Waze forum

petervdveen wrote: Sticking to railroad segments is not a problem it's a requirement for using the railroad road-type.
The client should be fixed to the segment, otherwise all the speed data goes to the parallel segment.

Indeed, they need to be snappable and visible, and if possible, driving points gained on railroads should be discarded. And they should be ignored by the routing server, so they should be drivable, but not routable.

Wow... You told them that before you joined?

no1uknow wrote:"To enable the change, we need you to remove such road segments from the map, and make sure new ones are not added to it - Otherwise they’ll appear in the client and confuse users."

I read it as though we are to remove the segments. Please clarify.

This will get clearer when reading the whole post:

"Some of you used those roads to mark certain issues on the map.
After enabling those road types in the client, this will of course no longer be possible, as any segment with any text in it’s name will be presented to all app users.
To enable the change, ..."

The requested deletion only refers to railroads segments that have been "misused" as markers in the editor, e.g. to write something like "do not modifiy segment xyz" to reach editors that don't read the forum.

Gordonski

But when you have the UR layer on, you can now also choose to see closed URs...
(BTW: Thanks Waze for adding that feature!)

MdSyah wrote:In the first place this topic should not be made public.

So you are saying Waze shouldn't tell us that Railroads are coming to the client soon and how we should handle railroads? I think quite the opposite, its great it telling us what is coming and how they expect a feature to work. What benefit is it to hide it where only champs can see?

qwaletee wrote:As I and others have said before as well, they have the distinct disadvantages of
being easily (accidentally!) hidable through URO+ or layers
too easily closed incorrectly (by yourself or anther editor who is not clued in)
no locking
no text until you click
not easily distinguishable from other URs
only work as a point, no way to create shape (arrows, especially double-headed arrows, enclosing shapes, outlines)

Using URs is by no means perfect and there are disadvantages as you say. However at least 2 of them aren't really problems:

"No text until you click" - why not use UR Overview+? It has a host of benefits, including mouseover pop ups with the text.
"Not easily distinguishable" - again URO+. Currently it's detecting the string [ROADWORKS], but could easily extend to detect things like [CONSTRUCTION], [NOTE] etc.
As far as I am concerned, there is one, massive advantage to using URs. They are available right now, they work and they don't require any hacks or abuse of other segment types for notes.

We also only use them for brief notes and a link to a forum post with all the details. So if the UR gets closed (which does happen occasionally), it's easy to recreate it. And another advantage of URO+ - the link to the forum post in the pop up box is clickable. So moving your mouse over the UR and one click is all you need to get to the full details. Here's one I prepared earlier.

Yes - I'd like a better editor note system. But I'm not holding my breath. And the response to the accidental appearance of railroads suggests plenty of people would rather they stayed.

I hope Waze makes more announcements like this one.

Sometimes I think waze needs to put a stake in the ground and say "this is what we want"

Letting local communities make their own decisions can create problems.

I raised hell with Waze management that we used railroads to manage communications with other editors. They stopped the display of railroads UNTIL they provided another method to display information between editors. I told them without an alternate solution for editors to leave messages visible on the editing map they could not make railroads live.

They agreed with that message. I don't see the new method to leave messages in the editing maps, so I do not plan to remove the notes currently residing in Railroads stopping people from editing roads they should not because they don't know why they were edited that way.

I believe URs can be closed by anyone at any time and if you don't have the UR layer on you never see them.

IF you have the UR layer even on, URs have to be clicked to see their content. If you have hundreds of closed URs in an area because someone keeps changing the map to match the visual, how does the next editor know which one has the editor notes vs user problem?