Appeals process abuse - What fresh hell is this?
In the time that I've been following the waystop appeals section of this site, I've seen all kinds appeals. Overwhelmingly, they seem to be made in good faith by players who sincerely believe the wayspot in question should be removed for the good of the game and do their best to prove it.
When the appeals are denied it is usually due inconclusive evidence or a misunderstanding of the removal criteria.
However, recently I've come across some appeals that have proven to be deliberate attempts to remove valid portals. The method used is to claim a POI has been removed and use photos that have either been strategically cropped or taken from misleading angles as proof.
I've seen occasional suspect appeals before, but the submitters usually at least attempt some sort of legitimate reason. I've never seen blatantly faked photos before.
Is this common and I've just never noticed? Is there somewhere to report this kind of activity or should I just trust Niantic to catch it (none of the appeals have been approved) and that the system is working as intended?
Comments
I'd think even the abuse form won't be enough for this?
And yes, I saw that too.
Might not be the appropriate way to ask here, but can I have some links to the suspicious posts? I use an rss feed and only read the title country and skip. I must’ve missed quite a lot.
Edit: I found some that might be referred from this post. No need for the links.
Its pretty simple why:
Reason for me being here is that there are unlimited ways, limited only to the creativity of the abusers, to fake an appeal. And there is someone who is vouching the group, while the culprit has gone hidden.
Might be helpful if there is some preventive action so we don’t have to react every single time an abuse/attempt of abuse happens.
This isn't the first time that we can see such obvious abuse in the appeal section.
Why?: because they go unpunished.
This kind of abuse of wayfarer should deserve a total ban of any wayfarer activity: nomination, review, edits, etc..
Oh, I understand why, and I expect to see that kind of activity in the game. I'm just disappointed that it is appearing here in the community too.