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Linking users to local guidance that overrides global guidan

Post by MontieBeach
I don't know if this is quite the right place to mention it, but it is closest fit I could find.

As someone new to Waze, I read all the top level "read first" information about map editing and the details about Places.

I took "global guidance" to mean standards that apply everywhere.

What was not mentioned in there anywhere that I found is that there are state-level rules that override the global rules. I don't know how a new user is intended to discover this, other than to jump in and get scolded for not following the state-specific variation of the standards.

It might be worthwhile to mention this so that one's first experience in the community is not complaints about breaking rules that one had no clear way of finding.
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Last edited by kentsmith9 on Sat Jun 07, 2014 11:28 am, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: Split topic to new thread

Post by Fredo-p
MontieBeach wrote:I don't know if this is quite the right place to mention it, but it is closest fit I could find.

As someone new to Waze, I read all the top level "read first" information about map editing and the details about Places.

I took "global guidance" to mean standards that apply everywhere.

What was not mentioned in there anywhere that I found is that there are state-level rules that override the global rules. I don't know how a new user is intended to discover this, other than to jump in and get scolded for not following the state-specific variation of the standards.

It might be worthwhile to mention this so that one's first experience in the community is not complaints about breaking rules that one had no clear way of finding.
Welcome to the editing community. Glad to know you read the wiki to learn more. So we can get a better understanding, what specific issues did you experience when it comes to state level rules?

Global guidance does in fact mean "to apply to all", however, as you get into more detailed editing, every country, state, town, etc, will eventually have some time of rule/regulation that will "override" the "global guidance". This would prove somewhat difficult to list in the wiki (let alone track to ensure it's up to date).

However, what can be done, in the applicable pages, is indicate how certain countries/states, may have more specific rules and to check with the local areas forum for further information. If a state does have these specifics documented, then it could be listed as a possible link. But more than one would be needed.

So if you are able to list the situation that you experienced, we may be able to come up with a better solution. Also, what pages in the wiki do you think should reference this type of information?
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Post by kentsmith9
I think this is really good feedback that we can likely use to improve the communication to new editors.

I am pretty sure that each country around the world, follows some specific guidelines for their country, except for the USA where there is one more level of guidance at the state level. Each country (and state) has a page with local guidance overriding the higher level guidance. Maybe we can build a template for placement at the top of a page that links to this information for users to check if any of the guidance on a page has an override for the information on that page.

I think we can devise a way to have the template be dynamic and only show a link if the more local guidance is different from the higher level guidance.
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Post by kentsmith9
I created the initial page for these links here.

I was thinking we can add this link to pages that give guidance and we know if may be somewhat different in other countries or states (USA). I think it might be good to have a template as a message box with this link that can be dropped onto the top of any page suggesting there may be more localized information that may override some of the details on that page.

Here is an example of that message box in practice.
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Post by kentsmith9
sketch wrote:This is something I've been thinking about recently.

On certain pages, it may be wise to include guidance on which particular rules vary depending on locale, and (by omission) which don't. For instance, on the Road names/USA page, rules concerning Interstate and US highways apply uniformly throughout the nation, whereas some of the particularities concerning state highways may vary per state (e.g., if a state separates its highways into "primary" and "secondary"). For the latter, some text indicating that the rule may vary per state should be placed in or adjacent to that rule; the text's omission from other rules would indicate that those rules do not vary. (I state this because it seems the box might be a little much for use on a rule-per-rule basis.)
If I understand, you propose that we have a message box when we know there are differences in the local pages and leave it out when there are no differences.

I agree it would be better than stating both sides of that equation all the time.
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Post by MontieBeach
I think it may be sufficient to give some notice to say that local rules take precedence or override global rules, and give some idea of what levels to look for. (Country, state, etc.) It's not clear to me if I should start looking for additional rule modifications at city and county level, etc.

The best suggestion I could make is to have a generic link to all local rules, organized as a hierarchy. For example, the top level of local rules could be a list of pages for each country that has its own rules. The pages for the countries could have a list states/provinces/prefectures, or whatever is applicable to that country, where there are additional rule revisions at that level, and the pages for each of those could list any finer-grained localities that have their own rules.

I'm not sure I understand the philosophy of having a practice of strictly enforced standards, yet at the same time having those standards be so fragmented into smaller localities that -- in an important sense -- they lose their value as "standards". In any case, it is what it is -- it would just be nice to cover that philosophy in the introductory material somewhere.
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Post by PesachZ
kentsmith9 wrote:I created the initial page for these links here.

I was thinking we can add this link to pages that give guidance and we know if may be somewhat different in other countries or states (USA). I think it might be good to have a template as a message box with this link that can be dropped onto the top of any page suggesting there may be more localized information that may override some of the details on that page.

Here is an example of that message box in practice.
Although already mentioned in the body of the page, a similar box linking to the states could be useful to emphasize this info on the Road names/USA page.
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Post by sketch
This is something I've been thinking about recently.

On certain pages, it may be wise to include guidance on which particular rules vary depending on locale, and (by omission) which don't. For instance, on the Road names/USA page, rules concerning Interstate and US highways apply uniformly throughout the nation, whereas some of the particularities concerning state highways may vary per state (e.g., if a state separates its highways into "primary" and "secondary"). For the latter, some text indicating that the rule may vary per state should be placed in or adjacent to that rule; the text's omission from other rules would indicate that those rules do not vary. (I state this because it seems the box might be a little much for use on a rule-per-rule basis.)
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