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Re: [New Page] Places/Airport

Posted: Thu May 25, 2017 9:45 pm
by sketch
Not crazy about this, I would prefer the following:


"Hertz – MSY" either for the one and only or for the counter if separate; and
"Hertz car return – MSY" for the return, tracking the generic "Rental Car Return" language.

If I am alone on thinking that the dichotomy between "Hertz" and "Hertz car return" is not clear enough in a search for "hertz", then I would prefer "Hertz counter" for the former (i.e., your original proposal).

Re: [New Page] Places/Airport

Posted: Mon Jun 05, 2017 12:51 am
by sketch
Where did we get "IAD - Rental car" for a single location?

Here's what I would change:
  • Single location, <3-4: "IAD - Rental Car Return" (preferred) or "IAD - Rental Car Facility" (alternate) (same for SFO example line 1)
  • Separate locations
    • Rental counter:
      • General: "KAE - Rental Car Counter" or "KAE - Rental Car Facility" (on the fence) (same for DEN example line 1)
      • Each: "Avis – DEN" et al., "Hertz – JFK" et al.
    • Car return:
      • General: "KAE - Rental Car Return" (same for DEN example line 1)
      • Each: "Avis car return – DEN" et al., "Hertz car return – JFK" et al.
Regarding "Rental Car Counter", "Rental Car Facility", "Rental Car Return" – first, I think it important that all such terms start with the words "rental car". Second, in this capacity it is used as a name, therefore as a proper noun—compare "Long Term Parking".

Re: [New Page] Places/Airport

Posted: Tue Jun 06, 2017 3:26 pm
by sketch
kentsmith9 wrote:Single Location: I'm good with expanding the single location names, but my preference would be to go with "IAD - Rental car facility" and as a secondary option "IAD - Rental car return." To me, seeing an entry for rental car return implies there is a location for other rental car functions like the rental car counter.

Separate Locations: I'm good with all these expanded names. I personally thought I heard a preference to have shorter names, but maybe I misread the replies.

Rental car nnnnnn: I'm good with the expanded naming as noted.
I am okay with "Rental Car Facility" as the primary name and "Rental Car Return" as an alt name for a single facility.
Capitalization: From my investigations in this area, these are all common nouns or adjectives of common nouns. While you can say that any "counter" is common, you cannot say that a "rental counter" is a proper noun or somehow unique. I would compare it to saying:
  • California's largest mountain is Mount Whitney.
  • The largest California mountain.
In the first entry, we capitalize "Mount" because it is part of the proper name.

In the second entry, even though we are clearly speaking of one specific mountain and everyone knows it would be Whitney, we don't capitalize the word "mountain" in that context.

For the example "Hertz rental car counter" and "Hertz rental car return" both of these places are not unique in the world. We would not say "Pick me up at the Downtown Bus Stop."

Compare these related examples. If you list a person's title, you only capitalize the portion that is part of their name, but not if you list it after their name.
  • Director Henry Platt
  • Henry Platt, director of public relations.
Having said that, if you had a placard on a desk or a sign on the street, you would capitalize "Director of Public Relations." Also, we know that any rental car return sign is likely to be capitalized, so should we match the sign visible to drivers with our displayed text like we do with everything else?
Not proper nouns, right, generally anyway—I mischaracterized the issue in my post. What we're really looking at is Title Case. I don't think there is any place we don't use Title Case in place names outside of parentheticals and the occasional purely-informational appendage, e.g., "Rest Area (no toilet) - I-10 W mile 425". "Rest Area" isn't a proper noun, but we use title case for the main place name.

We do the same with parking lots... not that I necessarily agree with some applications of that, but it's what we do at this point.

Re: [New Page] Places/Airport

Posted: Wed Jun 07, 2017 5:11 pm
by sketch
I would still prefer to see "Avis – DEN" for the counter and "Avis rental car return – DEN" for the return.

I think folks searching for an Avis will look for the search result that says "Avis" by itself or set off by punctuation from other components of the name.

Thinking from a search perspective, I think a list of results that shows "Avis" "Avis" "Avis – DEN" "Avis rental car return – DEN" "Avis" is easier to read and understand than one that shows "Avis" "Avis" "Avis Rental Car Counter - DEN" "Avis Rental Car Return – DEN" "Avis". The extra words and capitals in this case, to me, would give the initial impression that those might be wrong results. Having "Avis" be the focus by being either still the bulk of the name or, at least for the car return, set off as the only capitalized word in the bulk of the name makes the results more legible, I think.

I see a difference in usage (grammatically speaking) between "DEN – Rental Car Return" and "Avis Rental Car Return – DEN". In the former "Rental Car Return" is the "title" of the place so should use title case. In the latter "rental car return" is supplemental information to the "title" of the place (and proper noun) "Avis".

Other than that, I'm good. I like the use of footnotes.

Re: [New Page] Places/Airport

Posted: Thu Jun 15, 2017 5:40 pm
by sketch
kentsmith9 wrote: I believe this group of paragraphs is the same thought, which I believe is that for locations with separate Counters and Returns, you propose that the counter be named the short "Avis - DEN" matching the same name given for the Single location types as in:
  • Single location for counter and return
    • Avis - DEN
  • Split locations for counter and return
    • Avis - DEN
    • Avis rental car return - DEN
Where I am proposing we differentiate the name for single locations vs separate locations with:
  • Single location for counter and return
    • Avis - DEN
  • Split locations for counter and return
    • Avis rental car counter - DEN
    • Avis rental car return - DEN
I think the second way is better for people searching because with the split locations, your example does not clarify the counter location is not a car return. If I had previously seen an entry for "Avis - IAD" I know from experience that has the car return. Now with a split location, the name does not clarify there is NOT a car return under that same name. I think that will cause more confusion than if we clarify when a location is not both functions.
I can support this.
kentsmith9 wrote:Also, the naming to me is too long and similar in the above second example. I had originally proposed using slightly different terminology to help differentiate the two names with
  • Split locations for counter and return
    • Avis rental counter - DEN
    • Avis car return - DEN
I would prefer this, yes. At least with "rental counter". I am on the fence about "car return".

On one hand, "car return" is concise and descriptive, and would make sense if you search "avis" or "avis den". On the other hand, if you search "den rental car return", it would be beneficial to see both the generic facility and all the rental brand options presented in the results, and I imagine removing "rental" from the name would make that less likely.
kentsmith9 wrote:LOL. I didn't recognize that you were proposing the title case was only under the condition that "Rental Car Return" was used as the main place name and when part of the rental agency as in "Avis rental car return" it is sentence case.

While I can see the logic, I'm not sure it makes any different to me visually in the search results. I would prefer to keep it consistent since a "Avis Rental Car Return" is a place too, but if we can get some additional support to make the guidance as follows I will add it as such:
  • Avis rental car return - use sentence case when lead by the rental agency.
  • DEN - Rental Car Return - use title case when lead by the airport code without an agency.
I do think this looks better and makes the results easier to read. Say we eliminate the hyphen (as Kartografer recommends below, and I am okay with this), which list makes it more obvious which one stands out?
  • Avis Rental Car Return - DEN
  • DEN Rental Car Return
  • Alamo Rental Car Return - DEN
  • Dollar Rental Car Return - DEN
  • Avis rental car return - DEN
  • DEN Rental Car Return
  • Alamo rental car return - DEN
  • Dollar rental car return - DEN
And I just think it looks better too.
Kartografer wrote:Concision is good, but one word won't make much of a difference with this, since the name will be fully visible in search. It also seems good to be consistent with title case (except when putting parenthetical information in, which is more of a description stuck in the name for visibility). So for this I think using Rental Car Counter and Rental Car Return in the names for separate rental & return places is fine. I do think it would be good to have consistency on using hyphens with places that start with the airport code, whether terminals or car rental facilities. I favor not having a hyphen in there, as shown in the current section on terminals.
My problem with "Rental Car Counter" and "Rental Car Return" is not that they're too long, but that they're too similar. Kent mentioned this above. I would much prefer to see "Avis rental counter" and either "Avis car return" or "Avis rental car return". You're searching for "Avis" in this case.

On the other hand, when you are searching for a general facility, it is important to have the words "rental car" in the name because that's what you'll search for: "msy rental car" or something of that nature. This is why I would propose "Avis rental counter" but "DEN Rental Car Counter".

As for hyphens, I am in favor of removing them where the abbreviation is first in the name.

Re: [New Page] Places/Airport

Posted: Fri Oct 06, 2017 3:35 pm
by sketch

Re: [New Page] Places/Airport

Posted: Fri Mar 01, 2019 5:00 pm
by sketch
DwarfLord wrote:At the same time, from nearby roads, drivers typically can't tell if if a small airfield has a paved runway or not. They CAN tell that there is a big open area with hangars and a wind sock and maybe some aircraft. To my mind, if a driver is passing such a location, it is an asset to have it show up on the app display. It's a large and potentially useful orientation cue, like a park or a body of water.
I agree with this. I don't think there is any good reason to distinguish between airports based on some arbitrary metric that means nothing to a driver passing by.

I also don't believe that there is any reason to curtail the use of the Airport category. People don't search for airports by category. They go to the airport where their flight is or where they parked their Beechcraft.

Re: [New Page] Places/Airport

Posted: Wed Mar 06, 2019 5:59 pm
by sketch
It is no secret that I fall under the philosophy that a richer map (i.e., one that contains more information of a certain type) is better for driver orientation.

I also firmly believe that the app experience is paramount and should more or less always drive editor behavior and philosophy.

However, I do not generally support guidance that leaves it up to the editor's judgment as to whether certain elements meet or don't meet their interpretation of vague standards (though not the primary reason, this was a fairly big impetus for the implementation of the functional classification-based road type system). This leads to pure waste of editor time and effort, especially when such effort is directed toward trudging through Street View imagery to determine whether "easily-recognizable aviation-related structures are visually obvious from public roads". And what's "a large clearing"? Why does an airport in the middle of a forest get more likely recognition than an airport in the Plains (which wouldn't need a "clearing")?

And why does the app user care about the difference? An app user who sees some small airports on the map will expect to see other small airports on the map. Say a Wazer drives by a small airport that isn't mapped. Why isn't it mapped? The last editor through there didn't think the hangars were "easily recognizable", because they looked more like warehouses from the 2009 Street View imagery they thumbed through, and anyway they didn't see any aircraft parked there (because they were in or on the other side of the only-moderately-recognizable hangars). Well, maybe the Wazer knows where those other airports are because they know the area, or maybe they know about them because they have an in-dash GPS screen which shows them. Either way, the moment you've taken someone's eyes off the road to send URs for the "missing airport", all your safety arguments go out the window.

So I'm not buying that. The best user experience is for all airports to be shown the same way.

You can say in as big and as bold letters as you want that the primary purpose of area places is not for people navigating to those places. As a general statement, I agree. You did correctly state that area places are "NOT primarily for the benefit of people routing to them" (emphasis added). But nothing in this statement precludes a secondary purpose which area places also serve, and further, it is an oversimplification to claim that this is the case for every area place.

Indeed, it varies. A large green area place for a national park might well serve to show someone they're driving through or near a national park on their way somewhere else. But, depending on the national park, I believe that more often drivers will see the large green area on screen as an indication that they're close, or almost there, particularly if they're navigating to a particular location inside the national park.

As all area places do, different airports will fall on different parts of the spectrum between the various reasons to employ an area place. At any rate, neither of these two purposes is more or less noble than the other.

And anyway, what does it matter "the airport offers services to the general public such as flying lessons or demonstrations" if we're allegedly not doing this for people navigating to the airport? Why does that make a difference? It makes a difference because such airports might fall on the "navigating-to" end of the spectrum, and there's nothing wrong with that. But I see no compelling reason that current pilots should not be afforded the same luxury as prospective pilots.

And these are not the only two reasons to use an area place, anyway. Area places aren't just for orientation when driving. They're also for orientation when viewing the map—e.g., looking at the overview of your route in the app to get an idea of where you're going. This use case requires some general level of familiarity with the area—which is not a barrier, because Waze is principally a commuting app. It's also a use case in which it really doesn't matter whether "easily-recognizable aviation-related structures are visually obvious from public roads." Your prior knowledge of the location of the airport's location, wherever it came from (maybe you found out about it from the Waze map in the first place! [INCEPTION.aiff]), is what makes that information useful to you when you're using it to understand your route overview.

It is my belief that any airport that is recognizable enough in WME to map should be mapped because at least some drivers will benefit from each one, and because they will not be a detriment to drivers in any other way.

At the very, very least, flesh out that language to include any airport where parked aircraft are at all visible from the road. That's pretty unambiguously "an airport".

Re: [New Page] Places/Airport

Posted: Wed Mar 06, 2019 9:01 pm
by sketch
With regard to naming, I don't believe there is any reason to change our general standard of "Name (Code)", with potential refinement points around (1) which code to use in particular, and perhaps (2) how to denote a private airfield.

I am somewhat baffled by all the suggestions to simply name these things "Private Airport" as if that's doing anyone any good? What is the point of that?

Anyone going to an airport will search for it by name or by code. Anyone passing by an airport or otherwise using it for visual reference will confirm it's an airport by seeing a word like "Airport" or "Airfield" in the name (though having runways visible would make it even more obvious, sigh). Neither cares terribly that it's private (the former will know this ahead of time, and to the latter it is irrelevant).

If we believe it's necessary to point out in the primary name that a given airport is private, then okay, but do it in a parenthetical like we do with other information of the sort (e.g., "trucks only, no facilities" on a rest area, "faculty/staff only" on a parking lot). So, something like,
Anderson Lake Airstrip (0AK1) (private)
As for which code to use, I will ask the pilots around here, but I believe that if there is no IATA code, the ICAO code is the one most pilots and therefore most people going to noncommercial airports would use, because that's how it's entered into the GPS or FMS, right? Perhaps, then, that should be the code structure for the code in the primary name:

IATA -> (if no IATA) ICAO -> (if neither) FAA

Then, of course, each code as an alt.

Re: [New Page] Places/Airport

Posted: Thu Mar 07, 2019 6:06 pm
by sketch
DwarfLord wrote:My main concern with long Area Place names is that they become a pile of text floating around the display. Even if one doesn't care about that by itself :cry:, the long place names will appear to be more significant than the short ones. That can be a faulty impression. For example, if the following three things appear on the screen...

76
Girdwood Station Mall
Anderson Lake Airstrip (OAK1) (private)

...the third item will display more text than the other two put together, despite the fact that the overwhelming number of drivers will be more interested in the other two.

If we can find a way to shorten the primary names of private airstrips and airfields I think that would be a service to average Waze users.
I don't think I used a big enough "if" on the "if we do feel it's necessary to point out that private airstrips are private in the primary name..."

That kind of info is much better suited for the Description, I think, in the case of a private airport. You go to any general aviation or smaller airport on purpose, and if you need to be there you probably already know whether it's private.

Generally, cute examples, but you can play that any way you want...

TA TravelCenters of America
The Shoppes at River Crossing
Slaughter Airpark (LS77)

You don't usually get into the "Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport (MSY)" until you're in the realm of big commercial airports anyway.

That said, while I prefer that all airports have the code at the end of the primary name uniformly, I am willing to consider the possibility of including codes in the primary name only where an airport has an IATA code (the one used for bookings on commercial airlines), and leaving other codes (ICAO, FAA) for alt names only. I would, however, then want to see the ICAO or FAA code in the first line of the description as well, for the half dozen people who fly private planes and actually look at the description field... :lol: That makes airports a little more annoying to edit, but I do understand that for the vast majority of the public, the code only matters when it might be on your flight confirmation.