Did Niantic Break Wayfarer with Platinum Badges for Level up in Pokemon Go?
Oakes1923-PGO
Posts: 419 ✭✭✭✭
File this under, unintended consequences. (also TL:DR)
I've seen a few threads around stops and rejection issues as of late; either rejection reasons are absurd/nonsensical; or upgrading anything is almost an automatic rejection. I myself have had a few things that should have gone through get rejected and voiced my concerns over these. Now I will admit that after some thoughtful discussion I realized that on one or two of them I had overlooked something or my understanding of criteria might have been off, but for the most part I too felt like it was getting ridiculous.
Well I am now firmly in the camp of, unless it is absolutely, without question a perfect submission, in every possible way, its a guaranteed rejection when its upgraded. Here's the "quick" breakdown of why.
We had a newly leveled 38 trainer join our Pokestop Shop group. She turned level 38 two weeks ago and had gotten right to reviewing. She had even worked up to two upgrades before she even submitted her own pokestop submission. Her first choice was her local coffee shop. This is not a chain but a locally run shop that specializes in organic coffee. Farmhouse Roasters. They are in a downtown area and host (preCOVID) several groups each week including a local political party every Friday morning. It is the quintessential pokestop. Meets all the Niantic criteria to a tee. She was so excited, she kept asking us if her pictures were good, if her Title and description were good (FYI they were perfect). REJECTED WITHIN TWO HOURS.
The reasons where the following;
For those that are interested here is the link to the business... http://www.farmhouseroasters.com/
Everything about her post was perfect accept that the name of the business was Farmhouse Roasters, and is situated in an old FARM HOUSE. So people rejected, I guess cause they thought it was a farm? or a house? FYI the farmhouse (built in 1812) has been converted in offices and is in our "downtown" area.
Why are stops like this rejected by the community? One reason.... a platinum badge. Now that folks are charging to get to level 50 they are looking for the path of least resistance. Level 47 takes 20 platinum badges. I've been playing this game for over a year and have 6. But the Wayfarer agreements badge only takes 2500 agreements to get. In terms of ease of access it pretty high up there. But this alone does not explain the mass rejections. So why would folks mass reject everything?
Theory number 2: It takes far fewer rejections for something to not be a stop then it does agreements for a submission to be completed. If all these players are in here day after day rejecting anything that they can find a single wart on they are going to get a lot more agreements. If it takes more approvals for a submssion to be completed, it takes that much longer for you to gain agreements. Now you may not know what is agreed on after the fact, but you can track your total agreements very easily by the upgrade bar on your profile. The faster that moves the more agreement you are getting. Rejecting gets you move and your bar tells you its working (as does the tracker in game)
Now I know Niantic has never confirmed nor denied that it takes less rejections for something to be completed vs accepted. However I personally have enough anecdotal evidence to conclude that in my opinion. I have had several stops, that are 100% legit should be a wayspot (baseball field, public playground, historical plague) that are still sitting in voting after months because I haven't upgraded them yet, and other stops that were more questionable (historic town boundary marker, community garden, welcome sign to a multifamily housing complex) be rejected within a few weeks (again not upgraded). I think it would be naïve to think that it was purely happenstance that these are rejected while requiring the same amount of votes as something to get approved. My observations for nonpgraded stops, rejections happen faster, approvals take longer because it requires more agreement.
I realize that the intent of the badge was to get more people reviewing and clear the backlog but the system is set up for failure. Again unintended consequences. It is punishing the people that are in here to do the work right for the community and to help make their own game play that much more enjoyable. As with most cases a few ruin it for the rest of us which is why Niantic needs to come up with a fix or this will only get worse as more people continue to level up.
I'd love some constructive feedback or other observations/theories from other fellow wayfarers.
Comments
Reject reasons have been absurd/nonsensical for a long time. If people see something they don't like they'll pick the wierdest things just to get it off their screen as fast as possible. There's still a lot of confusion surrounding local businesses and the recently removed "generic business" reject reason. Expect them to be difficult to get accepted and expect people to just pick random reasons when they can't find the button they've always pushed to reject them.
Now, I'm sure a lot of reviewers are just trying to get through nominations as fast as possible, but I'm not convinced it's because of badges, they might just as well be looking for upgrades. The fix is the same though, reviewers need to be reviewed. Someone(s) at Niantic need to randomly check finished reviews and "reward" people who make obviously wrong decisions. They don't need to review every single one, just enough so that word gets around and reviewers don't dare to game the system for fast agreements.
While I agree that this has been a problem for a while, I have noticed that since the level 50 cap was put in place things have gotten much worse. They took a flawed system and made it worse. Also I would contend its fairly well known that coffee shops are expressly allowed now, outside of a generic coffee chains (with some exceptions). Especially since upgrades are supposedly going to reviewers with a more skeptical eye or a much better understanding of the guidelines and are supposedly critiqued by those that should know better.
Because people has two kind of votes: the one they would use for theyself, and the one they have for anybod else :)
It wouldn't be the first time this has happened. I believe this also happened when upgrades first came out-- people figured out the easiest way to get agreements was to reject everything. They failed to notice the flaw in their plan, which is that their upgraded submission had a much higher chance of being rejected. There was another instance earlier than that, I think it was when the Ingress Recon badge came out.
Having said that, there are two important elements to a high-quality submission. The first is obviously choosing a high-quality candidate, which it sounds like your friend did. The second is presenting the submission well, and that includes working to make sure the submission is easily understood by reviewers. SOOOOO many people fail on that second part, then complain that their great submission was rejected. I have no idea how your friend did on that but it could have been a big part of the reason for rejection.
I personally haven't noticed a change in dumb rejection reasons, to be honest, but it could be regionally dependent.
As for the coffee shop, while it sounds like a neat place that I would probably approve, businesses like that are notoriously difficult to get allowed. I'd like to think that things will get better with the changed emphasis in the new criteria, but if there is going to be a shift in reviewer attitudes, it won't be overnight. That was all to say that I wouldn't take the fast rejection of any kind of business to indicate anything about the system overall.
I do wish your friend lots of luck with a resubmission, and I hope she used ever single one of the meager description and supporting info characters available to her to clearly state in detail what makes the place interesting and special! (She shouldn't rely on reviewers searching for it, etc.)
business’s have been hard to pass ever since i started to review in March 2020 and I’m sure it has been the same before that as well. It really boils down to your supporting info and description. Needs to have something that really stands out and never upgrade it as you want locals to review the business. Upgrading will send it to people not within the area who don’t care or have any previous experience with a business. Ive only submitted a handful of business’s and the only one i was able to get accept had there jerky flown into space. Other spots had lots of community involvement and was the only spot of its kind (Mexican restaurant) in the whole city. If thats any indication on the bar reviewers set for it that is it.
mind you if i see a business and i dont see a single link to support claims i tend to reject, unless its extremely unique where a coffee shop is not...
Not that I don't appreciate the feedback.... Sadly, most of the comments are focusing on the validity of her submission rather then the issue at hand. Trust me when I say the submission was spot on. It wasn't... "we need more pokestop/gyms". She gave details of the establishment the area surrounding area. We have a group chat and she was so nervous that she would mess something up. The group of us have 100's of stops submitted and accepted around town. Again it was a well thought out and accurate submission.
I guess I am hoping for more then this; more then the usual comment... or the "this happens all the time, nothing new... "
If this is the second or third time that this has happened then it should be something that they should have an answer too.
An appeals process would be great but I can see that just being another terribly backed up queue. I don't know the right answer but that is the conversation I am hoping we can move forward.
Im just saying unless its super unique its extremely hard to pass. With before or after the new system updates :/
I haven't seen anyone focusing on the validity of the nomination, but people ARE pointing out that these kinds of things are difficult to get through even when they're good candidates. I struggled with an old hotel with a very long local history this summer. This coffee shop not being approved does not necessarily provide the final proof that reviewers have suddenly turned evil over wayfarer badges.
You're still absolutely right that shoddy reviewing is a problem, and it is regularly brought up here. Not sure what else to say because it IS nothing new.
Ad hypothesis 1: The xp requirement for level 47 is 73.5 million. Currently, I am a level 40 player and I have collected 11 platinum medals so far. As I see it, every player, who is about to reach level 47 will by default have completed -at least- the 18 platinum medals for each pokemon typing as well as several others without even aiming for that. As a result, I don't see an incentive to even aim for the wayfarer medal, because it is a time consuming one. IMO the hunt for platinum medals being the cause for these alledgedly unfair rejections belongs into the realm of conspiracy theories. Perhaps I am wrong, but I hope that people have higher moral standards and use PoGo as a way to explore and perhaps even contribute to their community.
In my community, invalid requests take months to be rejected, so most likely you only have requests rejected in cells L9 with few portals and those that are still in voting are in cells L9 with more wayposts