Maine/MapRaid2020 View history

THIS PAGE IS UNDER CONSTRUCTION AND IS NOT FINAL UNTIL THIS NOTICE IS REMOVED. the Maine MapRaid ended on 23 May 2020 23:59:00 UTC. Please check back here for results and check the Mapraid Forum for mapraid announcements.

Welcome

The Maine MapRaid will be 16 May 2020 at 00:00 UTC through 23 May 2020 23:59 UTC.

Welcome to Vacationland! We’re looking forward to working with you on improving the map in Maine. A MapRaid is a gathering of editors from across the editing community to edit an area of the map in a burst of activity. Participants in the raid will be broken up into a number of groups, each having a focus on a particular area of the map. Each group will have a group leader and will be made up of a mixture of senior and junior editors. The raid hosts are available for help across all of the raid areas.

Mission

The primary goal for this raid is to clean up the basemap in the state, ensuring connectivity and proper routing throughout the state. Your primary goals are to match the basemap to state guidelines and assign segments proper speed limits where those can be determined. There are a number of inconsistencies in the Waze map when compared to authoritative sources, such as incorrect road names, roads mapped as driveways that are actually named roads, roads from the basemap import that don’t exist or don’t go anywhere, and new roads that have been developed but not yet added to the map.

Priorities

These may vary additionally by the needs of individual raid group areas.

Connectivity (basemap) - Rural areas especially
Cleanup of inconsistencies between the Waze map and authoritative sources
Segment/City Names - Raiders should confirm the correct name/town on roads near borders and add alt-city if appropriate. The Government Boundaries script shows clear boundaries between towns. Note that road names usually change at town boundaries
Speed Limits
Complete Places to regional minimums
Add Lane Guidance as appropriate (R4+)

Out of Scope

The below items are not in the scope of this raid.

Update Requests - Leave URs for local editors
Toll Roads
Cameras
Functional Classification

Hosts

Username (rank)	Raid Role	NER Waze Roles
OrbitC(6) [PM [Help]]	Raid Sponsor	NER RC, NOR RC
Robert04101(5) [PM [Help]]	Planning Committee	Maine SM, SE Florida AM
snyowl(5) [PM [Help]]	Planning Committee	Massachusetts SM, Maine AM
Chronos74(4) [PM [Help]]	Planning Committee	New Hampshire SM, Maine AM
madcatvt(4) [PM [Help]]	Planning Committee	Vermont SM, New Hampshire AM
wazer(3) [PM [Help]]	Coordinator
wazer(5) [PM [Help]]	Host	SM/MSM
wazer(4) [PM [Help]]	etc

Communication

All raid communications will be in special raid channels on the NER Discord server.

Raid group areas

The raid will consist of four groups, each working on a group of four of Maine's 16 counties. These areas were selected by looking at the number of unknown direction segments (only found in basemap) and the total length of roads per county. We then selected four counties for each group, mostly clustered, so that each group should contain a similar amount of work needing to be done: about 6,400 basemap segments and 5,900 miles of roads. We have also assigned priorities to each county based on the amount of basemap in each. So 1A would be the highest priority in Group 1, 1B the second priority, 2A the highest in Group 2, and so on.

Group 1 - Central Plains and Washington County
- 1A - Washington County
- 1B - Kennebec County
- 1C - Sagadahoc County
- 1D - Androscoggin County
Group 2 - Penobscot Bay
- 2A - Penobscot County
- 2B - Hancock County
- 2C - Knox County
- 2D - Waldo County
Group 3 - Lobsters & Potatoes
- 3A - Aroostook County
- 3B - Piscataquis County
- 3C - Lincoln County
- 3D - Cumberland County
Group 4 - Western Maine
- 4A - Somerset County
- 4B - Franklin County
- 4C - Oxford County
- 4D - York County

Interactive map: Raid groups on Google Maps

Important / MapRaid guidelines

Please read the entire MapRaid wiki. If you are uncertain what to do about something you see on the map, please ask your group leader.

When you are editing in the raid area, please set yourself visible and enable the Live users layer.

Edit quality and mass editing

You are responsible for every edit you make, whether you make it by hand or use a script. Every edit you make should meet the goals of this MapRaid and make a noticeable improvement to the map. Do not make edits simply to gain points without improving the map. If a segment is "good enough" for the Waze map, do not edit it. If it looks like you are making unnecessary edits or hunting for points, you may be banned from this MapRaid and from future MapRaids.

Editor restrictions

Map editing restrictions that affect level 1 and 2 editors remain during the raid.

Timezones

For relevant WME interfaces that display in the editor's browser time zone, Maine is in Eastern Daylight Time (UTC -5) for this raid.

Road Types and Functional Classification (FC)

Road type classification is not a primary focus of this MapRaid. A full sweep of the state was performed in 2017 and FC was updated at that time. Since then there may have been some small changes in FC, primarily in the designation of PS. If you see a problem with the segments you are editing, please consult with your group leader before fixing it.

MaineDOT to Waze conversion table

		Highway Systems
		Interstate	US Hwy (incl. some special routes)	US Hwy BUS, SPUR, LOOP	State Hwy (incl. some special routes)	State Hwy BUS, SPUR^[a], LOOP	Locally-maintained
	example>>>>>	I-95 N	US-2	US-460 Business	SR-27 (SR-27A)	SR-400 Loop	Robertson St
F u n c t i o n a l C l a s s	Principal Arterial Interstate	Fw	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a
	Principal Arterial / Other Freeway	n/a	Fw	Fw	Fw	Fw	Fw
	Other Principal Arterial	n/a	Major	Major	Major	Major	Major
	Minor Arterial	n/a	Major	Minor	Minor	Minor	Minor
	Major/Urban Collector	n/a	Major	Minor	Minor	PS	PS
	Minor Collector	n/a	Major	Minor	Minor	PS	PS
	Local Road	n/a	Major	Minor	Minor	PS	Street

Road Naming Standards

Numbered US Highways shall be named as: US-###
Numbered State Highways shall be named as: SR-###

Abbreviations & Acronyms follow national guidance with a caveat: only use a prefixed ordinal direction (“W Broadway”) to distinguish a segment from a similar segment with the other ordinal direction (“E Broadway”) or no prefix (“Broadway”). A road name like “West Shore Dr” should not be written as “W Shore Dr” even if street signage gives it as such unless it meets the above criterion. National guidance does apply for extensions, so “Davis Rd” but “David Road Ext”. Please note that in basemap, the incorrect abbreviation “Exn” is used; please change these to "Ext".

Elevation

Maine follows “true height” guidelines on setting road elevations. Segments should be at Ground level unless crossing another road, railroad, or on a bridge.

Micro-doglegs

Replacing micro-doglegs (mDLs) with turn instruction overrides (TIOs) is not a primary goal of this raid, and should not be sought out explicitly. If you are editing the geometry of intersections containing mDLs, you should replace them with TIOs. When replacing mDLs make sure you have considered all approaches and turns in the intersection, and be sure to delete the geometry nodes that were used to create the micro-dogleg. If you have any questions please escalate to your raid group leader.

Unpaved Roads/Unmaintained Roads

“Off-road / not maintained” in Maine should be used only for poor-quality dirt roads. Maintained, graded gravel roads should be classified as Street (or higher, as dictated by the roadway's Functional Class) and flagged as Unpaved in WME. (Setting a dead-end road as Unpaved has little practical effect, so don’t spend the time to change such a segment to Unpaved unless you are doing other edits.)

Driveways

Many rural driveways are mapped in Maine.

Long driveways should be mapped as Private Road when needed for correct navigation. For example, when a house is closest to a segment that does not access the property, then a driveway is appropriately drawn to allow correct navigation to that property. A Residential Point Place should be added for that property as well. If that driveway, in turn, now is the closest access to a neighbor, another driveway may be needed. To avoid this proliferation of driveways, it is best to avoid adding them altogether if correct navigation would occur without any of them. In the two examples shown, this test is met. In the first example, a road parallels the driveway; in the second example, a road cuts across the back of the properties. In both cases, the PVT segments are needed to avoid routing along these other segments.

If the addresses for properties on the driveway are known, delete the relevant House Numbers and add Residential Place Points (RPPs).

The RPP must be complete including the address number, street name, city name, and entry/exit point as noted in the Things to remember section of the HN page.
Ensure the entry/exit point is placed clearly to one side of the road segment, not on top of the road segment.

Urban driveways do not qualify for mapping in most circumstances unless they meet certain route-aiding criteria as defined in the national standards for Driveways.

Private Roads

Roads that are technically private (i.e. not maintained by the municipality) should not be marked as Private Roads unless they meet the national standards for a Private Road (e.g. gated). If a private segment is needed to enforce a "no through traffic" restriction, please consult with your group leader first.

Fire Roads

Until recently most minor roads used to access a few houses, but with no through access, were assigned a fire road number by the municipality (e.g. “Fire Rd 19”). With few exceptions, these old fire roads now fall into one of these two categories:

The fire road is now a named road, with properties on the road using the road name for their postal & 911 address. Action: change the road name and set the type as Local Street (unpaved as appropriate).
The fire road has not been assigned a name and is not shown on official maps (Maine DOT, GIS-L). Action: delete the old fire road unless it meets the Driveway mapping criteria above.

Forest/Logging Roads

The basemap imported a large number of “roads to nowhere” in Maine. While these roads are useful to loggers, snowmobilers, and backwoods campers, they should generally NOT be left on the map, because they may provide unwanted routing for most drivers.

Keep (or add) forest roads if any of these conditions apply:

The road is a named road on an official source (e.g Maine DOT, GIS-L overlay);
The road is a clear continuation of a named road crossing a township boundary. (The quality of official maps varies by township.)
An unnamed road provides access to a confirmed Point of Interest (e.g. a fishing camp or state park); or
The road has been edited by an R5+ editor

Forest roads that are left on the map should be marked as Unpaved or Off-Road as appropriate. Check that all such roads are bi-directional and properly connected, as with any basemap road.

Toll roads

Regardless of editor rank, do not alter any toll road, ferry, or ferry approach segments without consulting your group leader who will escalate to raid leadership.

"Paper" Roads

Some Maine municipalities include in their GIS maps so-called "paper roads", i.e. roads that have received planning permission but are not constructed. Some of these paper roads have been on the books for decades and are more likely than not never to be built. Please do not map paper roads without evidence of construction.

Cameras

Do not add any cameras.

Neither Red Light nor Speed Cameras are legal in the state of Maine.

Update Requests (URs) and Map Problems (MPs)

Leave responding to URs and MPs to local editors. They are not in scope for this raid.

Speed Limits

Speed Limit Regulations

Except when conditions or other regulations require a lower speed, the following are maximum rates of speed in Maine, especially if signs are not posted:

15 mph in a school zone at specific times of the day, (Do NOT mark these school zone SLs on the Waze map.)
25 mph in a business or residential area or built-up portion, unless otherwise posted.
45 mph on all other public ways, unless otherwise posted.

Other speed limits are common, both higher and lower than the 25/45 defaults:

50 or 55 mph is common on numbered routes that are well-engineered, carry substantial traffic, or are remote.
60, 65, 70 and 75 mph are found only on Maine's Freeway segments
35 mph is common on smaller rural roads
30 and 35 mph are often found on main commercial roads even in built-up portions

Because variances are common, please do NOT set a SL without a source.

Speed Limit Resources

The Maine DOT GIS Public Map Viewer is an excellent starting point. Every segment has a speed limit, visible by clicking the segment, which brings up the Road Information panel. In that panel, the Speed Limit Source will either be "Posted" or "Default." Do NOT use any Default values; speed limits for segments with only a Default value must be verified from a primary source (e.g. StreetView or reliable SL UR). Speed limits with a "Posted" source are generally accurate; wherever possible, validate the speed limit with Street View. In particular, please use SV to validate the precise location of SL transitions, as the DOT map is often off by a hundred yards or more.

When StreetView and the Maine DOT map disagree, editors must make a judgment call. Take into account the age of the StreetView imagery.

Segment Locks

All of the New England Region observes the below lock standards.

When you edit any segment during the MapRaid, please set the lock level correctly. If you are unable to lock it to the correct level, then lock it to the level of your rank and request your group leader raise the lock to the standard.

Roads may be locked higher for protection and special situations (areas with construction, tricky design, frequent mistakes, incorrect images, etc.). Do not decrease a rank just to decrease a rank, talk to your group leader before you do.

In Maine we have a set minimum standard for locking roads based on segment type. Any road of a certain segment type must be locked at least to the rank (level) in the chart below. Roads may be locked higher for protection and special situations (areas with construction, tricky design, frequent mistakes, imaging inaccuracies, and the like), but should not be locked lower.

A great time to implement these locks is while bringing the road types of an area into compliance with the current US road type standards (FC and highway systems). Lock the roads based on type after they've been set to current US road type standards.

**Maine Minimum Locking Rank Standard**
Segment Type	Statewide
Freeway	5
Ramp	Highest rank of connected segments
Major Highway	4
Minor Highway	3
Primary Street	1 (Auto)
Street	1 (Auto)
Private Road	1 (Auto)
• • • • Ferry • • • •	5
\|-\|-\|-\|-\|-\|-\|-\|-\|-\| Railroad \|-\|-\|-\|-\|-\|-\|-\|-\|-\|	2

Note: Do Not Mass Edit just to update locks to these standards, these can be adjusted as you find them while editing other aspects of the segments such as FC, speed limits, naming, etc.

Some segments still warrant higher locks and care should be taken when setting segment lock to these standards to look for and protect these special setups with higher locks. Some examples; segments which are part of BDP, U-turn prevention, or using micro-doglegs, or other complex intersection setups.
Note: All Toll Roads are to be locked at a minimum of 5. If any segment is below these standards, please uplock them or request an uplock from your team leader or a MapRaid host. If any segment is above the standard lock, please leave it at that higher lock level.

City Names

One of the most common errors when editing the maps is when an editor creates a road and does not confirm the road by setting the city and road name (or stating it has none). Duplicate cities can be caused by incorrectly named segments and should be corrected following the guidelines in the duplicate cities article. We have assembled a list of all current Cities/Towns in Maine. Please do not deviate from this list by adding or subtracting Cities/Towns without first discussing it with your group leader.

Places

Minimum Acceptable Information

All Places added to the map must contain the following entries:

Proper Category
Place Name
Address (including address numbers)
Placed in the correct location on the map

This is the minimum acceptable amount of information for inclusion on the map unless the location intrinsically does not have an address (e.g. a beach).

Phone Numbers

If a phone number is entered in the Place information, please utilize the following formats:

(###) ###-####

Please correct the layout of any phone numbers you encounter while editing.

Locking Standard

Maine Place Lock Level Standards
PLACE TYPE	LOCK LEVEL
Military Installation / Airport	5
National & State Parks and Monuments	5
Hospitals / Urgent Care / Police & Fire Dept	4
Gas Stations / Charging Stations	3
Schools / Universities / Colleges	3
Government Buildings	3
Passenger Rail & Inter-City Bus Station	3
City and Local Parks	2

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 (unless the place intrinsically does not have an address, e.g. a beach). 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. If you do not have a high enough rank to lock the place as indicated, please lock it as high as you can, and notify a higher rank to lock it higher.

Hours of operation

For locations with different hours of operation for service types (i.e. lobby vs. drive-thru) use the set with the longest duration for the place's open hours and write the other hours into the description.

COVID-19 restrictions: Many Maine businesses have closed or operate with modified hours because of the governor’s executive order regarding Covid-19 public health and safety.

Business hours should be set to the normal operating hours.
Do NOT remove a business that is marked as closed (e.g. by Google Maps) without confirming that the business has permanently ceased operation.

When in doubt about a business’s status or hours, leave the Place on the map and do not change the hours.

Place Name Harmonization

In an effort to standardize Place Names, Maine uses the following list of Common names. Please note the appropriate category name, as well as the listed spelling. This is necessary for the proper display of any advertising associated with the site (i.e. SUBWAY discounts). The script WME Placename Harmonizer simplifies this work.

View this list full-screen in Google Sheets

Problem Categories

It is recognized that the available place categories within WME frequently do not provide a clear matching category for some types of venues. The following table provides some regional guidance for the more common questions. Whenever necessary, please confer with the community on additional problem venues.

"Problem" Categories - Click to Expand ---->>>>

These types of places have been problems in the New England Region. Suggested categories and other notes are provided.

Place Type	WME Category	Notes
Arcade	Game Club
Auto Parts Store	Shopping/Service	Add "Garage/Auto" if provides maintenance services
Bowling Alley	Game Club
Equipment Rental	Shopping/Services
Firearm Ranges/Shops	Shopping/Services
Funeral Home	Other
Hair Salons	Personal Care
Learning Center	Other
Liquor Store	Shopping/Services
Long term housing	Other	Named apartment complexes, assisted and senior living facilities, should not be listed as "Lodging" as the Wazer would normally be expecting short term housing options for that category. Use "Other" for the named complex, and "Office" for the leasing office if there is a separate one.
Mailing Services (UPS, FedEx, etc)	Shopping/Services	"Post Office" category should only be used for US Post Offices
Mini Golf	Culture/Entertainment
Pawn Shop	Shopping/Services
"Pot Shops"	Shopping/Services	Enter "Marijuana Dispensary" and/or "Medical Marijuana" in the description, as appropriate
Self Storage Facilities	Shopping/Services	Enter Staffed Rental Office Hours; if staffed self-service hours differ, provide in the description
Tattoo Shop	Personal Care
Trade School / Flight School	Other
Truck Weigh Station	Not Mapped	Parking lot roads leading to and from a weigh station may be mapped.
Vape Shop	Shopping/Services

Parking Lot Areas

Outside of dense urban areas (which are few and far between in Maine) and village centers, parking is commonplace. Adding rural PLAs is discouraged during this MapRaid.

Major issues to address after the MapRaid

Any major issues that need to be addressed will be followed up on by local editors after the MapRaid's conclusion. Issues such as city name merging, large scale renaming (primary or alt), etc., will be handled later. Please notify your group leader of any large issues you find.

Resources

Maine MapRaid Website

The official Maine MapRaid website will be updated at least daily. This website provides tallies of key metrics by county. On the right, each of the categories can be clicked to get a drop-down by county. Each county link opens details about the county's map statistics. These, in turn, can be clicked through to get URLs for each flagged segment.

Using these direct links will be a quick way to get directly to areas of the map that need improving. Please spend the time, though, to fix the area around the flagged segment, rather than just addressing that segment singly! Often one bad segment flags a larger problem area of the map,

Local

MaineDOT Public Map Viewer - also contains FC and SL info
Maine Wiki
NER Wiki
Initial scan of unknown direction segments

Tools and scripts

There are many scripts and extensions that editors use to assist with editing that not only make some jobs easier but verifies what we do is correct. The use of these scripts is highly encouraged and those listed below are the ones you should install, at a minimum, to get started.

Toolbox

Once you have installed Toolbox, press the Toolbox Icon and select a minimum of the following options:

TamperMonkey

You will need to install a browser extension to manage the additional scripts. Some scripts do not work with the current version of GreaseMonkey, so we recommend installation of TamperMonkey.

Raid specific scripts

WME Mapraid Overlays

Essential scripts

GIS Layers
WMEPH
WME Toolbox
WME Magic (especially for working on Basemap)
US Government Boundaries

Raid Groups

Username (rank)	Group	Badges
Group 1 - Central Coast Group leader: wazer (PM [Help]) Assistant group leader: wazer (PM [Help])
wazer(5) [PM [Help]]	Group 1 Central Coast
wazer(5) [PM [Help]]	Group 1 Central Coast
wazer(4) [PM [Help]]	Group 1 Central Coast
wazer(4) [PM [Help]]	Group 1 Central Coast
wazer(3) [PM [Help]]	Group 1 Central Coast
wazer(2) [PM [Help]]	Group 1 Central Coast
wazer(1) [PM [Help]]	Group 1 Central Coast

Username (rank)	Group	Badges
Group 2 - Penobscot Bay Group leader: wazer (PM [Help]) Assistant group leader: wazer (PM [Help])
wazer(5) [PM [Help]]	Group 2 Penobscot Bay
wazer(5) [PM [Help]]	Group 2 Penobscot Bay
wazer(4) [PM [Help]]	Group 2 Penobscot Bay
wazer(4) [PM [Help]]	Group 2 Penobscot Bay
wazer(3) [PM [Help]]	Group 2 Penobscot Bay
wazer(2) [PM [Help]]	Group 2 Penobscot Bay
wazer(1) [PM [Help]]	Group 2 Penobscot Bay

Username (rank)	Group	Badges
Group 3 - Lobsters & Potatoes Group leader: wazer (PM [Help]) Assistant group leader: wazer (PM [Help])
wazer(5) [PM [Help]]	Group 3 Lobsters & Potatoes
wazer(5) [PM [Help]]	Group 3 Lobsters & Potatoes
wazer(4) [PM [Help]]	Group 3 Lobsters & Potatoes
wazer(4) [PM [Help]]	Group 3 Lobsters & Potatoes
wazer(3) [PM [Help]]	Group 3 Lobsters & Potatoes
wazer(2) [PM [Help]]	Group 3 Lobsters & Potatoes
wazer(1) [PM [Help]]	Group 3 Lobsters & Potatoes

Username (rank)	Group	Badges
Group 4 - Western Maine Group leader: wazer (PM [Help]) Assistant group leader: wazer (PM [Help])
wazer(5) [PM [Help]]	Group 4 Western Maine
wazer(5) [PM [Help]]	Group 4 Western Maine
wazer(4) [PM [Help]]	Group 4 Western Maine
wazer(4) [PM [Help]]	Group 4 Western Maine
wazer(3) [PM [Help]]	Group 4 Western Maine
wazer(2) [PM [Help]]	Group 4 Western Maine
wazer(1) [PM [Help]]	Group 4 Western Maine

Acknowledgements

OrbitC (PM [Help]) (raid form/administration template)
justins83 (PM [Help]) (assistance with mapraid overlay script)
doctorblah (PM [Help]) (assistance with mapraid Overlay Script)
KS-MO MapRaid Hosts (wiki inspiration)

Hall of Fame

File:Blank.png

Group Photo