Hypersky75 wrote:I agree with therubinator, there is a "parking lot road" type, and is suggested in the best practices wiki.

But if you read the best practices thoroughly, you'll begin to notice a pattern.

Shopping Centers
... In particular, do not map every single lane ...

Small Parking Lots
... should be minimal: ... could even be represented by a single segment running diagonally across the parking area. ...

Drive-Through Lots
... the simplest way to represent them may be as just a one-way drive-through loop. ...

Hypersky75 wrote:Also, the parking lot in question is a bit long and it appeared as a big blank space in the client. Since there are streets right next to it that waze kept wanting to route me on even though it was impossible because of a fence, adding the parking lot road made a lot more sense for me because it would route me correctly to the exit and to right road and route.

There's nothing wrong with empty space. Waze is concerned with getting you from point A to point B efficiently using public roads. If the area isn't something you want to route traffic through, odds are it should be empty.

As far as keeping Waze from tossing you onto a nearby road, many times the simplest solution are parking lots roads along the perimeter. They don't need to follow every path through the parking lot, just how you get into and back out of it.

Hypersky75 wrote:Also, what'S up with just deleting a perfectly valid "parking lot road" without asking? Seems a bit rude?

Unfortunately that's how things tend to happen in many online cooperative efforts. The other side of the argument would be, why would someone who is more experienced need to ask permission from someone who can't follow the guidelines to remove something that shouldn't be there in the first place. While the existence is valid in that yes, there is a parking lot road there IRL, it doesn't match the community guidelines for mapping the way it was.

There is a great deal that seems counter-intuitive until you're familiar what the Waze way of doing things is. There's a parking lot road type that you don't use on many parking lot roads, there's a parking lot landmark type that also doesn't get used on most parking lots, there's railroad and walking trail road types that if you put them in can cause Waze to want to route cars down them. All kinds of landmarks for business POIs that not only clutter the map if they are used, but Waze itself does not even use if you search for a business with the name.

And learning to deal with it all is juts part of the learning curve. There's generally enough to keep more experienced users so busy they don't have time to hand hold new users through learning to do things the Waze way. And many more experienced users would look at things anyway and feel since they didn't have anyone to hold their hand through learning things that they shouldn't need to do it for others.

Also you'll find there are difference in how things are done from one area to the next. So even if there are experienced who are inclined to help new users out, if they are in a different area they could end up telling you to do things that might end up getting deleted anyway if the AM/CM in your area disagrees how the situation should be handled.

Well since I had nothing to do with the deletions (I'm in the US) and was just trying to help you see the other side of things I'll not waste anymore time writing things you wont read. But I will mention that this would obviously be a problem. Stacking a one way road on top of a two way road just screams to me that whoever did it, doesn't know what they're doing. Combine that with two way roads with turn restrictions, heck the whole thing is of questionable usage as there is a restriction preventing anyone even turning into the parking lot. Even with all the roads in there it will still throw problem reports.

But that's OK, you consider yourself familiar with Waze.

Hypersky75 wrote:The TLDR was referring to my own post, which I thought was a bit long. It was not referring to yours. I apologize for not making that clear.

Ah, I tend to blather on myself and am used to the TLDR referring to what I wrote. No hard feelings.

Hypersky75 wrote:Yes, I do consider myself familiar with waze. I do not however consider myself an expert, which is why I come read and post to these forums, so that I may learn and get better. I hope waze users of any level can do so.

Well, that was what my intent was in responding to your post. Sorry it seemed to progress to everybody dogpile on the canuck.

Truth is, if I made the decisions there's probably a good number of things that'd be done differently in Waze. Whenever I get too bugged about how things are done, I remind myself that when I develop an app with 30 million users, then I can do things my way.

Hypersky75 wrote:EDIT: I just deleted the whole thing. Didn't seem worth all the fuss. Thanks for everyone's input.

Well, just for shits and giggles I went ahead and used play mode to put the roads in. Here's how I'd do it. Straight lines, don't bother mapping any individual contours around buildings, forget one way roads and turn restrictions. Waze won't actually use the roads to route anyone other than who i already going there, all you're trying to do is suppress problem reports. Set everything to two way, do a QW on all the intersections to make sure all turns are allowed, Shift+Z to make sure there aren't any red arrows remaining.

http://i46.tinypic.com/90y4nt_th.png


As far as not getting things the waze way when you do it the first time, don't sweat it. I spent part of my editing yesterday improving things I did just two months ago. And I've even recently improved things a little that were done by jhfrontz and mapcat! With changes to the editor the best way to do things changes, so even when you get it figured out, there's still more to learn.

I agree with therubinator, there is a "parking lot road" type, and is suggested in the best practices wiki.

Also, the parking lot in question is a bit long and it appeared as a big blank space in the client. Since there are streets right next to it that waze kept wanting to route me on even though it was impossible because of a fence, adding the parking lot road made a lot more sense for me because it would route me correctly to the exit and to right road and route.

Also, what'S up with just deleting a prefectly valid "parking lot road" without asking? Seems a bit rude?

As far as keeping Waze from tossing you onto a nearby road, many times the simplest solution are parking lots roads along the perimeter. They don't need to follow every path through the parking lot, just how you get into and back out of it.

I didn't add every lane, but I can delete the two major middle ones I had added if it's that important. I mostly only had the perimeter mapped out.

...it doesn't match the community guidelines for mapping the way it was.

I disagree with you there. Have you seen it? It's just a few roads, not every single lane. It's not like a drew an entire shopping mall parking lot grid here. A few lanes, that is all. I don't believe that just deleting it reflects those community guidelines.

There is a great deal that seems counter-intuitive until you're familiar what the Waze way of doing things is. There's a parking lot road type that you don't use on many parking lot roads, there's a parking lot landmark type that also doesn't get used on most parking lots, there's railroad and walking trail road types that if you put them in can cause Waze to want to route cars down them. All kinds of landmarks for business POIs that not only clutter the map if they are used, but Waze itself does not even use if you search for a business with the name.

See, I consider myself familiar with Waze, and I was aware of those things, but it still seems counter-intuitive to me. Why is waze routing us through railroads and walking trail that are clearly marked as such? Why have road types that we shouldn't use in the first place? Just because that is the "Waze way of doing things"? I thought those were bugs that were being worked out. Guess I was wrong. If that's the Waze Way of doing things, I'm a little disappointed.

Unfortunately that's how things tend to happen in many online cooperative efforts.

True enough, I'm familiar with that situation, participating in many such communities (for example being a Foursquare Superuser). But to me, the key word here is "Unfortunately".

TLDR: Even though I disagree with this interpretation of the community guidelines, others don't, so it will just get deleted again because that's the "waze way of doing things".

Alrighty then.

BlazeTool wrote:Well since I had nothing to do with the deletions (I'm in the US) and was just trying to help you see the other side of things I'll not waste anymore time writing things you wont read.

The TLDR was referring to my own post, which I thought was a bit long. It was not referring to yours. I apologize for not making that clear.

BlazeTool wrote:But I will mention that this would obviously be a problem. Stacking a one way road on top of a two way road just screams to me that whoever did it, doesn't know what they're doing. Combine that with two way roads with turn restrictions, heck the whole thing is of questionable usage as there is a restriction preventing anyone even turning into the parking lot. Even with all the roads in there it will still throw problem reports.

Thanks for pointing those out, I will correct them right away. I'm still learning.

BlazeTool wrote:But that's OK, you consider yourself familiar with Waze.

Yes, I do consider myself familiar with waze. I do not however consider myself an expert, which is why I come read and post to these forums, so that I may learn and get better. I hope waze users of any level can do so.

EDIT: I just deleted the whole thing. Didn't seem worth all the fuss. Thanks for everyone's input.

BlazeTool wrote:

Hypersky75 wrote:Also, what'S up with just deleting a perfectly valid "parking lot road" without asking? Seems a bit rude?

Unfortunately that's how things tend to happen in many online cooperative efforts. The other side of the argument would be, why would someone who is more experienced need to ask permission from someone who can't follow the guidelines to remove something that shouldn't be there in the first place.

On occasion I've PM'd the editor in question, quoting and linking to relevant wiki and forum entries, especially if they have been particularly active in an area. Teach a man to fish .... I cc'd my local CM and he gave me the go-ahead.

Thanks to BlazeTool and others for their thoughtful contribution to this post. C'est dommage that it's in a Country-forum rather than the main Map Editing where more users would have benefited.

Though in the main forums, someone may have responded simply by saying: "Search the forums before posting. This subject has been discussed several times in the past."

I'm with BlazeTool -- if I ran across paved roads around a warehouse area, my first inclination would be to delete them. Why?

1) if someone really needs waze to find their way out of such an area, they probably shouldn't be driving.
2) The vast majority of users are going to be blasting past on the expressway-- If they see the clutter in the terminal area, it will be a distraction.
3) It doesn't conform to the other paving in the neighborhood

The only thing that would make me hesitate in removing the clutter is if there were a navigation issue that required some very surgical paving (e.g., the driveway to access the address required a less-than-obvious route to get there). But even in that case, it would probably only require a single lane to the proximity of the "pin" that waze has associated with the address.


As for the wiki-- the wiki contains guidelines that were created by a subset of folks who were so inclined to make edits. There is not universal agreement on every single item there -- in many cases, the conventional wisdom has changed or is too complicated to put in a wiki page (and thus it's been simplified to give guidance for new folks). It's not the Constitution (or, Charter of Rights). Oh, hmm.... maybe "Charter of Rights" is actually a good analogy-- the wiki has an implicit "notwithstanding clause". Local AMs may find that the wiki guidelines are generally great but that specific ones really don't apply well to the area in question (e.g., paving every drive-thru in a concentrated urban area, such that private paved surfaces represented in waze overwhelm and diminish the usefulness of the actual public roadways, and thus a zero-tolerance on restaurant paving is in effect). Which leads back to the original suggestion: contact the whoever last touched the adjacent segments and get their take on why they find the private roadways to be offensive.

jhfrontz wrote:I'm with BlazeTool -- if I ran across paved roads around a warehouse area, my first inclination would be to delete them. Why?

1) if someone really needs waze to find their way out of such an area, they probably shouldn't be driving.
2) The vast majority of users are going to be blasting past on the expressway-- If they see the clutter in the terminal area, it will be a distraction.
3) It doesn't conform to the other paving in the neighborhood

The only thing that would make me hesitate in removing the clutter is if there were a navigation issue that required some very surgical paving (e.g., the driveway to access the address required a less-than-obvious route to get there). But even in that case, it would probably only require a single lane to the proximity of the "pin" that waze has associated with the address.

+1 on all counts. I add parking lot roads ONLY for (1) avoiding GPS confusion with real roads and (2) making it easier for naive users to "proceed to the route" - so only in areas used by people who might be new there.