Can someone write new language to reflect what GOYDP was saying? So we can get this Officially changed?

I have a couple that I have reduced the size of. I have tried multiple times to navigate to the mall without any issues.

I prefer the exact opposite--mapping all shopping malls (and even big box stores) to the fenceline.

There's two 'types' of parking lots to Waze:
1) Those that are small and appear light gray, that never appear with names.
2) Those that are large and appear the same gray as other places, that do appear with names.

Unfortunately with the nature of how big our lots are, many of them show as (2). I've been trying to draw area places intentionally to the fenceline around type (2) lots so that the map isn't littered with "Parking - " and that Waze will try to prioritize "Mall Name" over "Parking - Mall Name".

Not sure if Waze is also going this way, but I'm imaging the day where "Nested places" exist, and any mall mapped to the fenceline will automagically nest PLAs and PPs that lie within the polygon.

n4dog wrote:I still think we should stop making every shopping area into an Area Place. That would help out a lot.

I agree. I find little value in seeing all these shopping center AP all over the map. Most shopping centers are large and do not have identifying signs all over the place, so to me they don't serve as useful landmarks. If not remove them completely, then at least pull back to the actual building outline. I just find my app screen cluttered with all these things that don't really help me.

BTW, I agree wholeheartedly and have felt this way for years. In fact, I have deviated from wiki and mapped them this way myself for years. (Sorry not sorry.) I think it looks much better and much easier to understand at a glance. Looks like an actual place and not just an indeterminate blob of area.

https://i.imgur.com/33StUMDl.png

I have got to say I don't understand at all people who think mapping malls as areas is a waste or "clutter". Malls are among the best and most universal references we have in the US! "Meet me at Five Guys for lunch. The one by Lakeside". Best Buy uses "Lakeside" as the name of their store a couple blocks off screen because this one is near Lakeside Shopping Center. Someone asks you "where is that store", they say "it's on Vets by Lakeside". There are very few place types that are more visible and more often used as that kind of reference.

(I just wish they'd stop doing that inane thing where lots above a certain size are a different color than lots below that size and show names when smaller lots don't. It's preposterous and looks like garbage. Also you can ignore my area car dealerships )

itzwolf wrote:When dealing with standard indoor malls, mapping just the building works, but in an outdoor mall environment all the buildings are separate and spread out over a large area. In these cases there would still need to be a large area place to signify the shopping enter is there and to separate when there are more then one center in the area. In Jacksonville FL for example there are 6 distinctive different shopping centers and within each multiple different buildings. This is very common shopping center design in Florida and indoor malls are becoming less popular. Below is a PL to what I am talking about.

https://www.waze.com/en-US/editor/?env= ... 740&zoom=4

That appears to be effectively a jacked-up strip mall. If you can park directly in front of virtually every store in the place, it's not a traditionally-laid-out mall.

But there are plenty of "outdoor malls" which are still laid out like a traditional mall, like The Mall at Partridge Creek in Sterling Heights, Michigan, which has outdoor walkways (lord knows why anyone would design something like this in a place where 8 months out of the year are too cold to be outside) but is laid out normally. Another example is The Shops at La Cantera in San Antonio, Texas. This is also a common layout and can be easily and well mapped by following the buildings.

itzwolf wrote: In the case of multiple buildings, college campuses, and large hospitals I still think one large area place is best. Mapping a mall with a clustered building area is easy enough, but when you are talking huge college campuses and shopping centers, that task becomes excessive to map the buildings and then the place points within the building area places. The next issue is determining which building area gets the Google link since only one place should be linked. I think it is far easier for standard malls and outdoor clustered building malls to follow this desired guidance change, but the others make more sense to leave as a single area.

I agree with this. As much as I would like the look of having all the various buildings on a university campus mapped individually, it just doesn't work with the tools we have. You have to have one and only one place labeled "University of New Orleans", and the "University of New Orleans" name should be present anywhere in the entire campus if you are zoomed in (and it isn't decluttered away). It would be lovely to have a lighter-color area possibility for nested places in the display, but we don't have that.

Large lots displaying with the name are a bug or at best a design flaw as far as I'm concerned. We should not make our mapping decisions on that basis.

subs5 wrote:Waze has some changes that might obviate the need for the change. Should we table the discussion to see if it is still relevant after the changes?

No. This is a visual change. I don't know what coming change you could possibly be talking about that would affect this decision.

And I agree with Kartografer that there is NO reason to "wait until you're editing that shopping center for some other purpose before making the change" in this case. This isn't hundreds of thousands of micro-doglegs on the map. This affects shopping centers—large, visible, and limited in number. This is the type of change that should be done swiftly and all at once, or else you're creating an inconsistent visual experience for no reason.

It does appear that pulling back the area place to the brick and mortar, is appropriate in some instances. At least for LARGE area places, like Malls and Shopping Centers. Now that PLAs are mapped, it makes sense. But the discussion needs to consider the differences that exist for smaller areas, like government buildings, police, fire, etc.

However, some large areas, by the nature of their layout, would need to stay unchanged, with PLAs within those confines. Universities and schools come to mind.