Editors Community Newsletter
April 2020
Hello Communities!
Welcome to our 7th edition :)
In light of the constantly evolving situation with CoViD-19, we hope everyone is safe and healthy. We'd like to thank you, our busy community members for helping each other navigate to safety always, and especially at this time.
Read on to find out what our communities have been up to recently.
Waze Communities Team.
Editors Worldwide Quickly Respond to CoViD-19
Editors in more than 50 countries collaborated with their local Partner communities and contributed to updating the map according to CoViD-19 restrictions. Some communities added closures and testing centers, others closed borders while still others requested an encouragement message which reminded Wazers to reconsider any non-critical travel.
The Italian community was the first to respond to their local government restrictions by closing roads leading to restricted cities. As in many other countries, the Italian community's swift effort allowed traffic to keep flowing around the closed areas while making sure drivers didn’t accidentally get close to an infected area.
We here at Waze thank you, our dedicated editors, for helping Wazers around the world navigate to safety at this difficult time.
The light at the end of the Australian tunnels!
More than 500 Waze Beacons have been installed in tunnels in Sydney and Brisbane, thanks to our efficient local community.
Beacons enable uninterrupted underground location services ensuring drivers never miss an in-tunnel exit, providing seamless navigation to drivers underground where GPS signal is not possible.
Special thanks to GBSpeedy1305 and Vestigal for leading the project with the rest of the Australian community.
Learn more about beacons here.
Want to lead a Beacons installation project in your area? Contact beacons@waze.com along with your community manager!
Featuring Top Contributor: Vince from Switzerland
Vince from Switzerland started using Waze in 2013, when there were no local editors in his area. He reported several map issues and accidentally discovered he could edit the map by himself. He made 2,000 edits on his first day and reports that since then, he's been hooked :)
In 2015 he was promoted to Global Champ: "We all share a passion, mindset and mutual respect. Each individual has a different set of skills and together we try to help the Community."
Vince's advice to new editors is to check other places you know well and ask for editing access there. "Have patience, people will recognize that your knowledge is an asset to the team. There are many ways to improve Waze, find your own."
A couple of years ago, Vince made a quiz to help new editors master common map editing terms like UR and PUR. Ready to test your knowledge? Click here!
Vince also acts as a Beta Leader, and has recently led a webinar about basic tools in the Beta community, in French. Watch it here.
Wazeopedia upgrade!
Looking to learn more about Waze and our hustling communities? Wazeopedia holds much regional and locally relevant Waze information, posted and updated by the community!
And now, after much anticipation it has been upgraded and is running on new and improved infrastructure!
We are all very excited to see what this great pool of knowledge can grow into, now that we have the capacity to develop the amazing features you've been asking for!
Feel free to share your suggestions and ideas in the Wazeopedia forum.
Brazilian Health Care is on the map
RTT - Rapid Response Team - is a project created in 2016 by Brazillian champs FernandoAReis and scarlogarcia, to operate in crisis situations. Recently, this productive and kind group of editors conducted an activity for all Brazillian editors!
They had an important task - to map all updated locations for hospitals, health clinics and emergency services throughout Brazil.
59 editors accepted the challenge and reviewed 5,160 service locations! In most cases, the places were unmapped and required much research.
This great collaboration led to improvements in local editing methods and new friendships.
The group leaders mentioned they hope to "help at least one person who, in an emergency would find precisely and quickly the nearest place of care!!"
Editors were invited to share photos toasting the results with the #umbrindeacomunidade
Creative Communities
We love seeing how creative our communities are!
Click below to see a few wonderfully creative items made by the community:
Waze Uruguay, Waze Chile - both made by @freesoft
Want your community's creativity to be highlighted in our next newsletter? Reach out to us through the form below.
We want to hear from you :)
Share your community's story, be featured in an upcoming newsletter or tell us what you think about this newsletter in this form!