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My last map edits and my last post.

Posted: Mon Dec 24, 2012 9:37 am
by dstev2000
I've been using Waze for a few months now, racking up the points etc doing my bit for others with no problems whatsoever.

Then I moved on to map editing - and wished I hadn't.

Firstly, I DARED to improve a piece of road that I use on an almost daily basis. It is a large dual carriageway but is shown as a single carriageway on the maps. I spent some time re drawing the maps accurately as a dual carriageway - as shown on Google Maps, My Navteq based in car sat nav maps and a few others I checked.

Then I start to receive criticism over the change - Why? ?

The guides show a road like this MUST be marked as a dual carriageway. The GPS traces confirmed two distinct carriageways with a gap in the middle - dual carriageway.

Secondly, someone flagged up a break in the road. I had a look, checked with a few other sources and joined the road up. Then I receive a PM from someone asking me NOT to do this as there are roadworks there blah blah blah. Why did the user flag the road was open if it isn't? And why didn't the individual who PM'd me put a note there asking NOT to rejoin the road before asking?

If this is how new people are treated then the whole Waze model WILL NOT WORK. If I had made some catastrophic cock ups then all well and good. As it goes, I didn't. All I did was try and improve the map data and accuracy on a piece of road I know really well.

I have spent a fair amount of my time deleting wrongly added speed cameras etc etc. which I don't have a problem with. But to be criticised like this has put me off completely.
It seems to be a common thing on web forums - experienced members are very quick to attack newcomers.

I've also spotted loads of problems in London with turn permissions etc but everything is locked so one has to grovel to have everything unlocked - then it appears you have to justify your actions constantly.

The permissions system needs looking at, it will put so many people off and problems on maps will NOT be corrected leading to piss poor navigation and a loss of users.

This is my last post here and I won't be doing any more map edits. I might even delete the whole Waze app as well, that's how much of a bitter taste this has left in my mouth.

Warm welcome? I think not. Bye all. :evil:

Re: My last map edits and my last post.

Posted: Sat Dec 29, 2012 2:00 am
by Daknife
Well said except for relying on a UR to advise people to not change your change. UR's are Update Requests and indicate something needs to be fixed and the UR, then cleared. I would simply clear any UR I came across like yours, they just clutter the map and hide real problems.

As to the Op what google and other nav services show is not = to the Waze editing guidelines. If the road does not meet the guidelines, namely a 15 meter non-drivable median it should mot be split. You think it's time consuming to split a road, try unsplitting one.

As others have noted we have the locks for a reason, if something does need to be changed, no grovling is needed, just post the permalink and an accurate description of why it needs to be unlocked. A level 5 will then take a look and if we find you correct we will unlock it. We may choose not to unlock if you are in error but every such response I've seen has had a detailed explanation of why the unlock is not being approved. But unless it's obvious why it shouldn't be unlocked the level 5 will defer to the local editor who is requesting the change. Or we will attempt to get a local level 5 involved to make the call. I've done that a couple times on issues in California.

Yes we do tend to get possessive of "our" roads at times but that happens after you spend hours working out the kinks in a tricky road layout, and then a week later someone comes along and undoes all the work you just did. You just felt that with the split that was just undone on you, now think about how the person who has worked that road to get it working just right feels.

All are welcome to try editing, but as a road system gets established you have to realize that there will be less and less for new editors to do. I can see the day when the everybody can edit access goes away. It already has in Italy.

Sent from my SPH-D700 using Tapatalk 2

Re: My last map edits and my last post.

Posted: Mon Dec 24, 2012 12:43 pm
by woodvale
yoyo-42 wrote:As for the meat of the post, as a new editor I've been surprised that there isn't a way to leave notes and hints near awkward places, to help future editors. I know people are now using small landmarks to do that now but it would be so much better if it was a proper function.
There's a road near me which is blocked by long term roadworks so I've had to split it. But it would be better to have a correct road and a 'long term road block' hazard that the routing algorithms would take note of, which wouldn't time out but maybe turns up as a system error every week or so so it doesn't get forgotten?
Quite agree. What I've been doing is splitting the closed roads in WME, then putting a UR on the Live Map at that location asking people to PM me before making any changes. Some of the other AMs around me are doing that as well.

Unfortunately, it was one of those very splits that he edited, having closed the UR without contacting me, that led me to send him a PM. I reiterated the reasons for the split, and said I'd redone it and posted a new UR, and this seems to have been taken as a major criticism. I'm happy to apologise here in public, as that was not my intention nor had I used any intemperate words, but he had overwritten some of my work without reading the UR correctly and contacting me.

Double unfortunately, it was me who queried whether the particular stretch of road he referred to should be dualled, as I wasn't convinced it met the wiki requirements for showing it as such. Again, I don't believe I worded it in such a way to put down, but clearly it's been taken that way so, again, I apologise.

It is unfortunate that new, keen, editors are finding some of our major cities are pretty much locked down, certainly in the UK, because we've suffered a spate of malicious editing recently, and a lot of hard work has had to be redone. Perhaps we need to update the wiki to reflect this, and are a little too short with our words in our posts and PMs.

If there is any lesson to be learnt from this, it's that perhaps we need to remind new editors (and old) that there are a lot of people who have put many, many, hours of work into the maps, and that before we go and change something, we need to check how recently were the last edits (so is it the base import, or has work been done?) and think about whether we're going to change something that someone has already spent a lot of hours on, so has a vested interest. That's why we have the forum and PMs so that we can communicate. We need to encourage all editors to make use of these facilities, regularly.

Re: My last map edits and my last post.

Posted: Mon Dec 24, 2012 10:05 am
by Yoyo-42
You have to be a little thick skinned to participate in any Web community thing, I'm afraid. The extra distance seems to make some people more aggressive (or maybe makes less socially tactful people feel safe enough to join in?). Having said that I have also found a number of very easily upset people online too - both ends of the scale are common.

As for the meat of the post, as a new editor I've been surprised that there isn't a way to leave notes and hints near awkward places, to help future editors. I know people are now using small landmarks to do that now but it would be so much better if it was a proper function.
There's a road near me which is blocked by long term roadworks so I've had to split it. But it would be better to have a correct road and a 'long term road block' hazard that the routing algorithms would take note of, which wouldn't time out but maybe turns up as a system error every week or so so it doesn't get forgotten?