Tone of voice also plays a part in whether it sounds polite or not. "Ждите " alone with certain tone can sound very rude.

"Пожалуйста" с просьбой в русском употребляется так же, как "please" с просьбой в английском, и не зависит, как вы обращаетесь к собеседнику: на "вы" или на "ты".

Yes, it is rather polite to say подождите. Ждите is less polite, but still polite. The same is to послушайте and слушайте. That how imperfective imperative works. However you could make it more polite by adding пожалуйста. Пожалуйста, ждите. Perfective imperative with пожалуйста is yet more polite, than imperfective one. Пожалуйста, подождите. I would place the expressions as their politeness is decreasing: Пожалуйста, подождите -> Подождите -> Пожалуйста, ждите -> Ждите.

Joseph, you need to use пожалуйста here. Подожди vs подождите is more about your _general_ attitude to person. If you are 'на вы' with someone, it is not situational. When you use 'вы' it implies certain formality or distance or respect to a person. I used 'вы' with some close female friend of mine, though. Originally as a joke (imitating 19 century nobility style) but then it sticked. But it change little (or nothing?) about tone of a particular request. "-те" doesn't make a _request_ more polite. Let's say, when "вы" means respect (not always!), what changes is that there is respect:) The person knows (in general) that you respect this person. But respect can be established without вы or it cna be absent with вы. PS. извините, что ответил по-английски:(

I agree with Elena, your tone really matters and "подождите" indeed can sound pretty rude sometimes. Come to think of it, I would probably not use "подождите" without "пожалуйста" when addressing a person I don't know very well. It could be alright if you're in the middle of a conversation and you just want to ask something like, "Come again?" (e.g., "Подождите, что вы сказали?" - "Wait, what did you just say?") but apart from that... Probably not. However, using the imperative without "пожалуйста" is perfectly fine when you're speaking with your friends but you usually don't address your friends "Вы", do you? It's a matter of preference though. ETA: Sorry, I was thinking about your question, and I asked my mum about the "politeness ranking" and she said that for her it would be: Пожалуйста, подождите -> Пожалуйста, ждите -> Подождите -> Ждите Same for me. So, for some people "пожалуйста" has a stronger effect I guess. Just for your information :)