Best Of

Hallo allemal!

Thanks for your patience in waiting to hear from us on where we're at with our roadmap and plans. Some of us actually took a slightly longer winter break this year (well, I did) and had a ton of catching up to do in January. 2021 has been personally challenging for me during this pandemic and so I decided to take care of my mental health. I hope many of you had a chance to do so as well this past holiday season!

Anyway....besides Tintino's post about PGO Wayfarer onboarding flow updates etc, here are a few more:

Appeals

We're diving deep into reviewing your appeals starting this week. Thanks for your patience on this. We shipped the feature with our last release of 2021 in early December, which I hope has given folks enough time to choose which nomination you wanted to appeal. And we've spent the past few weeks tweaking our tooling to better support our team in reviewing your appeals, as well as training on how to make the decisions. Some of you should see decisions happening by end of this week or sooner!

Contribution Management page

We have some more updates lined up here for spring/summer. These include:

• The ability to put a nomination on HOLD. This would pull it out of the review queue and release it whenever you want. This means if you submitted a nomination that you don't feel is up to par and want to modify it, or think about whether you just want to withdraw it so that it doesn't get auto upgraded, you'll be able to buy yourself this time.
• Also in the backlog is displaying the other types of contributions you have made in addition to your nominations. This would be title, description or location edits, or photos you've submitted for review!

Cooldowns

We are going to experiment with relaxing cooldown periods for Explorers that are in Good and Great standing. We aren't yet sure when we want to start this, but we'll let you know so that you can give us your feedback on how that's impacting your experience.

Coal

Yes - we are starting conversations internally on how we are going to help clean coal from the backlog of nominations. I don't have specific details I can share yet, but the approach is to look at what can we reliably scrub out automatically first, and longer term, tackle the more complex and sensitive decisions that are harder to automate (like fake nominations or hate speech, which can be very subtle and nuanced).

Wayfarer Challenge/Events

We're thinking of new type of events and challenges for later this year, more to come when we know what we're going to do. There are a ton of ideas being thrown around and opportunities with other launches happening within the company this year!

Finally, don't forget to follow us Twitter! I'm there posting with Tintino (as ^dc). Thanks to those of you who've already engaged with us there. Everyone is being super kind and supportive of each other and we love the new energy it's bringing to the community. We hope we can post there in multiple languages, but please be patient with us as we sort that out!

Thanks and #meetyououtthere!

-danbocat

Hi Fam!

Wow, where did the time go? 

Thank you all for another great year of community mapping! We’ve had an amazing year of awesome updates, new features, and team changes. I wanted to share some end of year global highlights from 2021:

Your contributions

• 138K new Explorers joined the community
• 1.95M Wayspots approved (out of 5.1M nominations submitted)
• 679K Wayspot edits approved (out of 1.5M edits submitted)
• 45K Wayspot reports approved (out of 459K reports submitted)

Pokémon GO Submission Features

• We added an image gallery on Pokéstops and the ability for you to submit more lovely photos to the gameboard. In total you added 313K photos to your Wayspots!
• We added the ability to defer and manage upload of your scans and photo contributions so that you could do so when you had better Wi-Fi. We’re seeing 25% of you choose to defer your scans and 10% to defer your photo submissions. Glad it’s been useful.
• We added a category question to the nominations flow and Edit menu so that you could give reviewers a little more context on what type of location you are nominating. We’re still crunching the numbers on that, but we’re seeing roughly thousands of category labels coming in per day.
• We also expanded the max daily contribution quotas and converted the accruals to daily rather than fortnightly. 
• We added nearby Lightship Wayspots in the nominations map so you can check for duplicates before deciding to nominate.

New Email Branding

We totally revamped the look and feel of the notification emails you receive with respect to the status of your contributions to reduce confusion for new Explorers that may think they are contributing to a specific game, rather than to Lightship. We also polished up the messaging and provided a direct link to get back to the website for further contribution management.

New Onboarding Flow

We delivered a new onboarding experience that includes receiving a welcome email when you reach eligibility in-game, an entire new onboarding walkthrough of the Wayfarer website for new users, and (soon, in January) locking down submission features in Pokékmon GO until you have passed the Wayfarer quiz. We also removed the limit on the number of quiz attempts because we think practice makes perfect. 

Nomination Appeals

We added the rejection reasons to your nomination details in the website, and added the ability to appeal a rejected nomination back to Niantic (we still can’t guarantee a response time right now, but we’ve added a rate limit and will monitor how that process is going - thanks for all your feedback thus far). 

Infamous Bugs/Famous Fixes

• The “.” rejection reason and associated mythology!
• Disappearing nominations when in review by Niantic, and associated mythology!

Community Engagement

• Tintino and Danbocat joined the community
• Wayfarer challenges in India, Russia and Brazil
• Brazil: over 10k participants & 17k new Wayspots added
• Russia: over 13k participants & 8k new Wayspots added
• India: over 11k participants & 4k new Wayspots added
• Adding an abuse chat tool within Wayfarer’s website for anonymous and private abuse reporting. 

What’s next?

I’m really excited for what’s in store for the first half of 2022! Bear in mind that a lot of these new features will depend on our team’s growth, which we are actively working on!

Firstly, we haven’t forgotten about Ingress! 

As I’ve mentioned in the past, we started with features in Pokémon GO first because we were in a queue with the Ingress team to bring those same features to Ingress players. We are now at the front of the line. So in late Jan/Feb we’ll be shipping:

• Deferred uploads (for scans and photos) and upload management
• Expanding the max daily contribution quotas and moving to daily accrual rate
• Revised onboarding flow that locks submission features until you have passed the Wayfarer quiz

Other in-game features I’m trying to push for toward the summer (but not confirmed) are:

• Adding the duplicates check in Ingress nominations flow
• Wayspot reporting feature in Pikmin Bloom

For the website

• We’ll be switching your Wayfarer profile name and photo to your Niantic ID profile name and photo. Your Niantic ID is like your central profile across all the Niantic products you use. More information about the Niantic ID portal will be announced by that team on the Niantic blog in January. 
• More improvements to the Nominations Management page, including the ability to HOLD a contribution that is pending review if you decide you want to edit or delete it later; ability to better manage your Upgrades; and displaying your edit contributions as well.
• More than 75% of a new Explorer's first nomination gets rejected which can be very discouraging. So we want to treat your first few nominations differently than ones you’ll do later, to let you ‘trial run’ the entire experience and learn early on how to succeed.
• Re-tuning how cooldowns work to remove false positives on spammy behavior (no details yet, sorry)
• Updating the rejection reasons to eliminate the discrepancies and confusion between the reporting options in-game and rejection options in the review flow. And delivering fun education tools to help understand the criteria.
• Speeding up decisions through things like more background signaling to remove coal from the submissions served to you for review.
• A new review experience that feels lighter and more enjoyable to do (also replacing the confusing star-based questions)
• A design refresh!

General Plans (still working out the details and timing)

• Separating your GDPR data deletion request from the games (so that you can keep your Wayfarer account and stats, even if you’ve deleted your data from the games).
• Introducing trusted user types and user ranks that unlock Wayfarer features as your rank up. 
• A new reward type (besides earning Upgrades via reviews)
• Internal discussions on anti-cheat mechanics and improvements to the trust and safety experiences within the community. 

Community Engagement led by @NianticTintino !

• Swag?!
• New type of Wayfarer challenge, likely focussed on submissions
• New engagement methods for continuously recalibrating and retraining together on the criteria
• Wayfarer Ambassadors!
• Wayfarer Twitter account, which I’m personally very excited to use for outreach to folks not often in the Forum
• More AMAs
• And much more. Stay tuned! 

Message from your Community Manager @NianticTintino

Hello Explorers! What an exciting last couple of months! It’s been great getting to be your Community Manager, be a part of the Wayfarer Team, and get to know more about what excites you about Wayfarer and exploration. I can’t wait for all of the new things coming in 2022 such as the new Twitter account, awesome swag, the new Wayfarer Challenges, and ways to make the Wayfarer Community Forum safe, exciting, and educational for all. I’m particularly excited about our Wayfarer Ambassador program and all of the great things we’ll be able to do. ¡Felices Fiestas y Próspero Año Nuevo!

On the Wayfarer App you’ve been asking about for years…

Know that I’m working hard internally to make this happen. I think the first version will be with a limited set of features for submissions. If we are a ‘go’ on this, I will be opening a window of opportunity for some of you to beta test with us! Stay tuned. 

Well that’s it.

I hope this leaves you with excitement! Know that our team really and truly appreciates the dedication and fun you bring to this global community mapping project. There’s no other comparable community of enthusiasts. Thank you for being critical, being respectful, and being dedicated to making the real-world your gameboard. We can’t wait to engage with you more next year and continue to be a part of your adventures. Please stay safe and have a happy holiday season!

d

Hello Explorers,

Just wanted to update you all that we have shipped the Wayspot Categorization in Pokémon GO for the following countries:

• US
• Canada
• Brazil
• Mexico
• India

More countries to come in 2022!

Hello Explorers!

We have a busy week ahead, and I wanted to make sure you were all in the know.

...

On Wed Dec 8th, we’ll be shipping our last release of the year (Wayfarer 4.4) which will include:

• Updates to the “What is it Question” (aka category validation)
• Ability to appeal a rejected nomination through Wayfarer
• Anonymous and private abuse reporting through Wayfarer

More info will be posted with the release notes.

...

This Thursday Dec 9th, we’re shipping the Wayspot categorization feature for Wayspot nominations and edits in Pokémon GO for the US, Canada, Brazil, Mexico, and India. We will roll this out to the rest of the world in January. Category selection will be required on your nominations and will soon also be displayed in the reviews in Wayfarer, so that reviewers have a bit more context from you.

Categories tagged on live Wayspots as edits will be funneled through Wayfarer for others to validate, but will not contribute to your Agreements for now, since there's technically no collective agreement to be made on these (yes I am thinking of better rewarding mechanisms for this type of validation question!). Ultimately the categories will be used by all Niantic games for new, more context specific, game mechanics and more!

...

Also this week, we’ll be launching our new and improved Wayfarer emails! We’re super excited about the fresh new look and updates to the emails you get about the status of your edits, reports, and nominations. New Explorers also receive an email inviting them to join the community once they reach eligibility in Pokémon GO or Ingress. They’ll now be coming from [email protected] so please make sure you keep an eye out for it in your spam if you’re not seeing them in your main inbox.

Thanks! Details to come later this week.

Product Updates

Hello Explorers, wow it’s been a minute! Since we just shipped Wayfarer 4.3, I've had a moment to pull together an update for you.

Pokémon GO Nominations Duplicates check

Later today we’ll be shipping a feature update in Pokémon GO’s Wayspot nomination flow. In the map used to mark the location of your nomination, you will be able to see approved Wayspots NOT used in Pokémon GO alongside those that are! Existing PokéStops and gyms will be marked with a PokéStop icon. This will allow you to see if the Wayspot you are nominating has already been accepted; saving you time to nominate other great places that aren’t in the Wayspots database yet. 

UPDATE: this is now live!

Pokémon GO Wayspot Categorization

Starting mid-December, Wayspot nomination and edit experiences in Pokémon GO will include a question on “category”, which is the same as the “What is it” question in the Wayfarer reviews. With this update, nominations will require a Wayspot category to be selected. In both nominations and edits, you can type into the search box to find the category or navigate the drop down menu (we recommend typing a category out to filter the list). Note that adding a category on an existing Wayspots will be entirely optional.

The categories will help our games develop more context specific gameplay mechanics and narratives.

Ingress In-game contribution limits

Also in mid-December, we’ll be replacing the old contribution limit mechanism in Ingress from a 14 day wait period to accrue, to a daily accrual system, with increased max daily quota based on the contribution type. This applies to Wayspot nominations, reports, and AR scans. You’ll see this reflected in the messaging in your settings and the nominations or editing screens. The limits will be the same as in Pokémon GO except for AR scanning which will have a daily accrual rate of 40 scans/day, at a max of 400 scans/day that you can submit.

Ingress Upload Later and Upload Management

We’re working on bringing you the same upload later and upload management experience we shipped in Pokémon GO to Ingress! This will apply to nominations, photos and AR scans only. Expect this to be released before the year’s end. 

Niantic ID + Wayfarer

Niantic ID is coming to Wayfarer! Niantic ID is your unique identity across all of Niantic’s games and experiences. We recently announced the claiming period to lock in an existing username as your Niantic ID. You will soon see your Niantic ID integrated on your Wayfarer Profile! Please stay tuned to Niantic’s blog for more information. We’ll be keeping an eye on this thread, so please leave any questions or comments here.

Make sure you claim your Niantic ID HERE before November 26, 2021.

Wayfarer 4.4 Sneak Peek of what's coming in December

• Private abuse reporting chat widget in the Help page (FINALLY)
• Wayspot category 'what is it' feature update
• Appeals of rejected nominations
• Niantic ID integration (see above)
• Swanky new notification emails redesign

We'll post details on the release in a couple of weeks. Stay tuned!

Hello Explorers, 

You spoke and we listened! I’m very excited to share that we’ll be shipping some new updates with Wayfarer 4.3 next week and hope they add to your Wayfarer experience. Check out the updates below for more information!

Unlimited Quiz Attempts

We’re letting new users attempt the quiz an unlimited number of times with a 15min cooldown period in between - enough time for you to revisit the Criteria pages. We felt it was a shame to limit the attempts and have folks never return back. We believe that practice makes perfect! For those who have already taken the quiz and failed it twice, they will also be able to retake the quiz an unlimited number of times. 

Nominations In Review by Niantic

Nominations that are in review by Niantic will no longer disappear from your Nominations page. Your nominations will be displayed and labeled as being IN VOTING by Niantic, with a Niantic logo badge. 

Rejection Reasons

We’ll display the top two rejection reasons your rejected nominations received - these are based on the rejection reasons noted by your nominations’ reviewers. We heard your feedback about the upcoming email changes and wanted to get this done before we launched the new emails.

Again, we hope you’re as excited as we are to ship these updates! Excited to hear how they improve your Wayfarer experience! Check out the discussion HERE!

Safe Exploring!

Hi Explorers, 

On October 26, 2021, all new Wayfarer Explorers will experience a Wayfarer orientation on their very first log-in. The experience walks Explorers through setting up their profile, understanding Agreements and Upgrades, the Wayfarer Criteria and finally taking the Wayfarer quiz. It will skip walking through the Nominations or Review pages for now, as these will face overhaul next year. Explorers who haven’t logged in for 6+ months (from the date that this is released) but have already passed the Wayfarer quiz will experience the orientation, but not have to retake the quiz.

Please share thoughts HERE.

Hi everyone, hope you have been well and enjoying your adventures out there! Has anyone discovered any new places lately?

I wanted to bring you some fresh updates from the cabin.

HOT TOPICS --

• Wayspot sync issues in games: These are both still under investigation by the Pokémon GO and Ingress teams as it has to do with their sync pipelines. I understand it's frustrating, but we're pushing for a resolution asap.
• Niantic in house reviews and the "." rejection reason: We've always had staff alongside you to help process the Wayspot nominations and we are constantly calibrating our team to ensure consistency. We do not use robots to review in house. // However, I completely acknowledge that we don't always get it right. I've reviewed a few of your reports as well to confirm. I've been speaking with our team lead to ensure we get another recalibration session going. Thank you in advance for your patience. // As for these nominations disappearing from your nominations page, we want to fix that too. It should be totally transparent that they're under review by a Niantic teammate. // We've recently patched the emails to tell you that it was a Niantic decision rather than seeing the "." reason.
• Nomination missing the map marker on your summary page has been fixed.
• New abuse reporting system: We're so close and we really need to ship that to you! Working with @NianticTintino to get this done!

REST OF YEAR --

Good news is we are on track to deliver some updates to various parts of the Wayfarer experience. Stay tuned for specific dates coming from @NianticTintino !

• A new welcome flow in Pokémon GO that invites you to visit Wayfarer when you reach eligibility level.
• A new flow on the Wayfarer website for first time Wayfarer users (i.e. you've never logged in before), which orients you through the site and eventually to the criteria and quiz. Passing the quiz unlocks the Wayfarer features in Pokémon GO and Ingress. This does not affect folks who already have a Wayfarer account.
• Pokémon GO Nominations Duplicates check, where you'll be able to see a map of existing live Wayspots not in the game alongside those that are, during the nomination flow.
• New Wayfarer branded emails to replace the game branded emails. This is to make it absolutely clear that even a nomination in-game is a nomination to the Niantic platform, NOT to a specific game. This has always been the case but the emails were just misleading. // We also want the language to be clearer with respect to how your contributions would be used. Note that the new emails will not include rejection reasons. Rather, emails will link back to Wayfarer and we aim to display those reasons in your nominations page.
• New limits for your contributions will be active on October 26 (we posted about this before, where instead of "you get X in 14 days", you now accrue X on a daily basis.
• Adding the ability to upload nominations later, and upload management page in Ingress.

Tough news is that we are facing unplanned reduction in our engineering team. This means that there are several other website improvements that we had planned but won't be able to deliver by end of year (like displaying your rejection reasons on the nominations page). We're working on hiring - check out Niantic's job board if you're interested! I am really excited about these features, and hope to drop some more news once we have more certainty around our team size and new roadmap.

P.S. Sorry for the radio silence! As I mentioned in my very first post, I'm the Product Manager for Wayfarer, so won't be able to check-in as often as @NianticTintino @NianticGiffard or @NianticAaron . I'm usually squirreling away to meetings with various teams across games and the platform to brainstorm, write, design, and execute on new features to improve Wayfarer and the platform that our games are built on. I am sure I've missed a ton of pings and threads, but I get great insight from the rest of the team who are more active here. I thank you for your patience with us, and your continued dedication to the best community map in the world!

https://careers.nianticlabs.com/openings/