User banned from Wayfarer and Ingress forums for abuse has the featured wayspots
GearGlider-ING
Posts: 1,328 ✭✭✭✭✭
Like dang Niantic, why is someone who has violated the community guidelines so much and featured abuse on this very forum getting this kind of recognition?
I get it's a poorly implemented algorithm that selects them, but you'd think a master wayfarer abuser of this caliber would have their privileges revoked.
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Tbh that poi looks perfectly acceptable
At a vague risk of resurrecting the Ghost of timer ciock Past...
The location is remarkably easy to find on Google Maps:
https://www.google.com/maps/place/North+Point+Village+Park/@39.2692763,-76.4750629,178m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x89c800b381e82591:0x140f46c247b764aa!8m2!3d39.2687795!4d-76.4733872
with the portal in question here:
https://intel.ingress.com/intel?ll=39.269818,-76.473666&z=17&pll=39.270157,-76.474585
I note the school IMMEDIATELY to the south of the portal, tagged as "Baltimore County Public Schools". (The school has its own individual name "Battle Grove Elementary" but that name isn't tagged/updated on Google Maps). I cannot immediately distinguish from the google view which of the locations are part of the school grounds and which are "park", but there is only ONE parking lot. This implies that this is one of those "shared use" locations, where there would be no boundary between each.
If you think it is a false waypost, you can simply report it although niantic normally removes it if it is something false but personally in my community the accounts of those who abuse wayfarer are never suspended
Oh the good old days of "Shared Use" days of arguments with the ghost of TimerCiock.
That being said, this POI is likely on school property and in this situation I believe that is the least of the problems.
A player who has had multiple accounts banned in Ingress, Multiple Accounts banned on the forums, shouldnt be able to/get to have a featured waypoint. Its like praising something that is terrible.
He was trying to argue earlier on Reddit that school grounds are no longer a rejection crtiera. Fortunatly, he has been muted on imost of the important subreddits, but he probably convened enough knownothing reviewers to get that one through.
With all of the current hassles, this would be one of the least of our problems but it is interesting to note. If the algorithm selected a genuinely interesting Wayspot then I'd have no problem with who nominated it. Based on what others have said it might be on a school... this has been raised before, that is 'featured Wayspots' displaying invalided Wayspots that shouldn't have been accepted.
The featured wayspots section is still very much flawed. I can even give a current example.
Two of the current featured wayspots in my area are two structures from the same playground, that have nearly identical titles and descriptions (only one word changed between the two, for "swing" and "carousel"). It's embarrassing to look at.
These wayspots are not in English but I can still post screencaps if anyone wants to have a look.
I would go there and put in a duplicate Wayspot report for one and then do a title/description edit for the other. Then take plenty of photos in case an appeal needs to be made.
Well, these wayspots are located well over 150 kilometers away from my current location - even if the country weren't currently in lockdown, that's not a trip I'd have made just to report a wayspot.
It's frustrating that Wayfarers need to do all this hard, manual work to make up for a faulty feature in the system.
I made a post this morning that is still pending moderation review, but I'll reiterate my point: this user has had 3 accounts banned from the Wayforum in the last 9 months and several banned on the Ingress community, as well. In the last year, I've had several hundred nominations approved but not one of them "Featured" due to the poor algorithm.
@GearGlider-PGO thanks for bringing this up. It appears that the Wayspot in question has been removed.
Glad it’s been removed.
Weird thing is that is still shows up on features Wayspots. Guess it’s just an unaccounted for bug.
I wonder if @NianticCasey-ING can request looking into it, like happened previously with the cemetery nomination that was featured.
Hopefully, or someone like @NianticKN-ING or @NianticGiffard can look into why this user still can submit and possibly review despite clear violations of community guidelines.
* Clear violations that have resulted in being banned from the Wayforum.
@Gabriel0322-PGO
@Dice976jr-ING (the ING account to Gabriel03221-PGO)
@welzy08-PGO
Thanks for flagging this! We will have it reviewed and follow-up as soon as we have information to share.
Gabriel03221 is the PGO account linked to @Dice976jr-ING, which is an alt account used by @Gabriel0322-PGO, who returned here a few months ago as @welzy08-PGO. And this is just 3 known accounts of his that have actually been used on the Wayforum this year. There were at least as many accounts used in the Wayfarer section of the Ingress community forum.
It does come off as a bit of a slap in the face that somebody with so much abuse associated to them gets to make the front page of Wayfarer site.
We've long known how arbitrary the Featured Wayspot algorithm is (mentioned here https://community.wayfarer.nianticlabs.com/discussion/2147/featured-wayspot-selection-algorithm and also https://www.reddit.com/r/NianticWayfarer/comments/gaccwx/featured_wayspots_location_s6_cell_theory/)
I have had over 200 nominations approved this year and have never been "Featured" because of where I am in my region. Meanwhile this known abuser gets the "honor."