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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 notices@wayfarer.nianticlabs.com 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/