When adding a new place in WME, or approving a new place or a place update request (PUR), please be sure to do the following:
- Take the time to research all information regarding the place. Name, address, business website if they have one, phone number, etc. Check the appropriate "Services Offered" types.
- Take the time to edit the road if you have access, and make sure that the street address for the business is also on that road (Edit House Numbers) and positioned at or as near as possible to the place location.
- Make sure any pictures submitted are usable. Even though elsewhere in the main Wiki it says (or said) that pictures with faces or license plates are not acceptable, it has been stated by Champs such as AlanOfTheBerg that those items are not of concern in the USA. So don't discount a picture simply because those things are present. Use your common sense. Examples of some types of pictures that are unusable (and should thus be rejected) are:
- The inside of the business, or so close to the front door that you have to be at the front door to see it. The idea is to show it from far enough away that it gives an approaching driver an idea of what to look for.
- Close-up of drive-through menu. Pretty much same reason as above.
- Upside down, blurry, rainy, fogged out, phone mount or part of car mostly blocking the view.
- A shot that is clearly just a "Selfie" of the person taking the picture of him/herself in front of the place being added/updated.
- Nudity/obscenity, or otherwise inappropriate.
Finally, once the place has been added/updated, lock it at a minimum of rank (level) 2 for most types of places (don't do this for private/residence type). Doing this helps protect against future picture updates being simply accepted from "trusted updaters." When a Waze users has submitted enough accepted pictures/updates, he/she becomes "trusted" by the system and will no longer be flagged for review in WME when they make a new submission or update. Since most drivers aren't also editors, they will always be considered Rank 1 by the system. So, by locking the place at R2, any submission by such a "trusted updater" will still end up flagged for review by an editor.
Critical places such as fire/police stations, jails/prisons, hospital/ER/urgent care locations should be locked at a minimum rank (level) of 3. They can be locked at a higher rank if circumstances warrant it.