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These forums are specific to the Waze mobile app. Post here if you experienced a problem while using the app, have a question about the app functionality or a feature such as navigation or search.
Post by CrackedLCD
My big issue with these gas prices is that a) they're difficult to enter in, even while stopped. It needs to be more big button friendly like the rest of Waze. (The GasBuddy app for the US is a good example of "clear & concise" when it comes to gas price entry.)

The 3rd Party seems to post correct prices for the most part where I live, but usually only one or two grades (and not usually diesel, which I need.) What I wish we had was a way to correct wrong 3rd Party station info. I've got duplicates (like two Chevrons where only one exists) and long-established stores (mostly Shells) that don't show up at all. And then there are stations that are placed correctly but have the old/outdated names or have changed brands. Do we know who the third party is, so we could go directly to them to freshen their data?
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Post by CrackedLCD
deeggo wrote:Just hitting ok to confirm the prices is much easier than typing new wrong prices. And, blindly typing numbers will probably lead to very odd prices, clearly wrong.
At least where I live, that happens now. I can't speak for the iOS and other versions, but on Android the entry windows for gas prices are too small to be easily used and I think it leads to people putting prices in incorrectly. The interface really needs a "finger friendly" overhaul, and I say this as someone with a phone with one of the larger screens out there.

They need to look at the GasBuddy app in the US and see how it accepts prices; big letters, big price entry slots, easy to read at a glance, easy to confirm existing prices. No tiny buttons anywhere. If I'm stopped a red light, for example, and wish to update a price at a nearby station, I often can't get the price posted before the light turns green, even if it's just one price. It takes multiple taps on the screen to select the entry box, and sometimes one more press to bring up the keypad. Then if I don't hit the 'send' button exactly perfectly, I often wind up bringing up the notification window by mistake.

If it weren't such a cumbersome method, it might gain more traction with users. Right now it's only safe to use while sitting still or in a station. But how often do any of you stop at a gas station JUST to report prices? It ensures that prices will either be entered incorrectly by people driving (and unsafely, at that) or the prices will be incredibly sparse.

A lot of the territory I drive is only 1x/RTT (like GPRS for you GSM users) and I can't report prices at all because Waze times out too much. But that's another complaint for another thread.
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Post by CrackedLCD
ally_b wrote: If somebody selects "N/A" does this prevent others from entering a price for that type of fuel? For example, my local Sainsbury's (UK supermarket fuel station) stocks 3 out of the 4 types of fuel available in the UK version of Waze - normal unleaded, super unleaded and diesel. It doesn't stock LPG which is the 4th type of fuel in Waze.
No, at least not on the US version. I have entered N/A when a station was out of one type of fuel and was able to enter it again later when that fuel was available again. I also enter N/A on stations that Waze lists that are actually closed (in some cases, closed for 5 or more years!) and still get 8 points each time. Those stations sometimes have prices listed, so it's not locking anyone out. Again, at least on the US server.
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Post by CrackedLCD
It's going to be difficult to prove that some people, in some places, are posting purposely wrong prices. Price volatility means that gas prices fluctuate here several times a day during certain times of the year.

Frankly, as long as the gas price feature is as half-baked as it is, it cannot be trusted for reliable prices at all. Between the lack of listing all stations in a given area, or listing them with the wrong name, or 3rd party prices being woefully incorrect, or the kludgy way of entering new prices, or the duplicates… it's simply not set up to be trusted.

Just in my community alone, it lists two closed stations, one of which hasn't sold gasoline in almost 10 years. But it fails to list another that's sorta-new and been open for 3-4 years. Yet, a station that's been open just 3 days gets listed. It's very confusing and odd.
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Post by CrackedLCD
The 3rd party prices are very much hit or miss, but I think there's another bug at work. On more than one occasion I've seen my own name, "updated by CrackedLCD today" when I hadn't submitted prices yet. I conferred with another Wazer here and he has noticed the same issue. We're not faking prices but the system is acting like we've posted when we haven't.

Another oddity is I've noticed a LOT of submissions where the premium or diesel price is listed for regular, and the regular price is posted in one of the other boxes. How on earth does that even happen?
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Post by CrackedLCD
Twister_UK wrote:
CrackedLCD wrote:On more than one occasion I've seen my own name, "updated by CrackedLCD today" when I hadn't submitted prices yet. I conferred with another Wazer here and he has noticed the same issue. We're not faking prices but the system is acting like we've posted when we haven't.
Are these at stations where you've submitted prices within the last 24 hours? I get this a lot on stations I pass every day, where I'm passing by a few minutes earlier than I did the day before. At these sites, even though the UI says I updated today, I still get the 8 points for the update. I've only ever seen it happen once on a station that I'd never submitted a price for, and at this location it did behave as if I had already entered a price that day, not giving me the 8 points.
I do post the prices to the same stations daily, but not always within 24 hours. I'll have to pay closer attention but I think this may be what's happening. I usually update stations daily, give or take a few hours.

One oddity about the prices is you can continue to get 8 points, even updating your own already submitted prices, but only if you drive out of the area and return. Sticking around and doing it twice won't work. If someone else comes along and updates within a few minutes, you can also do it agian and get 8 more points. It's oddly generous in that regard.
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Post by CrackedLCD
RichLather wrote:In my perfect world, the gas price feature would be handled by something more robust, like GasBuddy. I used this very often before getting Waze; there's more of a community updating prices there than there is on Waze, at least in my area.

I don't mind updating incorrect prices, knowing that Waze's native price feature isn't where it needs to be yet. My gripe is that I use Waze in landscape mode, mounted to a dashboard bracket. The interface on my Samsung Galaxy S III for price input is clunky, slow, and very ugly. The first time I tried it I thought something was wrong, and I input the same price for all fuel grades.
Let me guess — you tap on the station name, then on the grade of fuel you want to report, and… nothing happens. You have to tap on it twice? Maybe three times? That's how it does on my Galaxy S Showcase.
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Post by CrackedLCD
Hmm. Gas prices and Foursquare integration were down this evening for several hours. Did they do an update of the station database? I queried the prices and got a new station that (while several years old in reality) was not previously listed. Still got an error when trying to submit a price, though.
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Post by CrackedLCD
AlanOfTheBerg wrote:
KS3J wrote:Is the ability to update the gas stations under development? It would make sense, since just about everything else in Waze is crowdsourced.

In addition, I have found quite a few gas stations in my area that are displaced as much as half a mile from their actual locations. Does moving the gas station landmark result in correct navigation, or is the incorrect position "sticky?"
All gas station info in the app is live connected to the editor. In tests, in fact, you can add a new station and immediately find it in the app. Seriously, it's immediate.

As for the search location, we've made Waze aware that the search location hasn't matched the actual landmark, and they are surpised. I haven't tested this recently, though. They are supposed to match completely, but there may be a bug in the system.
I noticed this the other day when I went to add a new station. It's across the street from an Exxon that was on the wrong spot on the map and never updated when I moved the landmark six months ago.

So when I saw how quickly the new station showed up, I deleted the old Exxon landmark and created a new one with the same details. Viola! Exxon is in the right location now... And still in the wrong location, too, lol. Maybe one day the landmarks will actually get synced properly and this mess will be solved.

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Post by CrackedLCD
jondrush wrote:Waze asked us not to delete the stations they created. They are aware of the problem with moved gas stations not updating.
I'm aware of that, I just got tired of waiting on this one issue to be fixed.

Today both of my new stations are gone but the old phantom location remains. I give up. If they actually gave a damn about this feature it would have been fixed by now.

Worse than that is the reporting feature which locks you out after five submissions, meaning there are a significant number of stations I can't update because of their stupid system. I'd rather the prices be accepted but get zero points than have prices that are wrong remain and the end user get a lie of a message, "network connection error".

Edit to add: I checked in the editor and the landmarks I created are still there, but the address and phone number data was blitzed. They are locked landmarks so it had to be the system itself that botched this. Very annoying.

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