Waze forum

As I scroll around Anchorage and the valley, I'm seeing a lot of Places for businesses and buildings being added as an Area Place. As I'm pretty new to this, I've done a lot of reading in the Wazeopedia, and according to US standards, Area Places should be used only in certain cases. In the long list of types of Places provided, only a few should be Areas.

https://wazeopedia.waze.com/wiki/USA/Pl ... a_or_Point

Generally only these should be areas: gas stations, airports, seaports, cemetery, college, covention center, fire department, hospital, prison, military, police station, school, stadium/arena, zoo, campground, golf course, park, ski area, state/national forest, river, lake.

Then also large visually distinctive landmarks, useful for orientation can also be mapped as areas.

I think the intention is to keep the areas displayed in the app useful for orientation, emergency services, and the like - not to display every building or office park in the app.

A landmark Place is defined as a named, architecturally unique location, locally well known for its uncommon height or iconic exterior appearance, easily visible to and recognizable by passing drivers, that is visually and obviously unlike its immediate surroundings. Horizontal size alone, such as found in vast but nondescript office building complexes, does not qualify a location as a landmark. Nor does fame due to whatever goes on at or inside the location, especially if its exterior is unremarkable or poorly visible to passing drivers.

As of February 2015, it is not encouraged to map any structures built by and dedicated to single retailers as Area Places, regardless of how visually iconic.

Now, I know I'm new, so maybe this is old info, and we should be doing it differently. So feel free to contribute to the discussion, and add current regional standards to the Alaska wiki, or fix the US one.

MacroNav,

You are correct in using the US guidance. The spread sheet on the wazeopedia is a great reference for places. Another way is through a script that helps to let you know if it is supposed to be an area or point place and weather you have missing information or not. This script is WME Place Harmonizer. I use it a lot while editing places.

MacroNav, I'm an Alaska AM (Prudhoe Bay) and also happen to be the author of the wiki section you quoted.

As long as I've been editing there's been controversy on the topic of area places. Many new editors, and a few old timers, find the Waze display too minimalist and like the idea of filling it up with interesting things. One can understand this desire, but as you surmised, if we did that, nothing would stand out any more and it would reduce the display impact of locations that really are good landmarks for orientation.

Another concern specifically involves retailers. Most perspectives I've encountered regard display of specific large retailers as areas on the map (e.g. Home Depot, Costco, CVS, etc.) as not in keeping with a professional map. Imagine a map of London that used polygons of similar significance to map Westminster Cathedral, the Houses of Parliament, Trafalgar Square, and BevMo.

That being said, I can think of at least two North American Champs who have argued for marking specific retailers with Areas (in one case necessitating a list of "retailers approved for area places") or that favoring specific retailers --usually big box stores -- with area places does not constitute advertising since they aren't paying us.

As a result, you may find pockets within North America that have departed from the wiki. However my last understanding is that most senior editors do continue to agree with the current wiki language that preserves the minimalist display character.

Hope this bit of context is useful!


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Thanks all for your feedback on this. It's pretty cool that one of our members wrote the book on the subject! Thanks DwarfLord!

I also agree that there will be variances from the standard, and that's okay, when it's considered with others' feedback and agreement.

One place type that I've run into as a potential deviation is "Sports Court" that I've used for soccer fields. According to the guidance, this should be a PP. I guess I can see maybe this was intended for smaller features, and "Park" Area should be used to contain the field - even if it's pretty much covers the same ground. From my perspective, I've found this useful for orientation and to see on the app, As a past soccer dad looking for a field can be quite a PITA sometimes, as they're often not signed around here.

A great question and very good responses thus far.
Best practice should always be to follow the national guidelines, there are items that may be local/state/regional specific, in those cases there must be a discussion and agreement among the group and any deviation from national standards would be clearly stated in the respective state/regional wazeopedia page, to include the justification on why the deviation is necessary, and a link to the forum topic in which the discussion and decision was made.

MacroNav wrote: One place type that I've run into as a potential deviation is "Sports Court" that I've used for soccer fields. According to the guidance, this should be a PP. I guess I can see maybe this was intended for smaller features, and "Park" Area should be used to contain the field - even if it's pretty much covers the same ground. From my perspective, I've found this useful for orientation and to see on the app, As a past soccer dad looking for a field can be quite a PITA sometimes, as they're often not signed around here.

If you want to start a request for consideration and discussion of a specific deviation, be sure to start it as a separate topic.
This will help with topic identification and keep focus on a single subject in which will be easy to follow.
Thanks,

Great questions, MacroNav! Thanks for raising them. Great job bac1022 mentioning WMEPH--that is an excellent script for working on places and is highly recommended. I appreciate DwarfLord's insight as well.

The region follows the national standards for places (under the link you posted) unless otherwise noted in the state or region Wazeopedia. If you have any further questions, feel free to ask