I've been pretty lucky over her in Wisconsin not to have any rogue editors tearing up the map. Of course I've had my share of them drawing way more than they should (love those parking lot parking spaces!) I come from the early generation of easily obtainable ranks and AM status just by asking nicely and having the edits to show. So I have seen people grind away just to jump from level 2 to level 4 in a matter of a week with no review. Those editors, although still around, don't seem to be as malicious as they once were. Seems that it was just a game for them. They achieved level and were done. That same mentality will exist forever. We'll always run into the edit grinder, but, there are many more checks and balances in place now to help prevent the problems they can cause.

We have more and more top quality, higher ranked editors (RC's, SM's, AM's and even good editors who don't want AM) that are watching their areas and seeing when someone starts to cause issues, and we stop it. Sure there might be some cleanup, but it is never unmanageable. Yes, there will be rogues, but really, how often does that kind of malicious behavior occur?

If we spend all our time focused on worrying about what might happen, we'll end up so paranoid that this won't be very inviting to the new and potentially great editors that we're trying to obtain.

I don't believe a lock level of 3 for mH and MH would be as devastating as some think it might be.
F=5
R=4
MH=3
mH=3
PS=2
S=1

I think that Railroads, Ferry and Runway's should be 4. Once in place there should be no reason to make edits to these without the scrutiny of a higher ranked editor. (Anyone notice there is now a 'stairway' type?)

That's my http://in-gender.com/cs/emoticons/TwoCents.gif on this.
(disclaimer: thoughts always subject to change as new information presented)

Well stated Helgramite. That all falls in line with what I was thinking already. But, I would still argue to bump up Railroads a bit. There are enough news articles about people following GPS onto Railroads. I would not want someone* to change the type, inadvertently or maliciously, and cause these kinds of issues.

*Someone being the many time mentioned lower level untrained.

GizmoGuy411 wrote:As many of you may know, I have recommended for some time that one way streets be locked to L2 and Primary Streets to L3, ONLY after their direction has been adequately researched. Therefore any unresearched one-way ST or PS should be at L1.

Of course any locking action should imply that the segment is correct.

GG, I remember Waze used to auto change one way streets if someone drove them the wrong way. Does this still happen, or does locking them prevent this?

KB_Steveo wrote:The only thing I would change about the current chart is that I would break up mH into urban and rural, with the urban lock level at 3 and the rural lock level at 2.
https://wiki.waze.com/wiki/User:Falco_s ... Road_Locks

And how would Urban/Rural boundaries be determined? City/Village limits? Best guess by the editor?

Personally I don't think it is necessary to differentiate between urban and rural. Just keep mH 2 or 3 (either is fine by me) everywhere. The less exceptions to the rules we have, the easier it is for everyone.

I agree on Ferries too... but, there are places that ferries are mapped, just not as a ferry type. So, until Waze tells us that the Ferry type is even navigable, it probably shouldn't even get mentioned.

Street = 1

Primary Street = 2

Minor Highway = 3

Major Highway = 4

Freeway = 5

Ramps = Highest Locked Connected Segment

That should be the basic standard lock guidelines, special circumstances where it comes to odd intersections & complicated intersections should be handled on case by case analysis.

I disagree with MH=4. i just updated my whole area to NFC classifications a few months ago, changing many roads to MH. Since i'm still only a level 3, i would not be able to edit these anymore. That seems counterproductive.

Gazoo4U wrote: Finally, the automatic L5 for all freeways strikes me as the ultimate bureaucratish decision (hey they are faster, they need a bigger number!), 98% of their segments aren't that different than a major highway.**
[---]
Anyone given the privledge of Area Manager should already have the skill to fix whatever UR shows up on them. I would hope that all AMs should have either knowledge and skill to fix whatever problem arises or at least the trust to ask more senior people what to do.

^^^This x1000!

Helgramite wrote: http://i121.photobucket.com/albums/o212/bfitch2/Waze%20Misc/Waze_LockLevelConcept_141223-2100_zps156fd011.jpg

I could live with this, although i think freeway ramps could be lowered to a 4.

As someone who has never felt welcome as a Waze Editor, I have to say that locking stuff at too high a level is a recipe for disaster. If you want a vibrant community of willing editors, then make it easy to edit. Locking stuff excessively, particularly stuff in the middle of nowhere, is idiotic.

When I see something locked for no apparent reason, I close Waze and walk away. When I cool off, I go fix it in openstreetmap. I will say that Mapcat has been responsive and welcoming. I see some new names I haven't tried contacting yet.

Honestly, the only reason I'm still here is because I did enough edits to request the (3), and that made it a whole lot less of a hassle.

I've said before that this "Mother may I" approach is something I'm just not willing to put up with. And what's the deal with all these crappy level (6) edits? (Mapcat excepted, obviously)

I really love using Waze. But why is it Google maps drafts all of a parking lot (something even I wouldn't do), but Waze's "policy" is outline only? It's not surprising that I use Google to get me out of the crazier parking lots and back on the highway---Because Waze editor's choose to ignore how the routing engine works. And to be clear, I'm talking about going on a trip, exiting somewhere complicated, then needing to get back on the freakin' road as fast as humanly possible. Waze absolutely sucks at this. Sucks. Sucks. Sucks. Because high-level editors keep deleting segments in reasonably drawn parking lots.

Anyway, sorry for the rant. I've seen some really good five (5) work tonight, although I get the feeling my work is being checked (for example, I can't even find my name on the AA Highway anymore, and it was hard work getting part of that turned on (editable) because of the cellular hole and my three mile edit radius). I've also seen some random deletions that make no sense to me.

My point is: Lock as little as necessary. Lock at your peril. Important stuff only.

This isn't locked, but here's a spot I spent hours on (staring at GPS arrows) before the aerial photos became available. Whoever fixed it missed this left turn arrow and the couple hundred meters of two-way street to the west, up to the turnaround:
https://www.waze.com/editor/?env=usa&lo ... s=79540225

Finally. Can someone explain why Waze zooms in as if this node on I-75S is an intersection? I don't notice this much in other places, but this one is annoying. It's a "highly enforced area".
https://www.waze.com/editor/?env=usa&lo ... 901&zoom=9

Matthew

I know when I first started editing the waze maps I was pretty much the only editor in my general area.
When I first started editing in Southern Indiana there were so many needed edits in the urban areas it wasn't even funny. Also, not a single road was locked with the exception of the interstate in the tri city area I live in with a population of 100,000. Looking back at it now it scares me the amount of work I did on those major roads as an R1/R2. Then one day as I was working on FC I still remember how annoyed I was when I found a road locked at R3 and on top of that the road had the wrong FC and the wrong name. This road was renamed a LONG time ago from SR-XXX to CR-XXX! Who the heck was this editor and why in the world would he lock a road above my rank? Looking back at it now I am so glad he did it because even though I may have been a fairly good editor at R2 (At least I thought I was at the time) I believe there are also a lot of R2 editors out there that can get R2 with mapping 1000 PLR's. There are also R2 editors out there who do great work and with a little nudge improve on a daily basis to become even better. Also, very recently we had to up-lock a lot of PS to R3 just to protect them due to a rogue editor that did just that.

Anyway, I think I have rambled long enough and hope that mH does not get an official lock of 2. This would scare the crap out of me every single time I saw an R2 pop up and I had not been able to start some form of communication with them. R2 is just too easy to achieve to have our mH locked at that level. This is also another advantage of google hangouts. I use the hangouts app on my cell phone so I am usually fairy quick to respond. The state or Regional hangouts may be muted, but I will always get an alert for a private message via hangouts. I have lost count of the number of times I have down-locked a road via my cell phone when a PL was posted in the chat or sent directly to me. So, my vote will be Freeway (5), Ramp (4) MH (3), mH (3), PS (2). Also, I want to admit that I used to think MH should be locked at 4 but have since changed my mind. If someone takes the time to put in enough edits to be R3 I think they should be allowed to edit the MH without requesting an unlock.