Should closing URs be limited to Rank 2+?

[taco909]

For some time I've been following the excellent suggestion of editor pumrum to add "(Open to any editor)" at the end of initial canned queries. Other editors can follow up efficiently without violating etiquette. I'd love to see that habit catch on

I love this idea. Many of the reports in the Los Angeles area have canned introductory questions with no responses and they are several months old. Of course, with busy editors, these "orphans" are somewhat off the radar.

What might help would be if Waze could send out a reminder digest, once per week, recapping all of the currently watched URs. Just a single email containing a link to all of the URs... not a separate one for each
It will serve as a reminder of stale reports that should be closed, and it will also serve as a reminder of the workload the editor has volunteered for.

[taco909]

Leaving a UR open for a short time after making a correction is useful if there is some communication going between the editor and reporter. It is also useful as a "bookmark" if the editor wants to keep an eye on the area.
Make the change, verify what you can on the live map or a local field trip, and inform the reporter that you believe the problem is solved, wait a bit for the map to update, refresh bookmarks, etc....
And ask the reporter to confirm that the problem is solved... wait for that response, or perhaps 2 weeks if no response, before closing the report.
Yes, Los Angeles is blanketed with URs, most of which have no information and few have useful routing and GPS tracks. Unless there is something obvious in the area, it can be difficult to pin down the issue... if there even is one at all, given that users don't realize that the pin is dropped where they hit "report" and not where the map cursor is or where they are when they hit "Send"... and report-send will generally not provide tracks. The report seems to log the track between activating "Report" and tapping "Send"

I had one closed on me this morning. Another L2 sent the initial request for information to the reporter. The reporter indicated that they would provide more information, and the report sat for another week. I drove to the location, verified the issues, made corrections on the map, and sent a message to the reporter.
I still intend to do more work in that area (new housing development), so the UR is nice to have as a reference pin.
This morning, the editor who originally requested more information closed the report without comment. In fairness, my comment to the reporter did not indicate that I intended to do any further work, but it has only been a couple of days (I drove it and made the adjustments Tuesday, tiles updated on the area yesterday)

[taco909]

Another idea might be to allow an editor to take ownership of a UR.
If an editor begins working the problem, have a flag set that would allow other editors to jump into the conversation, but only to allow the "claiming" editor (or one of higher level) to actually close the report.... maybe have it "unlock" after 90 days of inactivity or without re-confirmation.

I've closed a number of "stale" reports that have been sitting out there for months, and the last message was "If you do not respond this report will be closed in 10 days" or 7 days or whatever (and that time is long passed)... I try to look for those to see if there is anything around that might have been missed, and also to clean the area up. There's just so much out there here in LA that I can see some of these reports being forgotten about.

[speakeasy4x4]

HI, I am new here & I'd like to offer the POV of a newbie reporter. 3 weeks ago Waze told me to turn left where it was impossible. I reported it directly in the Waze app (iOS). Today (7/30/2014) I got a very nice email from a Waze editor asking a question about where exactly the problem was.

I was eager to help supply the requested info, but sadly there was no (obvious) way to do so. The email had a reply to address of "Waze Map Editor" <no-reply@waze.com>. So that's a no go. There was a URL referenced in the email, but that also is not a way to communicate. The URL takes me to a login screen, where I finally discovered that my username had been changed (without my knowledge) to all lower case. After getting past that issue, the URL shows the location of the map problem, but there is still no way provided to respond to the Map Editor's request for info.
So this could easily explain the mentioned "lack of engagement" from Users after requests for additional info. In this case, I searched the forums for the Editors nickname & eventually send him a PM. But I certainly would not expect anyone else to go to that kind of trouble to fix a left turn restriction.

After some thought, I did also visit the Waze app inbox, even though that is not the method by I got the message, and found that there is a way to reply in there. I have to say that it is a bit maddening to compose a message while only being able to see such a tiny amount of text at a time.

Anyway, just wanted to bring some beginner user perspective to this process.
HTH

[SkiDooGuy]

Agreed. Even while sitting here at work today I had 3 UR's that were taking time to research and specifically said "do not close" closed by a few different level 1. I can still work them and comment sure. But now the reporter gets either mixed signals or gives up. A rather large annoyance.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[roadtechie]

Instead of restricting who can close a UR I believe anyone should be able to re-open a UR before the 10 day expiration window ends. The only bad thing I could possibly imagine would be if a R1 or possibly R2 decided to re-open a bunch of URs then re-close them trying to get the #'s on their stats. So, maybe make it where any R3 and up can re-open a UR if they believe it was closed improperly.

[radjax]

So what if the UR's are Stagnant.?

what i see often is an editor clicks on multiple UR's and regardless of the message from the user ask a ton more questions from the reporter.
No action is taken to resolve the issue.
When and if that reporter doesn't respond and the UR sits there for months with no activity and clutters the screen.
Per "etiquette.." no one is supposed to act on these. that is crazy?

Its proven that if you dont get a reply within 7 days the chances greatly decrease.
or you will get even less info as they dont remember the details.

Yes if someone just clicks NEW UR's and closes them as solved without doing anything it is a big issue, however this "owenership' and unwillingness to close UR's after making changes in WME is also a problem.

[qwaletee]

Take it easy, Taco. It isn't world-ending. If we clamped down hard and required editors to have a real learning curve before they could affect ANYTHINg well, then Waze might as well be owne... wait. Never mind.

[qwaletee]

And thus was Waze converted wholesale to Google Map Maker.

GMM goes to far toward the closed system of editing and approvals. Waze goes to far toward openness. There is no way to make everything perfect. I believe Waze is still concentrating on features visible to the client, so we're probably not going to see too much change in this arena.

[qwaletee]

That's more complicated than necessary. Once they are making code changes, they can do what they want. Making an unintuitive, hard to use UI is not really the solution.