As we have a lot of area managers, it’s becoming hard for us to notify each one when he hasn’t been active for a while. We were thinking of setting a well known standard to which all AM can adhere - and once not followed, you can be removed from your AM status without being notified.
Basically, we think over 3 months of inactivity (no edits) means the AM is no longer following his area and doing whatever is needed - map problems, updated problems, etc.
What do you think? Should AMs be notified before / after their area is removed? Should the threshold period be longer than 3 months?
We’ll wait for your opinion before doing our next ‘cleanup’ of inactive AMs.
IMO, surely yes. Before. If after, it sounds as jeer (mockery), or punishment, rather then a civilized consequence of something being omitted or forgotten.
I suppose it will be done in an automated matter. Is it a problem to send a notification a week or two in advance? And check then again, for the final strike?
In an ideal world I think you should include this in the confirmation email when they first get AM status (that 3 months inactivity will strip AM status), 2 weeks before the 3 months is up they get a warning. But you say notifying is becoming an issue?
On a semi-related note it would be really handy to have a better, lower zoom, method of seeing where AMs exist!
I’m having a really hard time getting beyond this statement. What is the current procedure and why is it hard? I don’t have a problem with an automated procedure at three months of inactivity. But I really can’t see why notification prior to removal should be “hard.”
Do not hesitate to revoke the AM status from the inactive users. This is not a big harm, even if somebody loses the AM status by mistake or changes his mind in future he may ask for the AM status again. I don’t know what are the current permission rules but I remember that some time ago the non-AM users had limited permissions in the areas where an AM existed.
One may ask: what if an area is so perfect that the AM has nothing to do? I think that this area does not need an AM so again no problem to revoke.
If they aren’t active on the Editor within 3 months -> Kill 'em all. Of Course send them an Info Mail with a revoke link if they wanna be active again which is valid for 2 Weeks. If they not answer they can apply again some time.
According to a Post from Krankyd in the Italian Forum which meant AMs should work of their update requests within 30 days i could imagine the same after a month.
Another thing is what users in german Forums complain is: unlock all roads of those inactive AMs so the active ones can work on these segments!
Is this notification to tell them there losing there AM status whatever or a warning? If it’s automatic the process and they do some quick edits after they get there email does it mean they wouldn’t lose there status? Just a thought.
I would say for area managers 30 days of inactivity deserves a notice and 60 days of inactivity would be cause for removal as AM not entirely from the Waze System.
Personally, I think logging in at least once a week should be no cause for concern for someone wanting to be an area manager. Becoming an area manager shows that you want to help and make Waze better. I know vacations do come up and other inactivity times do as well, but if you haven’t touched your area for 60 days then A) you gave up or B) Something major has come up and your attention should probably be directed towards that as well.
I don’t like the fact of “kicking out” someone who really wants to help. We need all the area managers we can get, but we also need to be able to rely on some sort of list for when if I go mapping into an area that has one I can relay a message to them or ask questions. Also, I think we need some sort of visual clue like the old cartouche but maybe a drop down list that I can select/deselect area manager’s cover list. It was nearly impossible to tell who was covering what areas when there was overlapping AMs
what I meant, is that ATM this process is done manually. Checking with each area manager and getting his feedback is becoming something with a lot of overhead. Of course we can give a heads-up, and from what you write - I understand this is how it should be done.
Another thing we should think about are holidays, for example i do a two or three months trip to Asia every year, so if this happens i should be able to post or announce this anywhere. Without beeing deleted in the meanwhile.
Cause in this time i have not much time to edit a lot, just take care about UR’s or edit a little if i have the possibility.
And what about lvl4 editors and countrywide permissions?
Of course i try to squeeze in a few edits, after all i can’t live without it, but just to kick in a thought if somebody is tied up with less important things
I would think that AMs should be notified before their area is removed. The threshould period of 3 months seems fine to me.
An automated process to notify all AMs who haven’t made edits within the past three months that if they don’t continue to contribute their AM status will be revoked, followed in a couple of weeks by an autotmated process that removes all AMs who haven’t made edits within the past three months would make sense to me.
I would prefer to see a variable scheme, where bigger areas require a higher activitylevel than smaller ones. An AM with a large area has far more opportunities for editing than someone who is AM of his 100-street hometown. Once that small town is mapped out and one or two quirks along their way to work are fixed, they may lose interest for the time being but remain active Wazers. Once or twice a year they may add a street, close a road for longer roadworks. That makes them valuable for Waze in their town, even if they do not fix their URs within 24 hours! Not everyone has the ambition to map the world!
AMs with giant areas on the other hand are never ready. They take responsability for a large area, and the community should expect that they do that on a regular base. They check and correct what smaller AMs and plain users change. They fix the URs and map big roadworks. If they fail for a month or two, that can be dearly felt.
Maybe the Wazeclient in future versions should do some keep-alive actions with the AM, like telling there are X URs waiting to be solved. If you stop using the Wazeclient it is clear that you can not stay AM for much longer.
So… If you are AM of a small area, you can be dormant as an AM for a (much) longer period than as an AM of a big area as long as you keep using Waze. Maybe the degree of completion of the area should be taken in account as well?
It sure would be a problem if you have no aerials, but no basemap is also bad. Waze is working on an algorithm to calculate the completeness for basemapped areas, maybe to find spots to direct their IGNs to? Come to think of it - for non-basemapped countries, a value could be derived that takes into account the number of URs and Wazers passing thru over a period of time… Many Wazers, few URs? High value! Ah, guess it isn’t that simple. But comparing maps to aerials sounds like a bad idea,
I was thinking more like just logging into the website every 60 days would suffice to keep an AM going. I don’t think that is asking too much and would cull the people that gave up on Waze.
