso de aplicar le podemos poner “Av.” O “Blvd.”

Saludos
Edson Alberto Jiménez Jaramillo

On 23/05/2013, at 17:53, jm@jmdecaso.org wrote:

Hola Edson,

Gracias por la pronta respuesta.

Llevo sólo un par de meses en Waze y como verás he sido muy activo editando mi área (Valle de Bravo). Cuando entré era un peqeño desastre con rutas dibujadas que no existían. Muchas calles sin las conexiones adecuadas. y en las afueras casi nada (incluyendo las principles carreteras). El mapa ya está bastante bien. No hay alertas por resolver. Casi todo lo principal ya está. Sigo afinando el mapa.

https://es.waze.com/editor/?lon=-100.02919&lat=19.20738&zoom=0&layers=BFTFTTTTTTTTFTTTTTTTTTTFT

Puse que ya había llenado la forma pues fue una muy similar cuando pedi ser AM de la liga de arriba (como hace un par de meses).

Ya soy AM en la zona y lo que pretendo es ampiar la cobertura. Seguido me pasa que inicio una carretera y no puedo editarla pues sale de mi zona. De hecho pienso pedirte más ampliaciones (esta primera fue hacia el Oeste, para incluir pueblos como Colorines [en el borde de mi actual AM] y Santo Tomás de los Plátanos [fuera de mi área]).

Saludos.
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Solicitud de AM
From: Edson
Date: Thu, May 23, 2013 3:06 pm
To: “jm@jmdecaso.org” <jm@jmdecaso.org>

Hola jsedp123
Revisé tu solicitud de nueva área a administrar y siento decir que la tengo que negar. Esto se debe a que pusiste que ya habías usado la forma de Google proveída por nosotros antes cuando no es así; tampoco pusiste ningún ejemplo de donde haz hecho ediciones para revisar.
Te pido que envíes otra solicitud seleccionando primer uso y poniendo un permalink a una zona donde ya hayas editado.

Saludos
Edson Jiménez
Coordinador de Comunidad Waze en México
<Waze Signature.png>

5

I would like to state that at no time did I tell the editor to stop, but rather to improve the quality of his edits. The messages I sent him where based on what I saw using the WME colour highlights script had been edited by him.
We (top 6 Mexican editors) requested self-management since February with the purpose of improving the edits made by AMs; and have been using it for about three weeks, with this being the first problem we have had.

I have now submitted the (full) email conversation adriansinger, our community manager and wait for any actions he decides are to be made.

6

More than a thousand views, and no positive reply of any kind :slight_smile:

7

Because we managed it through e-mail…

8

Hi Bruno,

First of all thanks for taking time to really look at the situation.

Second I have to disagree on " If I were Edson I would have done the same ". You haven’t. Let me explain. He send a short 3 paragraph with zero empathy for some one legitimately helping the community. The first one is plain ironic. You started by “How I understand you both. José…” It includes my name and a warm relation… then you explain. His second paragraph just tells me not to edit roads. The third is the only “help” pointing just one problem. That was it. BUT you finish “with as I expect him to be a good editor in the near future.”

If I were to receive your communication I would have being motivated AND corrected all the mistakes, because my commitment is with the community and good quality.

Bottom line. The issue here is that a person who wanted to help instead of being supported was plain rejected (I do not regard Ironic statement as a welcome). Not the best way to build a community.

Thank you very much Bruno.

José Manuel.

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José Manuel
I never got an answer to my last two e-mails, it would seem that you prefer to handle it in here. I expect you to have read the aforementioned mails so I will not copy them here and will instead give a briefing of the conclusion.
I consulted the issue with adriansinger, the community manager for spanish speaking countries. He answered that since it seems like you are genuinely interested in the improvement of the map, I should give you a chance. Therefore my offering is for you to tell me when to check the Valle de Bravo area again or send another AM request, the review would be specifically of the highways which is what you are interested in.
As Bruno has correctly guessed, my first response was pretty much a “pre-packaged” one, the purpose was to state why your request was rejected and to invite you to apply again. On the second response I requested for you to improve the existing area first, at no time did I tell you to stop editing. The edits that I made in the area were meant to serve as a guide for your next edits, maybe I should have signalled that out from the beginning; I don’t know about you but when someone shows me the proper way of doing something it makes me feel motivated and more self-confident for when I do it myself.
I certainly didn’t get a warm welcome when I started editing Waze (more like someone who caps-locked what he wrote and only said "you did it wrong, don’t touch anything), and had to find the existence of the Wiki on my own. I’m sorry if the improvement in this area has not been enough.
Bruno

All I can say is “Thank You”, you have been able to establish a rapport with the user that I was not able to. You where quite correct in the interpretation of what I meant so your spanish isn’t lacking at all.

We had one case like this last year, a new and very active user who disregarded the editing rules and never answered any messages. In the end it was decided to block the user until he answered the messages sent to him.
I hope you do not need to take such measures, because we always hate to loose an editor; but do be conscious that it is an available tool.

10

Well, he did state that he was stopping, lets see if we have convinced him otherwise.

He was already an AM from before we passed into self-administration, it was when he requested a new area that all of this started since I evaluated his request using the criteria we stablished.

I hope never to have such a case.

11

Hi Edson,

I can see no bad intention on your side so I will return to the community.

To amend all the errors on my part I will first reread the wiki, then communicate privately to you to agree on Mexican naming standards or other not clear instructions and then I will clean the Valle de Bravo area.

On the other side seems that Edson finally GOT IT:

The whole point of my message was that.

Unfortunately not many seem to see it. A community like Waze is a bunch of PEOPLE not a bunch of LINES. The better our human communication the better our map and related uses.

When I first felt not welcomed, the main news was the possible acquisition of Waze by Facebook making some one a billionaire thanks to YOUR not recognized work. And decided to post this and leave Waze.

I return as this tool provides an opportunity to help others. Specially to our bad mapped rural town.

12

That’s great! I expect your message soon.