The general guidance discussed here should address when to use a point and when to use an area.

archabaddon wrote:When can we have a Best Practices wiki page like we had for US landmarks (https://wiki.waze.com/wiki/Landmarks)?

Now.

While I like the Places Wiki-page. I feel there is still a place for state specific guidance that do not contradict the National Standards. I do agree that every state doesn't need a full set of rules as we have needed under the Landmark situation, but there are specific variations that do require local differences.

One example that comes to mind (not a good one, just the first that popped into my mind) is Golf Courses. Under landmarks the Standard most had adopted being AndyPoms' CT standards said not to mark Golf Courses because in CT they are almost all private clubs and thus under the no longer valid idea of not marking private businesses it was advise to not mark them. But 2000 miles away in the state I reside in nearly all courses are publicly owned and operated facilities and thus the Utah guidelines (which I just clipped out of my signature last night) said to mark them. Granted that local variation is no longer relevant but still highlights the need for some local instructions.

Well one of my favorite points that I've made before. larger Religious locations. The Places page says religious places are points. That's fine for your average house of worship. But Large/historical Cathedrals, Temples (Hindu, Buddist, Hare Krisna, and my favorite, LDS). These are more than just houses of worship, they are pilgrimage destinations, as well as tourist destinations and local landmarks. Utah's wiki-page will continue to state that these locations, LDS temples, the Hare Krishna Temple in the state and a couple historic Cathedrals, will be marked with areas rather than simple points.

Other exceptions will be found even if we can't think of them at this time they will arise and state specific instructions will allow for such variations as they are found.

Does everyone feel comfortable with that page to reference it. If so I will update the NC page to that effect.

There was a discussion, but I'm not sure how much we are allowed to share, as all of the presentations were considered confidential.

I don't recall us discussing the appearance of point Places at all.

AlanOfTheBerg wrote:Since the guidance to not map any private businesses/places isn't relevant any longer, what local or state variations are we talking about?

I"m under the impression that this Places system completely replaces the old Landmarks system, as well as its guidances.

Also, are there any plans in the foreseeable future to integrate Waze's Places data stores with the ones for Google Places - or at least sync the two on the backend, etc., if this isn't being done so already?

If there are plans to sync the two, maybe we shouldn't go crazy manually adding places that already exist over on Google Map Maker. Does anyone know?

Well, for what it's worth (and this may already be known), when I converted an Area into a Point, once the tiles finally updated, the site in question disappeared from the Waze app completely. Areas show up on the map, but Points do not.

So, was there any clarification at the meetup?

My completely wild guess would be that Areas will continue to show in the app, while Points will become search fodder in the Waze column, but not appear on the map, giving us better control over POI searches and destinations than we currently have, using Google's markers. Place Points would seem to be, in essence, "stop points on steroids", i.e. with extra information, but without the visual tie to the House Number in WME.

1. There would just be too many points to display. It would overwhelm all the Simplicity we've fought so hard for.
2. With the direction being to place them on or near the appropriate segment, rather than the destination itself, it wouldn't make any sense to make them visual. After all, we don't see the "stop points" for the Areas.

Just thinkin' out loud, here.