I guess this must be the wrong forum. I’ll leave this here for now, but it doesn’t look like this forum gets much attention.

Thanks, iainhouse and jm6087. I’m in Michigan, and since my last post here I got in contact with the Michigan group on Discord and they have been quite helpful. I do have enough edits for level 2, but apparently that one-time downgrade pushed me back to level 1. Nevertheless, as soon as I started saving some edits, my level jumped to 2, so that helped things a lot. Now the main difficulty is just getting used to some of the changes since I was last active, and working out details on things I never did before, such as addresses. And just getting back into the swing of things after so long away. Again, thanks for the responses!

I'll take a stab at helping.

If you've only recovered access to your old account today, then most likely any driving you've recently done on Waze hasn't been registered on that account. So you won't have any new driven areas to edit in yet. You won't have any old driven areas, as driven areas expire after 90 days and it sounds like it's a lot longer than that since you were last editing.

The other way to get access to edit is to be an Area Manager. But again, managed areas expire if you don't edit at all for some time, so if you once had a managed area, that has probably gone as well.

On to levels. Waze has always had editor levels based on the number of edits you have done. Although the values at which your level upgrades have changed over the years, that system has always been in place. I can see from your editor profile that you have nearly 7000 edits, which may be enough for level 2 - you would need to contact your local community to check. A couple of years ago, Waze did run a one-off automatic downgrade of inactive editors, which may have taken you back to level 1.

The levels are used to protect important roads in Waze, now that so many people use them. There will be local standards on locking; something along the lines of Freeway=5, Major Highway=4 etc. There is also an automatic locking system that locks the top few % of the busiest roads. That system came in a couple of years ago and is controlled on a per-country basis; I'm not sure whether the US uses it.

So welcome back to Waze. You'll find there's quite an active community now - I can see jm6087 has already replied whilst I've been typing! Get in touch with your local community and they can help you back into editing. Get some driven areas onto your profile and see what needs doing - everybody is welcome.

What state are you in?

Everything that ianinhouse said is exactly right, so there isn't much I can add to it. The only thing that I can confirm for both you and ianinhouse is that the US community does not use auto-locking. Segments are locked based off road type and official functionality.

If you let us know which state you are in, we can get you information on joining your regional Discord chat network. Once you join Discord and start learning more about quality editing, you will find that leveling up is very possible.