Wisconsin/Places/Main

Locking Standards

Places should be completed as fully as possible any time they are created or updated. At a minimum, editors should:

• verify correct spelling of the name, using the guidelines below
• complete the address, to help when choosing among search results in the app, and
• ensure the correct location of the Point or Stop Point, to guide drivers to the correct location. Note that this may not always be on the street side of the location.

Phone numbers and opening hours are also particularly helpful to Wazers. Complete them whenever possible, using an online search, if necessary. Photos should help Wazers recognize the destination when they arrive.

Recommended phone number formats: (414) 123-4567 or 715-123-4567 Others may not auto-dial properly in some phones. If you are running WMEPH, the script will automatically add the parentheses.

When completed, places should be locked, to prevent inadvertent damage. Please don't lock places to their highest level until most of their information is completed, but do lock to a level higher than 1, once you have verified any information, to help protect from accidental damage through client submissions. The following are recommended levels:

Airport : 5

Hospital : 4

Fire Station : 4

Police Station : 4

Large areas - (State Parks, if mapped, etc.) : 4

Gas Station : 3

Most other places should be locked at 3, once completed.

If a place is locked higher than its recommended lock level, please contact the last editor or an SM before making any edits.

Naming Standards

PLACE NAMING STANDARDS/HARMONIZATION IS CURRENTLY UNDER NATIONAL REVIEW. USE THE CURRENT INFORMATION UNTIL THE REVIEW IS COMPLETE. UPDATES WILL BE POSTED ON STATE AND NATIONAL WIKI

We are standardizing the naming of most public facilities and businesses. This makes search results more consistent and useful, and gives Wazers a more professional and uniform experience. The names have been designed to work well with instant search, regular search, and to be clear and concise in the map display. Please follow these guidelines when naming the places described below.

Places which are part of a larger area place (e.g. place points for parking lots in 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 "Student Parking Lot C - StudyHard University"

Government Agencies (selected)

All places for the following agencies should be named according to the standards as follows:

City and County Offices: City or County Name followed by City Hall or department or agency as appropriate, for example:

"Milwaukee City Hall"

"Kenosha County Probation"

"Door County Administration Center"

Police and Sheriff Department: City, Agency or Division Name followed by "Police Dept" or "Sheriff Dept", for example:

"Wausau Police Dept"

"Kenosha County Sheriff Dept"

Fire Department: Agency Name or abbreviation followed by “Fire Dept – “ and the station number. For example:

"North Shore Fire Dept - Station 5"

"Wauwatosa Fire Dept"

"Milwaukee Fire Dept - Engine 9"

United States Postal Service: See national post office guidance here

US VA Hospitals/Centers/Clinics: Should be named with their official name as the primary name. For VA hospitals/medical centers "(US Veterans Only)" should be added to the end of the primary name, and as the first line of the description. In the primary name, "VA" should be expanded as "Veterans Affairs", so as not to cause a TTS conflict with Virginia. Names can be shortened to remove extraneous words; for example, replace "Campus of the" from the official name with a hyphen (-). Any colloquial names should be added as alt names, so they are returned in search results, and also at the beginning of the description, so they are visible on the place preview page in the client. Some examples:

"Veterans Affairs - Tomah (US Veterans Only)"

"Beaver Dam Veterans Medical Clinic"

"Veterans Affairs - Clement J. Zablocki Medical Center (US Veterans Only)"

Place Name Harmonization

Name spellings, formatting, and websites are standardized for chain or franchise businesses across the United States so that Wazers will receive consistent results when searching in the client, no matter their location. We recommend you install WMEPH to help keep places standardized.

Misc Notes

Boat Launches

Boat Launches can be mapped as a PLR to the parking area and a Point Place. Do not map the actual ramp to the waters edge. If there is no off street parking for the launch, only map the Point Place. The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (DNR) created a statewide inventory containing over 2,000 identified public boat access sites and over 100 developed shore fishing sites. It can be accessed here http://dnr.wi.gov/topic/Lands/boataccess/ There is another site that has launch names and other details here http://wisconsinslakes.com/

Naming of boat launches should be Boat Launch - {water name} (location if needed). For example, Boat Launch - Lake Superior (Hot Pond Overlook). They should be categorized as Outdoors.

If a launch has a fee to use, or any restrictions, put the details in the description of the Place.

Area and Point places for Interchanges, Exits and Junctions

Area and Point places for Interchanges, Exits and Junctions are NOT used in Wisconsin for normal mapping.

Use a comment point or a comment area when special information needs to be noted about a location.

House Numbers with Letters

Currently, Waze does not support alphanumeric house numbers, with the only exception a single letter at the end of a number (123x). This is a current known issue and is being worked on by the programmers. In the mean time, Wisconsin has a work around for this.

Create a Place point for the location and put the full street address, with house number, as the Name. Leave the category as Other.

Add a PL to the Place in the following spreadsheet so that it can be tracked.

Wisconsin Alphanumeric House Number Spreadsheet

Once alphanumeric numbers are finally fixed, the spreadsheet can be used to locate all the Places and properly convert them. If an address is “W1234”, do NOT change it to “1234W”. These two addresses are different. Alphanumeric addresses are determined based on their area’s street grid system.

See Wisconsin/Places for guidance in Wisconsin that may not be universal to all other states and territories.