Minimum Information
All Places added to the map must contain the following entries:
- Proper primary category
- Name
- Address (including house numbers)
- Placed in the correct location on the map
If a phone number is entered in the Place information, please format as: (###) ###-####. Please correct the layout of any phone numbers you encounter while editing.
Reminder: Data from proprietary third-party sources (such as Google Maps or Yelp) is not an acceptable source! Please use data only from government resources (i.e. GIS), the website of a business (be careful with business Facebook pages as many are auto-generated and may be inaccurate) and other primary, non-copyrighted sources. For more information, review External Sources or contact a senior editor.
Locking Standards
| PLACE TYPE | LOCK LEVEL |
|---|---|
| Military Installations / Airports | 4 |
| Hospitals / Urgent Care / Police & Fire Dept | 4 |
| National & State Parks and Monuments | 4 |
| Gas Stations / Charging Stations | 3 |
| Schools / Universities / Colleges | 3 |
| Government Buildings / Consulates | 3 |
| Parking Lot Areas | 3 |
| City and Local Parks | 2 |
All Places that have complete information (see Minimum Acceptable Information above) are to be locked at Level 2. This is to prevent loss of data due to automatic acceptance of Place Update submissions via the Waze app from trusted users or Place Update Request approvals from other editors using WME without careful examination.
If you do not have a high enough enough rank to lock the place as indicated, please lock it as high as you can, and ask a more senior editor to lock it higher.
Naming Places & Harmonization
Connecticut follows national guidance for Place names.
In an effort to standardize names for Places with multiple locations across the region, Connecticut syncs with the New England PNH (place name harmonization) registry. When editing, please ensure Places in Connecticut use 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. the recent Panera and Subway campaigns) and will (hopefully) help prevent the creation of duplicate entries. The WMEPH script (described below) is a great tool to help with standardization.
View this list full-screen in Google Sheets
Mapping Area Places
When creating an Area, map it to the "fence line" of the area.
For instance, if you are mapping a shopping center, this means that you map the area to cover the shopping center buildings, and the parking lots out to the outer ring road (if applicable). If there is no ring road, or for smaller shopping centers, map to the curb line.
If you are mapping a school, you would map out to the fence line (if visible) or to a reasonable distance from the school. Contact an AM, SM, CM, or Champ for assistance.
Area/Point Combinations
Places which are part of a larger encompassing Area Place (i.e. place points for specific building within a university Area, separate ER entrances in a hospital Area, etc.) should be named with their unique name followed by a hyphen and the name of the larger area they belong to. For example "ER - Hospital Name". Please also review the USA Places standards for Area-Point Combinations.
Hospital / Medical Care Facilities
The special category of Hospital / Medical Care is used for facilities which provide emergency medical care such as Hospitals, Emergency Rooms and urgent care clinics (which truly provide walk-in, no-appointment-necessary, urgent medical services). Clinics, doctors' offices, outpatient facilities and other medical offices which do not offer urgent medical care should use the Office category.
Please review the detailed guidelines on the mapping of these facilities at Hospitals & Urgent Care before adding/editing emergency medical care facilities.
Parking Lots
Connecticut follows USA guidance for Parking Lots. In general, Parking Lot Areas (PLAs) should be added for all lots including businesses with small parking lots (fewer than 10 spaces). Any improvements are helpful, but editors are encouraged to start with popular lots with heavy usage, map problem flags or update requests; public (unrestricted public access) facilities including Park & Ride lots; and restricted lots (some lot restrictions apply, e.g. for customers, visitors, etc.) particularly those associated with stadiums and event venues, shopping centers, etc.
Naming for PLAs dedicated to one address or business should be "Parking - <business name>" or "Parking - <house # & street name>"
Consistent with national guidance, Park & Ride lots should always be named "Park & Ride" however, lots with specific identities may be further customized with unique identifiers (for example "Park & Ride - Batterson Park").
Links to External Providers
Creating and editing links to External Providers is currently permitted for Rank 2 editors and above.
Editors are encouraged to link Waze Places to the corresponding external provider place (typically Google Maps) via the External Provider field any time Places are edited. By linking sites, when Wazers select a destination from search results in the app, they'll always be routed to the navigation stop point associated with the Waze place - regardless of whether the driver selected a Google or Waze search result, which will help avoid routing problems resulting from inaccurate Google PIN locations.
Editors are encouraged to connect all relevant links. A common example of this would be linking a Waze gas station area place to the external provider links for the gas station, an ATM located within the station and the associated convenience store. Please also ensure the links are correct - be sure to check the address of the attached links following a save.
Helpful Scripts
If you are working on places, we recommend considering a few scripts which can make the editing process a lot more efficient. As always with scripts, be cautious and please reach out to a senior editor with any questions on how they work.
- WME Place Harmonizer (WMEPH) standardizes names, formats data, provides an easy interface for adding services and automatically locks once the minimum information has been added. For chains, please submit new chain data for any that are not in the database. Note: WMEPH is now available for all editors, including R1.
Additional Links
- Guidelines for use of External Sources
- Guidelines for Moderation of user-submitted place updates
- Connecticut Places To Do List
- Previous Guidelines for Places in Connecticut (replaced by this page)