I have made what seem to me to be accurate descriptive observations regarding Waze and the paid staff. That they are not flattering does not make them insults.

If I have been gratuitously insulting it has been toward those who tell me to shut up and go away.

dmcconachie wrote:Apologists, fanboys and inept are all words that I would take offence to and I'm sure the waze staff would too.

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Yet they are each and every one of them used accurately.

An apologist is one who offers a defense of something and is not a derogatory term.

I think "fanboy" a sufficiently mild and accurate term for those who say I should be grateful for the free service I get and who are effusive in their praise of Waze and the Waze staff.

Inept is as inept does. And for all the time I have been participating in this project the paid staff side of it has been an ongoing display of ineptitude. That, I think, is hardly even arguable. There has never been one single instant where the app has had the slightest bit of functionality where I am, and I hardly need to point out all the problems, missed deadlines, and disappointing failures to keep users apprised of things in a timely fashion. If they had been hired by an outside firm rather than this being an in-house project I do believe they would all have been fired en masse by now.

If they don't want their ineptitude pointed out then it is incumbent upon them to stop being inept, not to sweep it under the rug by telling those who take them to task for it to STFU and go away.

As I said: I have been unflattering to the paid staff, but not insulting.

If I have been insulting to those who have told me to shut up and go away, it is certainly no more insulting than being told to shut up and go away.

After seeing the most recent map tile "update" and seeing a few thousand of my updates that didn't make it and roads/corrections that quite to the contrary somehow got TOTALLY screwed up, I am pretty much ready to delete this joke of an app anyway.

I can't help but laugh at mikecash's comments. Mikecash if you feel that you are better than the rest of the world than you should obviously stop complaining and instead focus your energy on learning how to come up with your own app. Maybe it is time for you to simply move on.

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mikecash wrote:I'd like to know how to pull up something other than Bing. I live in a country with no basemap and....maddeningly....useful satellite imagery ends just a couple of kilometers away from my city. I don't see how they could have detailed images of every cow path up to that point and then nothing but useless splotchy blobs for a large city right in the adjacent section, but that's how it is.

Have you tried Open Street Map already?
http://www.openstreetmap.org/

mikecash wrote: Yes, and it is wretchedly incomplete for Japan.

There are several splendid paid and free map and navigation app options available for Japan, with extraordinary accuracy and functionality, which I strongly suspect Waze will NEVER have. There is no language localization, they seem clueless to the fact we don't use street names and house numbers, there is ZERO basemap (we do it all from scratch), and even for a major city like Tokyo you will never see more than two or three Wazers active so it is useless for traffic information. When I first checked out the forum, I was amazed at all the posts about problems with the navigation function....because Waze is so poorly implemented here it never even dawned on me that it HAS a navigation function. Over here we mess around with Waze pretty much for the same reason you might while away some idle time pointlessly working on a jigsaw puzzle.

They are crap for map or point updates, the app is bloody useless (at least here) for what it purports to be, and the users apparently do 99% of the work on the thing. Yeah, I called it a half-assed app. And that's a charitable assessment of it.

Got it...

I agree with you that there are better alternatives, either or not for free.
What I like is the community aspect, although I sometimes wonder why I just copy the TomTom- or Google Map into Waze.

What I do like is:
- The system automatically and very fast adapts to the traffic flow. And you are right that you need a certain amount of Wazers on a road for that. Here in the Netherlands the Waze community is growing fast (in my opinion), which greatly improves the system.
- The fact that one can edit a map and that is implemented within days (when they overcome the server capacitiy problems, that's to say).
- The feature that warns you for traffic construction, hazards and so on. I don't see that elsewhere.
- The feeling of being part of a community that spends time in improving a system from which everybody can benefit, for free!
- Warning messages al almost instantly put into the system, which prevents hazardous situations.

What I don't like is:
- Beause a lot of people do the editing, it's very hard to make the maps consistent (roundabouts, for example).
- The planning algorithm is bases on supposed average speeds for certain types of road, irrespective of it's location. This can lead to driving more kilometers and more minutes than you need to.

So, what's my mission:
- Improve the system wherever I can.
- Tell people about it.
- Spread the word, spread the word, spread the word...

That will lead to:
- A routing system that gets better by the minute.
- Safer travelling
- Enjoying the trip, because you really can attribute to the well being of others by the push of a button.


And yes: I still have my TomTom standby, since the routing depends on Internet servers, that are not always in the air...

ign-kateryna is someone that waze hired to do map editing. You can report all ign issues here:

http://www.waze.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=12644

I had the exact same issue with that ign myself with a major highway through OKC.

Waze have provided a form where you can Report outdated aerial imagery.

(Sometimes the aerials shown in the editor are newer than those on Bing)