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Post by Karstunen
Searchert wrote:First iainhouse, thank you for opening this topic to begin with as well as your update above.
I couldn't agree more.
Searchert wrote:I apologize if this seems off topic or my min novel here is too much but, I had to say what I did and hope it makes some sense as to possible other reasons why communication with HQ is at times probably frustrating to you all. I know it is fro an end user.
I also am quite new in these global issues so I understand your point very well and also would like to see more opportunities for end users' and outsiders' communication than this forum.
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Post by Karstunen
iainhouse wrote:The support and participation of the Waze community has demonstrated our importance to Waze as a whole and shown we do have some power to change things. :mrgreen:
After reading this thread went deeper into the Forum for discovery, I have to say this has been maybe the most inspiring discussion I have witnessed @ Waze Community.

So, Big Thanks again for iainhouse. It has been a great pleasure to meet you twice, first in Berlin and this year in Amsterdam! Every note or statement you made in this meetup were really meaningful and thorough!

Can't wait to meet you again, hopefully in April already :)
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Post by kpouer
Hi Shirli, thanks and especially that
shirlig wrote: Existing communication channels and expected changes:
  • This forum is question & answer oriented, rather than a discussion one.
It is a great idea if it can keep topics clean of useless messages like thanks, smileys and jokes.

It should also apply to centercode.
Many bug reports are polluted by messages from some users who feel obliged to answer bug report with useless messages just to show they are everywhere like
  • I did not reproduce the bug on my different phone which has a different OS
  • Please send logs again (if devs need more logs I think one beta community manager or product manager can ask, not a simple user or even beta leader.)
  • The bug old so it's not really a bug
  • I have nothing interesting to say but I will say something anyway.
[/list]
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Post by kriimsilm
Iainhouse is right, something goes wrong. Waze grows and grows, millions are joining. From other side I feel that too many active Community members are leaving and they do not return!

Everything works more or less, there is nothing interesting happens and necessary WME and Client improvements wait for years! The mapping is DONE! Fixing map errors is BS, navigating problems become more and more complicated, sometimes impossible to fix. You must make long animal test (Waze doesn’t give you technical information) to resolve complicate situations.

Maybe the problem is how Google manages Waze? Waze is too big and it is based on community! Google overall conception is too different. Mapping, Reporting and Software testing... managing and keeping community is already much bigger task then collecting GIS data and developing "baby in car" warnings.

Similar situation was with Skype and Microsoft joining. Dead end?
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Post by kriimsilm
It seems so beautiful! Please send again and again your suggestions, bug reports, ideas and proposals... 8-) This is so exciting!

Ps. You can not solve situation like this with just re-collecting complaints.
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Post by kriimsilm
Welcome on board ajcadoo!

We have Community Managers for different areas (dont know how many)... anyway in general they cannot do anything with unlimited count of db-errors and nothing with Google or/and Waze Overall politics.

Ps. Uber is strange phenomenon and will see, how long this taxfree money collecting schema lives.
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Post by kriimsilm
Surveying (and presenting results with comments) is maybe one step to problem solving if Waze doesn't know where the problem is. Problems are maybe quite similar, but resolutions might be not. For example depending on country and/or community and/or wazers amount/size.

Again, it is important to put quickly more effort to editing community. Experience in editing field costs a LOT. Testing is bit different thing because it doesn't matter what to test Waze, OSM, Micosoft Maps or Yandex. ... ;)

Ps. While writing this, amount of wazers grows by hundreds...

Just my 2¢ + Ps.
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Post by kukimonsta-archive
Love this post. What worries me about the issue is the fact that Waze has become out of dated compared to its competitors, even *cringe* Apple Maps.

Used to be that every time somebody asked for direction in Indonesia, Waze was the #1 choice. Now seems Google Map has been catching up big time (even though they're still crap in terms of street names). Whenever I take Uber now, drivers prefer to use the Uber app in-app navigation because they have TTS in Indonesia, while Waze is lacking on that. More examples can be given as well.

Like Iain's post, sometimes I do also feel like leaving the Waze community and "retire." But every time I want to do that, I open the map, and I see boatloads of unmapped areas in Indonesia, and that pisses me off big time. While using the WME in its current state is incredibly slow and inefficient due to scripts issues, I still do map editing...manually.

Waze is a hobby, indeed. However, it's a very useful hobby for us, because it can help users to have a better navigation system. So it will be very sad if Waze continues its free fall (at the moment) and becomes irrelevant.

p.s.: Iain's signature on the Parking Project really reflects how I feel as well about that project. :D
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Post by levin
Hi Everyone,

Shirli did not refer to the Client Beta Program (centercode), so I would like to add my perspective on that.

I am joining the party quite late. I only got aware of this thread yesterday.
This is because in the past I was also faced with the frustration that Iain expressed. I have been through this cycle many times - getting disappointed by Waze, complaining, getting promises for better communication, and getting disappointed over and over again. Until I've decided that my involvement is not worth the frustration. I have quit being a CM and a community leader, I have left the forums, and gained back some peace of mind.
I only continued to be involved in the Client Beta Program (centercode) for two main reasons: UI design is important to me and Waze is important to me, and I had the feeling that our voice is being heard in centercode, that we do have a way to improve Waze for the users.

The beta program is based on users feedback. Waze is actively asking for our experience and opinions. The beta team (Hila, Anna, Gal, et al) are very active in the forums. But actually communication there is as bad as described by Iain in other areas of Waze. It feels as if the Product team is using the Beta Team as a shield from the users.
They give us the impression that our opinion matters, but actually, it is mostly ignored. They keep adding more and more new features, but they ignore our feedback regarding design issues and bugs in the implementation. The result is that client has tons of old unsolved bugs and poorly designed features, and this list gets longer from version to version. Some of these bugs are quite severe and should have been treated as showstoppers. Before every version release to the Play Store, the beta team asks us if there are any issues that should prevent release, we reply with a list and they ignore it and release anyway.

There are many severe bugs in the client and I’m not going to list them here, you can find them all in the Android & iOS threads in centercode. I will just list three notable examples:
  1. You cannot control Waze volume from the app! The volume is tied to the “speakerphone” volume instead of the expected media volume. So it cannot be controlled from inside the app or from any normal Android volume slider. You have to be in a speakerphone call to control it.
    This was reported a few months ago and was not fixed yet.
  2. If you’re on android 6 or 7, you cannot navigate to contacts. This new feature was released without taking care for the required system permissions. Of course, reported and never fixed.
    (Actually this was a feature in Waze 3.x, it was removed in 4.0 with no reason or notice. It was revived only after many months of asking and begging, but it was released with this severe bug, and with many unresolved UI issues).
  3. Dynamic arrows are indeed being developed with regard to the community feedback, but with no answer to the hard questions we’ve raised, like: Why invest in this instead of lane guidance (which is asked for, for years now), Or why make a new turn instructions algorithm that is separate from the existing one, and will inevitably cause wrong guidance in many complex junctions, thus forcing many unnecessary re-edits. It seems like Product is set on releasing it, no matter the consequences.
A true dialog would have the product team listen to our feedback on new features earlier in the design. Would make sure to listen also to editors and GC and consider editing and routing when designing client features. Would regard our priorities on bug fixes, and would inform and update us on the plans for fixing (or not fixing) reported bugs and issues.


The frustration of me and many other beta testers is best seen in the following thread: http://bit.ly/2gGIJeW - It is 9 months old and not much has improved since, but recently the frustrated discussion has awaken again. A few days ago, Hila promised that it will be discussed by senior management (maybe following Iain’s posts).

We’ve been in this discussion many times in the past. Various improvements have been promised, but the trend continues – Waze is listening less and less to its volunteers and users.
I surely hope this discussion will stir up the old community DNA of the company and will have you really create an open dialog instead of the current one-sided communications.
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