Waze forum

Nope, it's buisiness as usual. I have a gut feeling that Noam and the gang are true to their word and not much is going to change with us editor's. At least in the next 2 years or so. Hang in there guys!

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I missed the opportunity to comment on the proposed guidelines a couple of months ago, but I have two comments on them if they are still under review.

First, the whole document is a series of instructions in the form "map this, don't map that", without any explanation. That would be fine if this were an employee manual, where people who don't follow arbitrary rules can be disciplined or fired, but the purpose of this document is to provide guidance to a group of volunteers who are unsupervised and pursuing their own personal motivations. If you just tell them "don't map X" without explaining why, they will ignore if it they feel like it. At a minimum, this document needs some explanation of what is the difference between a landmark and a POI, and why it matters for mapping.

Second, given what I understand to be the purpose of landmarks, many of these guidelines make no sense. Why is the "historical importance" of a cemetery of any value in deciding whether it is useful to drivers seeking to orient themselves on the road network? Why are parks or schools, which may be located far off a road, more useful for navigation than a store or office building? A McDonald's at a major intersection may be a more useful landmark than a church that is at the end of a long dead-end street and not visible from any other road. Again, what's the reason for these distinctions?

AndyPoms wrote:Well, there is a long standing guideline that we "do not map individual businesses", so that takes care of McDonalds, etc. The thing you need to remember is that Waze isn't going to say "Drive to McDonalds and take a left", it will tell you to "turn left on Main St", it does not matter if McDonalds happens to be at that intersection.

Yes, but the same is true of any landmark. It's not going to say "turn right at the Washington Monument" or "turn left at St Paul's Cathedral" either. And saying that stores are not mapped because we have a rule against mapping stores is, well, circular.

AndyPoms wrote:The Waze Champs, Country Manager & Area Managers actually do supervise the editors, make sure people are following the guidelines, and communicate with the editors. You should also be aware that editors that do not follow the guidelines and refuse to communicate with the Champs can and have had their editing privileges limited and/or revoked.

Fair enough. I was just trying to make the point, inartfully, that coordinating volunteers is a much different process than instructing employees.

CBenson wrote:

AndyPoms wrote:See: http://www.waze.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=23354

Adding a new landmark of Gas station type will NOT add the station to the list. It will add it to the map, and if you enter a name, you will be able to search and navigate to it - just like any other landmark - but won't be able to update prices.

So there is no current reason to add a gas station landmark (in the US), right?

Actually from what I understand, there is, because in the beta version of the WME, editors CAN 'add information about gas stations beyond the fact that it exists', and at some point this will be made production as well.

Best practice at this point: if it's a gas station, create a landmark for it with its brand name, and more magic will happen later.

Sooo.... '[USA] Landmark Guidelines - Request for Comments' is now a locked thread with no further action mentioned, and I see no further discussion of this anywhere else in the US forums. Is the CT landmark standard now the national standard, or...?

Yeah. I'm just wondering the status because depending, it'd mean I could start doing cleanup according to that standard (and believe me, in Northern California, there would be a LOT to do. Not to mention half the bigger landmarks having the name 'No city, California, Mexico' when the automated script couldn't figure out the city.)

mapcat wrote: I wasn't there, so I don't know the context, but "as much content as possible" does not make a map better. It has the opposite effect.

Yep, definitely. Maybe the thing to keep in mind is that a LANDMARK has a purpose on a map; to assist in orientation and direction in navigation. If it's not doing that, it really doesn't need to be there.

If Waze implements pushpin 'navigate to' spots on the map, the way house numbers will work, a lot of "landmarks" taking up real estate really could go, IMHO.

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jasonh300 wrote:One thing I'd like to mention is that I'd like to see the quick link to Parking Lots removed from the Landmarks pulldown in the editor. I really don't think Gas Stations needs to be there anymore after the import, but I guess that could be useful for countries where the gas stations have not yet been imported. They're both inviting people to use them improperly now.

I'm going to just say 'don't think this is a good idea', here. I have added at least 50 gas stations SINCE the import that are in fact there. Mostly in more rural areas. The third party import was an excellent start, here, but I've solved many 'missing station' URs and added others. Compare notes with Gasbuddy's map sometime; there is still lots of work to do.

On a related note, did Waze fix 'the bug' where newly added stations can't populate price data?

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jasonh300 wrote:

skbun wrote:
On a related note, did Waze fix 'the bug' where newly added stations can't populate price data?

Drawing in a gas station that isn't in the database doesn't do anything but create a useless landmark. I don't know if this is a bug. I think the missing gas stations have to be added from the back end.


Via my iPhone 4S.

I found the thing I was looking for, but it doesn't answer the actual question of progress made toward fixing this:

http://www.waze.com/forum/viewtopic.php ... 61#p418161

Adding stations: Stations which are added to Waze as a new landmark, will not appear in app search results or be updatable until Waze implements some new code and update process on the server side. Go ahead and add stations which do not appear and for which you cannot find an imported station. They will be live in the app once Waze makes their code changes.

This was said about six weeks ago; no word yet though that I've seen.

jasonh300 wrote:

txemt wrote:I've started getting URs for the San Antonio airport. When I plug it into the nav, it directs me to the front entrance, but people are going being routed to the back, lately and I don't know what's changed.

I had a similar complaint about MSY. I've tried to duplicate it in the app and on Livemap, but nothing I search will route me anywhere except to the terminal building. I don't know what they could possibly be doing different, and of course, these are all the ones who don't respond to the conversations in the UR, so I haven't been able to gather any further info.

It may depend on where you are when you start the route.