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Post by beej666
i still don't understand how the fix gets made. i've been made to understand that somebody from the Google Waze team will need to fill out some sort of request upstream with the TTS provider. who is that person? how does my request get in their inbox?
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Post by beej666
thanks for the responses.

forgive me if i sound presumptuous, but the current "system" for getting mispronunciations fixed sounds extremely error-prone, at best. even if the current mess were the best we could do given the current circumstances, some sort of order should be made of the chaos. at the very least, it would be nice if there were somewhere to go for users to see if their particular TTS gripe is already in process for getting fixed.

are either GizmoGuy411 or sketch up for putting up a wiki page documenting the current system and what is being fixed and what won't be fixed?

sending community members to this depressingly long thread when they report TTS problems just isn't a good idea, IMNSHO. it's a turnoff :-/
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Post by beej666
sketch wrote:Trust me, it's no less disappointing waiting for months at Waze staff's toes
i feel your pain
sketch wrote:with a long list of desired pronunciations.
since you already have the list, why not post it somewhere? i guess this dead horse is tired of being kicked, but i just hate to see all this back and forth yield nothing tangibly good :-/

cheers,
marc
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Post by berestovskyy
Hi!
We have an idea how to improve TTS pronunciation and how to deal with abbreviations. Basically we suggest to use Alt City/Street name to correctly pronounce names and/or to specify a short (abbreviated) street name.

Please support if you like the idea! ;)

Thanks!
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Last edited by berestovskyy on Tue May 14, 2013 9:20 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Post by berestovskyy
hmarian wrote:Working with Waze to fix this is the way to go.
Sure! This is just a suggestion :)
jasonh300 wrote: This would be a very bad idea and would defeat the true purpose of Alt Name fields (which is for search results).
No, it's not. For instance:
Street: Northeast Kentucky Industrial Parkway <- this would be used by default (for search in this case)
Alt City: #short Alt Name: Northeast Pkwy <- this would be used to display and for TTS

Correction of pronunciation:
Street: John Paul IV Street <- this would be used by default (for search and to display)
Alt City: #tts Alt Name: John Paul 4th St <- this would be used for TTS

The #tts name could be a transcription (phonetic spelling) of the street name.

Having a prefix (#) it's easy to disting those properties and not use them for search if you like. But its not such a bad idea if one could find both '4th' and 'IV' IMO.
jasonh300 wrote: However, it wouldn't be a bad idea for a new dedicated field in which a phonetic spelling of names could be entered.
You see! They call it a brainstorming ;)
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Post by berestovskyy
PhantomSoul wrote:Frankly, introducing a hash tag syntax to names just further complicates a UI that already appears overwhelming for many new editors.
So we have suggested it works/appears for 3 or even 5 cones editors only. Also we can use Key-Value pairs "just like Alt names", not abusing alt names.
PhantomSoul wrote:A bigger caveat to this, however, might be how many editors are familiar with universal phonetic spelling, and how many of those are familiar with how to produce many of its whacky characters on a keyboard?
In fact, in Nuance it looks like this:

b a k w *r d z -> backwards

Here is the Nuance Grammar Developer's Guide (PDF), page 85.

A separate TTS field would encourage people to put there something. On the other hand, a Key-Value pairs would allow to fix TTS/shields etc for experienced editors only. And we know, the majority of the segments do not need any TTS correction or shields at all.
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Post by berestovskyy
PhantomSoul wrote:But in the long run, unless Waze creates some kind of administrator certification program to teach people these backdoor hacks [...]
"Certification program" for "backdoor hacks"? Oh, come on! :lol: Every single system or game has settings. They are confusing sometimes, that is why UI developers hide them under the "Settings" ;)

Yes, I really think the feature we use for one of a 100 road segments really deserve "to bypass the UI development process" like you said. And it's not only about immediate returns, but also about cluttering WME interface.

Examples?
  1. "Toll roads". There are many countries with no toll roads at all. But the option is there, easily accessible.
  2. "Lock", now with a dropdown box. How often do we use this feature? New editors especially.
  3. On the other hand, every single segment has an address. But we have to click "Edit" next to "Unnamed segment" and then "Apply".
So no, I don't like the way "WME system appears to be headed" :(
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Post by bgodette
Basically there needs to be positional awareness for handling things like St, Dr, N/S/E/W. Can anyone think of a name where St isn't Saint unless it's at the end of the name and therefore Street? Same thing for Dr.

N/S/E/W is the letter name if it's in the middle of the street name, or the only "word" before the St/Rd/Blvd/etc. So you can have "W N St" for "West Enn Street" and "N St" for "Enn Street", if you need "West North Street" you'll just have to use "W North St".

CR-### should be County Road, I'm not sure what we should use for State/County Route, maybe RT-### and TTS be "Route ###". (Rowwt or Root? it's regional)
SH-### should be State Highway ###.
US-### should be You Ess ### or You Ess Highway ### (I'd prefer to not have Highway but that's just me)
I-### should be Eye ###
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Post by bgodette
jenncard wrote:One of my cities out in the hinterlands is littered with "27 1/2 Rd", "D 1/4 Rd", or one of my personal favorites "E 50/100 Rd". Unfortunately, I've actually never Wazed there so I have NO IDEA what TTS does! That said, I've never seen a UR saying "should be one-half Rd not one {pause} two Rd".
I can tell you that when it comes to "Co Rd 3 1/2" what TTS says is "Co Road Three One Slash Two", with the Co as the first syllable of "cooperative", I have yet to change one of these to CR-3.5 or CR 3.5 to see what happens.
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Post by bgodette
I think we all realized going into this that it was not going to be trivial. I agree with Harling that whatever we come up with needs to be consistent and easy to implement in the parser.

Perhaps the way we should be approaching this is by what abbreviations are ambiguous; What else is there beyond the compass directions, St, Dr, and Bus? Are there other conflicts for Spanish and French? And then there's the ROTW once they get TTS.
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