I like what you said voludu2, especially with the very first statement; only for shopping malls.

I was going to expand on that and realized there wasn't a need. I'm sure we can all think of corresponding places in our own area such as you pointed out.

Will this be an expansion / addition of the Places WoP page or will it be its own page? There's already a lot going on with that page. I guess that needs to be determined after there is a decent draft. For me, reading the Places WoP is a task unto itself. There's a lot to take in and I've found I usually end up trying to find a specific item to concentrate on, especially when I come back to it when trying to resolve a question.

I have been doing this suggestion in practice for a little while and agree it's time that we should adjust this to go to the building rather than the fenceline where parking lots have been mapped.

I can see exceptions to this rule, i.e. parks, gas stations, etc. But for most business mappings, it does make more sense.

There were reasons why that "map to fenceline" guideline was chosen at the time area places first came out, some time before summer 2014. A lot has changed since then, including guidance from waze staff to the community.

Sketch is already drawing malls to the building instead of to the fenceline, apparently with no ill effect. Are there any caveats to that (other than size issues)? Do any of the other champs who participated in the discussions that led to the "map to the fenceline" guidance have any concerns based on their earlier and more recent area place experience?

A single-building mall is similar in many ways to one of these "open air walkway malls" that has had a roof built to cover the walkways.
They are both contiguous walking areas with no drivable segments running through them.
They feel like one mall place.

It makes sense to me to draw them the same way.

In cases where they don't "feel like" one mass to folks visiting them, I think it would make sense to draw them separately. Perhaps, in some cases, as individual buildings. Perhaps, in other cases, with several clustered buildings in a single mass.

This really is a big change in how we think about drawing places like malls and large hospitals and college campuses, so I think there is going to have to be a period of adjustment, during which we consider the purpose of drawing places as areas, and see how things look drawn both ways.

* The proposed guidance change is only for shopping malls.
* The proposed guidance change is only for shopping malls that are single-building, or malls which have open-air pedestrian ways but are laid out like single-building shopping malls
Pentagon Center (single-building), the King of Prussia Mall (single building), and Philadelphia
Premium Outlets (outdoor mall), which could be drawn more like the Mall of America(single building) and The Mall at Partridge Creek (outdoor mall) are drawn today.

* Current guidance (map to property line) would apply to shopping centers which are built like a strip mall wrapped around a parking lot, such as the Whiteland Town Center because the parking lot is in the center.

* Current guidance (map to property line) would apply to "Town Center" shopping centers like the Reston Town Center, which are laid out as an ersatz downtown street grid complete with parallel or angle parking, with additional satellite parking lots near big-box stores.

If we could actually have an area place for a shopping mall, and also see building and parking lot outlines within, then it would really make the most sense to map that way, and easy to come to consensus. But Waze does not work that way.

Right now, there is a lot of experimenting going on in some states, while in other states senior editors have come to advocate various approaches. I don't think there is consensus at this time.

It may be possible to list the different types of approaches (generally, without all the specific details) and let the reader know that they need to check their state page (some of which redirect to a regional page) for specific details.

The conversation going on here now will be useful for developing state and regional guidance. Eventually, the communities from the various states and regions may reach consensus on a new national guideline.