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"Places" guide in Colorado

Post by jasonh300
*** Note: Colorado operates under the same guidelines as Louisiana, so this topic has been copied from there. bgodette ***

This will serve as a guide to submitting and editing Places in Colorado.

Please refer to the Places page in the Wiki for general guidelines.

Especially follow the guidelines for when to use Area or Point for your Places.

Locking

All places that are approved will be locked to Level 4. Due to the nature of the new Places system, this will still allow any user to suggest changes to any Place, even if they are level 3 or lower, so nobody will be completely locked out of editing Places, unless they have been blocked for abuse or misuse of the system. These changes will be reviewed by a Level 4+ editor and approved or rejected.

Requests to lower locks on Places will not be honored, since anyone can submit changes. If you notice an area with a large number of Places that need approval, please send a PM to a senior editor. I personally cover the entire state on at least a weekly basis, but feel free to PM me with any areas I may have missed.

Approvals and Rejections

For users who are submitting new Places, or Place Updates from the Waze app, be sure to take a clear picture of the building, and try to get the business's sign in the picture. The object is to aid Wazers in finding the place as they approach the location. If it's raining or foggy, you probably won't be able to get a good picture and the picture will be deleted. Night shots are ok if the venue is lighted and you can see the venue in the picture.

Be sure that you've selected the proper venue, or added a new one. If you attach new information to an existing Place, and it's not the correct place, it will have to be rejected, as there is no way to split this information away to a new or different venue. Likewise, if you create a new Place for an existing venue, we can't merge them and the submission will be rejected.

If you have time, enter additional information about the Place into the app. Select the street if it hasn't selected the correct street automatically. In the "House Number" field, enter only the address number (this is NOT the place for a phone number). Don't try to type in the name of the street. In the phone number field, the number should be formatted (###) ###-#### or ###-###-####.

If you add business hours, be absolutely sure that the different sets of hours don't overlap, otherwise, there will be an error in the editor and the only option is to remove the data completely.

In the "Location" section, you'll see a little map, and you'll be able to pan around to correct the location. This is especially helpful because Waze records your location when you start the process of entering the Place. If you're doing this with a Place that you're navigating to, you may get the popup to add the Place 1/2 mile away. If you select it there, that is where the pin on the map will be, and these Places will often get rejected simply because we can't figure out where the correct location is.

Drive-by submissions

If you're doing a drive-by (as a passenger), be sure that you can get a clear picture. Try to get a shot out of a window so that half the picture isn't of the interior of your car. Also, watch out for glare from your windows that will make the picture useless. If you're on a highway and trying to take pictures of places on adjacent roads, your submission will most likely be rejected. If you're driving, you probably won't be able to get a clear picture if the vehicle is in motion, and you're putting yourself and those around you in danger.

Residential Places/Private Homes

Waze has taken measures to protect the privacy of the location of your home. When you add a Private Home, no name is attached to the Place on the editor map. Be absolutely sure you've selected "This is a residential place" when adding a residence. The only other information that is attached to it is the House Number, the Street, and the picture. Tap on the map to adjust the location--it is often difficult to try to correct the location in the editor when every house in the neighborhood looks alike, or the house numbers on the houses/mailboxes aren't readable in streetview.

Private homes must have a House Number and Street, and a useful picture, or they will be rejected. The picture should be of the front of the house as visible from the street. Any other picture will be rejected.

Once a Private Home has been submitted, it can't be changed to any other type of place, so if you've selected this accidentally for a non-private venue, the only option is to reject the submission.

Likewise, don't select any other type of Place category for a Private Home. If you do, you'll reveal your username to anyone who navigates there or looks at the Place in the editor.

Additional Privacy concerns

Any pictures submitted with an identifiable person's face, or license plate will be rejected. Be especially careful at schools to only submit pictures that don't have any children present.

Categories

A couple that need special attention:

The Hospital/Medical Care category should only be used for hospitals that provide emergency services. These Hospitals are drawn as Areas. Additionally, the Emergency Room may be marked at its exact location with a Point, and should also be categorized as Hospital/Medical Care. It should be named "Emergency Room - Hospital Name" for ease in searching.

Doctor's Offices, Dentist's Offices, Eye Doctor's Offices, etc should be categorized as "Offices".

For sub-categories of Lodging (Hotel, Hostel, Camping/Trailer Park, Cottage/Cabin, Bed & Breakfast), please only use these for businesses where you can go and rent a room for a night. These categories don't apply to Nursing Homes or Apartment Complexes.

Nursing Homes and Apartment Complexes don't fit any category very well, and are really residential, however if you want these on the map as a whole (not a specific apartment or room), it's not a good idea to mark them as Residential/Private because some important details such as the name of the complex and phone number will be hidden to anyone trying to search for it. In these cases, it's best to just mark them as Other until we get some better categories. This will allow them to remain searchable by name or address. The address should be the address of the office of an apartment complex. The phone number should be that of the office as well. The Point should be placed at the entrance to an apartment complex, just before other roads start to branch off, and for a nursing home, it should be placed at the main entrance of the building.

(Nursing Homes are not Hospital/Medical Care either)

When approving Places in WME...

Any Place that is approved should be minimally checked for correct spelling and capitalization (Title Case) of the name, and location. The location should be nearest to the entrance of the building. Not in the middle of the parking lot. Not in the middle of the building. Bear in mind that wherever that point is, the Wazer will be navigated to the closest road to that point, so be sure that the closest road to the point is actually accessible to the venue. Add the name of the street the Place is located on if it wasn't done from the app. This helps to differentiate between different locations of a chain type business when searching for the business.

If you are Level 4 or higher, lock the venue to Level 4 once the steps above have been taken. If you are lower than Level 4, leave it unlocked and a higher level editor will lock it when scanning for new Places.

Adding Places from WME.

Be sure that you've read the entire Wiki thoroughly before using the editor. Use the guide for Area vs. Point linked above. Don't add Parking Lot Areas in Louisiana, as they will be rejected. Parking Lot Points are acceptable if it's someplace that may need to be navigated to, such as specific parking structures that aren't directly attached to another venue ("Harrah's Parking Garage" is ok, since it's not easily accessible from Harrah's Casino. "Winn Dixie Parking Lot" is not acceptable when it's in the same place as the Winn Dixie grocery store.)

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I'm going to cut this off here, but this thread will be open for comments or questions, and if any problems or suggestions crop up, I'll post about it here.
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Post by dmcrandall
A lot of states use a graduated locking guideline.

For example:

PLACE TYPE LOCK LEVEL
Military Installation / Airport 4
Hospitals / Urgent Care / Police & Fire Dept 4
National & State Parks and Monuments 4
Gas Stations / Charging Stations 3
Schools / Universities / Colleges 3
Government Buildings / Consulates 3

All Places that have complete information (to include, at a minimum, address/city, hours of operation, phone number) are to be locked at Level 2. This is to prevent loss of data due to automatic acceptance of Place Update submissions from Trusted Users, or Place Update Request approvals from other editors without careful examination.
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Post by Fyerman01
Wish I would have seen this forum first before I added some shopping center parking lots. I read the wiki first but not this specific post so sorry for the edits! Having fun so far but there's plenty to learn
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Post by JaredTheKing
Just gotta say, I wholeheartedly disagree with locking everything to level 4. Maybe in the larger metro areas of Colorado, but for the rest of us, it really screws everyone over. I understand it's meant to keep the map safe, but even in the larger cites (#2 Colorado Springs and #7 Pueblo) often times there is not an active level 4 in the area. And anyways, wouldn't the people that live there actually have a better idea of if the place is correct or not?

This is a great example of what happens when things get locked to a 4 in Colorado.
No level 4 needed 2.jpg
(251.39 KiB) Downloaded 889 times
This example has been sitting there waiting for 81 days now. Am I the only one that thinks that is a very excessive amount of time? And I'm sure this will continue to sit there until a level 4 just happens to stumble upon it (which, there is only 1 who I've noticed comes down this way), or until someone gets fed up with waiting and starts submitting tons of unlock requests that gets the lock level reduced substantially.

tl;dr lock levels too high for Colorado to follow successfully.
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Post by jasonh300
sketch wrote:This looks good. I don't have a problem with any of it.

I would add one thing, to be sure the formatting and naming of chains is correct. For instance, "Popeyes" does not have an apostrophe, but "McDonald's" does, and the correct name for Walmart is "Walmart", not "Wal-Mart" or "Wal-mart" or "Wal*Mart" (the hyphen/star was removed in 2008). This is important for consistent searching.
Agreed. If unsure about the way a chain's name is spelled, check their website. Actually, Walmart's new stores are called "Walmart Super Center" but there are still a few of the old ones that don't have a grocery section that are just "Walmart" (once called "Wal*Mart Discount City", which ain't dere no more). The grocery-only outlets are "Walmart Neighborhood Market".
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Post by jasonh300
Please see updates to the first post under "Categories".
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Post by JeffTechCO
Josh - I tried to PM you, but it won't work.

I'm a new editor, and I'm trying to connect a couple street segments from a previous "new construction" area to the existing road junction. The map editor won't let me edit any roads. Depending on the part I select, it either says that I need permission to do it, or that I need to travel the road first. I have traveled the road multiple times, and the map editor even shows my path when I have - but it still says I need to travel the road first.

I understand the roads/edits are locked down to avoid malicious intent from others... But as a level 1 editor, how can I build up trust in the system for edits if I can't even make simple changes like the one listed above? How do I become a "higher level" editor if I'm not allowed to make edits? I could tell you on this forum the part I'm wanting to work on and have you fix it yourself, but how does that benefit me becoming a "trusted editor"?

I'm wanting to help contribute to Waze Maps here in Colorado, since there's so much construction going on and new builds. Is there a way I can help or get involved, or are "Level 1 Editors" just people that can look at the map edits, but not make changes, not create new roads, and have no path of moving forward as a higher level editor?

Thanks in advance - feel free to send me a PM if needed. Hopefully I'll be able to read them and respond to them even though I can't initiate a conversation. Waze really doesn't seem to want new editors to do much of anything here, which is pretty disappointing...

If this is a duplicate, I apologize. The system has just told me "The submitted form was invalid. Try submitting again." Does anything on this website work properly?  :lol:
 
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Post by JoshJMM
Well, I can tell you that most of the large edits that are "land Marks" in Colorado Springs are only locked to Level 3. There are not a lot of active any-level editors anymore in Colorado. Every now-and-then I'll see a Level 6 edit in the Springs but it's for CMs that are just passing through. As far as I'm concerned I lock everything I find, add, or approve to at least level 2 (because that's all I can) and if I believe it's important I ask a CM to lock it to Level 3.
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Post by JoshJMM
Our Colorado Wiki page says that all places are to be locked at level 4 so that we can see what edits are made. But I think we can do better than the reason stated for such a high lock level.

I have recently talked with the PA SM unlimited1808 and their policy is to leave everything at level 1 until, at the minimum, the correct address and phone number have been entered. Then they lock at a higher level to prevent tampering. This gives new editors that chance to make "meaningful" edits to the map instead of just moving road geometry and adding parking lot roads.

I think that level 4 is a bit excessive as there are very rarely any Level 4's (or 3's for that matter) that cruise the map looking to approve or disapprove edits to places in Colorado. Colorado Springs is a prime example. I have had edits to Level 3 places that have been waiting for approval for a while. I have posted for updates in the Updates Forum but again, no one in Colorado seems to cruise that forum either to look for place updates.

Now I have the URO+ script and I can see what has been updated, and via the filters see what was updated today, yesterday or a week ago. I am on almost everyday and doing checks for updates wont be that difficult as there only appears to be between 10 - 20 a day between Colorado Springs and Denver areas.

Let me know what you think about changing our standard.
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Post by JoshJMM
I do think to be safe tough, that we lock everything to level 2. That way we don't get the "Drive By" editor updates without them being vetted. Then when they are info populated, lock to level 3.
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