User:PhantomSoul View history

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Hello There! (About Me)

I came to Waze in the fall of 2012, searching for a new, better Navigation app. Waze was intriguing, and when I found out I could contribute to the map myself, I was hooked.

As a Junior Editor

Identified many of the local main roads in the areas I drove around, specifically Primary Streets, since none existed from the base map import, and their lack was causing Waze to route you out of your way to many local or otherwise nearby places. All county roads, which NJ has a lot of, had to be set to Primary Street, since the base import didn't do that.

Regularly reviewed user reports and map problems, and solved ones that were straight forward enough for me to solve with my limited skill at the time.

As an Area Manager

Continued identifying local main roads throughout central NJ. During this time, I also developed a standard to treat county roads numbered between 500 and 599 as state roads because they often continue across the state and often have the same function as non-highway state routes. This greatly improved routing on middle-length trips (20-25 miles), especially in more rural areas, where there weren't as many true state routes.

Started to work with other, newer editors, mostly showing them how to identify local main roads that may not have been identified yet. These were mostly informal Q&A messages, but I would always try to emphasize how to go about solving a particular problem that would be asked about instead of just giving out solutions. When the mentoring program came along, I jumped on board, continuing these Q&A messages in an informal mentoring style, since it was easier to manage with my whacky and/or late night availability schedule.

Monitored the state unlock forum for requests that were both for my rank and in my ever-expanding area. I would unlock things as requested, provide advice on how to go about solving the problem, then review and re-lock as needed.

As a State Manager

Implemented FC statewide within a few weeks of the greater community deciding on its adoption. This finally put to bed my original mission of most-optimally identifying and configuring main roads, though that continues to be a large interest of mine, including things like Best-Continuation, Big-Detour Prevention, and wayfinders, especially in atypical situations that might not be adequately defined by the wikis.

Continued to (mostly informally) mentor newer editors, as well as more advanced editors alike, about all kinds of things to do with routing, especially as impacted by road type or place location, place proximity to other road segments, whether restricted in some way or not. Also monitored state unlock requests to grant, advise, review, and relock map updates as needed.

Took part in stateside several map raids during this time, assuming a leadership role within my group, and in some cases neighboring groups as well, again, monitoring unlock requests to grant, advise editors, review updates, and relock as needed.

Planned an executed my own map raid of the Jersey Shore, in which we had a few dozen editors fix up numerous user reports all up and down the NJ shore area.

In between working with other editors, I spent time working in NY's Hudson Valley area counties, where I spend a good bit of time, bringing them up to FC standards, thereby improving especically-local navigation in all those areas.

My latest project has been identifying New Jersey's biggest problem areas based on user-report presence by county, and whether any editors are working with them there. I worked with a few editors on the George Washington Bridge approach, which was problematic enough to be causing 1/4 of all the state's user-reports. We then worked with the NYC team to fix up the New York end of the bridge. I developed a report for NJ State Managers that tracks week-over-week user report change and progress, by county, which helps us identify which parts of the state are covered and which parts need additional area managers.

I continue to be interested in developing better ways to track user report changes, and thereby progress, to provide direction as to where additional help may be needed, either by cultivating new editors there or by asking other nearby area managers if they would be interested in expansions.

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 {{PrivateMessage}}
-== Hello There! (About Me) ==
+==== Hello There! (About Me) ====
-My name is George, and I hail from Union, New Jersey - that's right, land of Springsteen, Bon Jovi, Taylor Ham, and the Shore. For those of you who are a bit challenged in the geography of the Garden State, Union is right outside of Newark, to the southwest a few miles. To pay the bills, I'm a business software developer for a leading specialty food importer in New York. In my spare time, you can find me working outside in the garden, hiking and/or camping in the NY/NJ/PA area, watching TV, and of course Wazing around the local area here and online.
+I came to Waze in the fall of 2012, searching for a new, better Navigation app. Waze was intriguing, and when I found out I could contribute to the map myself, I was hooked.
-I came to Waze in the fall of 2012 after Apple had decided to do away with Google-provided maps on its iOS mobile platform, leaving its own iOS navigation product, along with the Motion X GPS Drive product I was using up until then, grossly deficient and pretty much unusable to get anywhere, even if you somewhat knew the way. So, I began on a frantic search to find a new navigation product and after trying a bunch of things, I came across Waze. It was definitely an unconventional product, with its almost-cartoonish graphics and presenting the driving experience as a social game to contribute to the overall driving experience. Best of all, it was free, and I was intrigued.
+===== As a Junior Editor =====
-I've always had an (some people would say) unnatural obsession with roads, and how to get places, the best way to go, etc., etc., way before I could even drive. As a kid and teen, I'd frequently get laughed at by friends and others by knowing the way better than our parents, or whoever was driving. I never really let it get to me, and, in fact, I would simply own it more often than not, to the point where I would often get turned to for direction. Naturally, when I saw that I could fix my own issues with the map, I didn't even hesitate to sign up.
+* Identified many of the local main roads in the areas I drove around, specifically Primary Streets, since none existed from the base map import, and their lack was causing Waze to route you out of your way to many local or otherwise nearby places. All county roads, which NJ has a lot of, had to be set to Primary Street, since the base import didn't do that.
-Back in the Fall of 2012, the local map in central NJ, where I lived at the time, was pretty weak. It was difficult to get many places that didn't involve taking state or federal routes, despite the vast availability of perfectly good, though more local direct roads. I started optimizing that based on my own experiences, first in my own neighborhoods and around the places I frequented, and eventually throughout the county as an Area Manager. I would add county by county, updating road types to make the map more functional with non-freeway roads, and ultimately became Waze's first State Manager. In the Spring of 2014, we decided to adopt FC to settle the road type debate once and for all, and I played an instrumental role, along with mentoring many of the now-senior editors in the area, in updating NJ road types to FC, even taking that role up into the Hudson Valley region of New York when NJ was completed. More recently, I've taken up helping with local speed limits, gathering information about URs in NJ counties that most seem to need help, and helping other editors with complex navigation, particularly where atypical techniques may be needed. In between, I also continue to work out how to best sort out city-naming, which can get complex in the northeastern states, where large areas of many townships often colloquially go by some other unincorporated name, for example.
+* Regularly reviewed user reports and map problems, and solved ones that were straight forward enough for me to solve with my limited skill at the time.
-In any case, if any of these things sound intriguing to you, please feel free to say hi and let's talk. In the meantime, Happy Wazing, and see you on the map!
+===== As an Area Manager =====
+* Continued identifying local main roads throughout central NJ. During this time, I also developed a standard to treat county roads numbered between 500 and 599 as state roads because they often continue across the state and often have the same function as non-highway state routes. This greatly improved routing on middle-length trips (20-25 miles), especially in more rural areas, where there weren't as many true state routes.
+* Started to work with other, newer editors, mostly showing them how to identify local main roads that may not have been identified yet. These were mostly informal Q&A messages, but I would always try to emphasize how to go about solving a particular problem that would be asked about instead of just giving out solutions. When the mentoring program came along, I jumped on board, continuing these Q&A messages in an informal mentoring style, since it was easier to manage with my whacky and/or late night availability schedule.
+* Monitored the state unlock forum for requests that were both for my rank and in my ever-expanding area. I would unlock things as requested, provide advice on how to go about solving the problem, then review and re-lock as needed.
+===== As a State Manager =====
+* Implemented FC statewide within a few weeks of the greater community deciding on its adoption. This finally put to bed my original mission of most-optimally identifying and configuring main roads, though that continues to be a large interest of mine, including things like Best-Continuation, Big-Detour Prevention, and wayfinders, especially in atypical situations that might not be adequately defined by the wikis.
+* Continued to (mostly informally) mentor newer editors, as well as more advanced editors alike, about all kinds of things to do with routing, especially as impacted by road type or place location, place proximity to other road segments, whether restricted in some way or not. Also monitored state unlock requests to grant, advise, review, and relock map updates as needed.
+* Took part in stateside several map raids during this time, assuming a leadership role within my group, and in some cases neighboring groups as well, again, monitoring unlock requests to grant, advise editors, review updates, and relock as needed.
+* Planned an executed my own map raid of the Jersey Shore, in which we had a few dozen editors fix up numerous user reports all up and down the NJ shore area.
+* In between working with other editors, I spent time working in NY's Hudson Valley area counties, where I spend a good bit of time, bringing them up to FC standards, thereby improving especically-local navigation in all those areas.
+* My latest project has been identifying New Jersey's biggest problem areas based on user-report presence by county, and whether any editors are working with them there. I worked with a few editors on the George Washington Bridge approach, which was problematic enough to be causing 1/4 of all the state's user-reports. We then worked with the NYC team to fix up the New York end of the bridge. I developed a report for NJ State Managers that tracks week-over-week user report change and progress, by county, which helps us identify which parts of the state are covered and which parts need additional area managers.
+* I continue to be interested in developing better ways to track user report changes, and thereby progress, to provide direction as to where additional help may be needed, either by cultivating new editors there or by asking other nearby area managers if they would be interested in expansions.