Feature request: Let highly-experienced reviewers help out areas without enough reviewers

Hosette-INGHosette-ING Posts: 3,469 ✭✭✭✭✭

There are many places around the world that don't have enough reviewers to get things approved, at least not in a reasonable timeframe. I would love to be able to help out areas like this but setting my bonus location for six months is more of a commitment than I am willing to accept.

I propose a fairly simple solution: Highly-experienced reviewers who maintain a great rating should be able to change their bonus locations more frequently. I would suggest that maybe 5000 agreements would be the minimum level of experience for this, a minimum frequency of two months for people who qualify, and you have to be rated as great in order to change if it's been less than six months. Experienced reviewers with great ratings are exactly the kind of people who would be most valuable for helping out in underserved areas.

Would this allow highly-experienced reviewers to change more frequently for other reasons? Sure, but I don't think that's a bad thing. You have to work pretty hard to get that much experience, and it would be a nice perq for people who do.

Comments

  • patsufredo-PGOpatsufredo-PGO Posts: 4,215 ✭✭✭✭✭

    I would prefer to have an additional bonus location, though. So you can help two regions at once.

    Speaking of helping people, try check this one:

    https://community.wayfarer.nianticlabs.com/discussion/12645/reviewers-in-kabul-afghanistan#latest

  • oscarc1-INGoscarc1-ING Posts: 366 ✭✭✭✭✭

    I would love a monthly bonus location and to get rid of the infernal cooldowns (10 reviews and you're finished is a joke). Would love to jump around the world and help out where it's needed, doing the FevGames Puzzle A Day challenges each day has been a good way to learn the cultures and nuances of various countries.

    A whole year to a single location, no thanks. Make it more of a novelty and it will be more fun, create more frequent Wayfarer challenges and allow anybody to participate.

  • Nadiwereb-PGONadiwereb-PGO Posts: 1,119 ✭✭✭✭✭

    Yeah, there are lots of places like this. People think that it's bad when their nominations don't get into voting for months unless they upgrade, but there are places where nominations don't get approved even after being in voting for years. My bonus location is in West Africa since November, and I reviewed lots of nominations that did't even have supporting pictures, which means that they've been in the system for a huge amount of time.

  • Mormegil71-INGMormegil71-ING Posts: 202 ✭✭✭

    This is a great idea! I also would like the bonus location area set back to 1+8 S2 L6 cells instead of 1+8 L7 cells. The change has cut down the area one can cover to just 1/4 of what it was, so you have to concentrate on the cities. That makes it even harder for rural areas.

  • Nadiwereb-PGONadiwereb-PGO Posts: 1,119 ✭✭✭✭✭

    Sierra Leone. I got reviews from Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia. But I haven't received one from there in a month, so i guess I got through all of them.

  • HaramDingo-INGHaramDingo-ING Posts: 1,725 ✭✭✭✭✭

    Definitely. I reached the end of both Samoa and Tonga's queues excessively quickly and waiting for another year in-between each bonus location change is sad. Even if I do get to focus on my own country and own area's nomination, someone else out there is still waiting for months and years to no end.

    How Niantic will incorporate this will have to have profiles and individual Wayfarer users scaled and measured in tiers. Like, qualifiers for example (i.e. number of agreements, current rating, etc), don't know how they would come about it, but I'd reckon a lovely feature request like this will probably be skimmed over.

  • Mormegil71-INGMormegil71-ING Posts: 202 ✭✭✭

    Reaching "the end of the line" like that is probably also due to the submitters there seeing that nothing gets approved of, ever, and just quitting. I guess you could try to recruit more reviewers at those places to get things moving. But then we have the problem with people not being able to change their locations more than once a year, again. :/

  • purplepopple-INGpurplepopple-ING Posts: 189 ✭✭✭

    Not unless a person knows the language and some of the culture. I review in Spain and some of the language issues as a non-native speaker boggle because of coloquial phrases... And I still don't understand Basque or Catalan to really be reviewing those. Spanish yes. But Basque? Oye.

  • Hosette-INGHosette-ING Posts: 3,469 ✭✭✭✭✭

    @PoppleinMadrid-PGO I've reviewed things in other languages before by using Google Translate and some judicious web searching, and some of my reviews are currently on another continent than the one I live in. I've found that submissions in emerging areas tend to be simpler and more straightforward with lots of religious buildings, sporting fields, playgrounds, etc. My experience is that trickier submissions tend to show up in areas that are already somewhat dense.

  • Kellerrys-INGKellerrys-ING Posts: 696 ✭✭✭✭✭

    Similar experience as Hosette above.

    At least in Europe "local" nominations can be more difficult, not to mention require translator tools.

    Change of bonus location makes the tedious reviewing slightly less boring for a while. When I ran out of nominations from my current bonus location in Africa, my motivation took a dive.

  • purplepopple-INGpurplepopple-ING Posts: 189 ✭✭✭

    Google Translate isn't the default on most phones. My new one just doesn't do translate of the page; it becomes cumbersome to do.


    for example, I just reviewed as Basque language one of what was a playground I suspect was in the airport. Had zero clue what that said. I wasn't going to Google around to check said airport actually had a playground inside. I just went, "beech. Another playground." Everyone passes playgrounds here, along with fountains and football ⚽️ fields.

    As I have had stuff that clearly should pass based on criteria get dinged for reasons that make no sense like blocks ambulances, does not exist, is private property, (and this happening repeatedly) I don't have faith that people do half the dilligance I do.

    Also, Google Translate sucks horribly in many cases. Google Translate almost always gets thr wrong sex for women in Spanish. It turns female saints into men.

    Added to that, you don't know the culture or what those religious things are. Religious things in Mexico are often alters to the Virgin Mary on private property. (And anything but Catholic Churches is unlikely to pass when it comes to church buildings.) In Spain, we get iconography on private homes used as stops during Semana Santa. None are technically eligible. In Spain, I don't pass them... but I live here and can tell a private building from a store, and in small towns they often look alike.

    You haven't convinced me you could do that or most people could do that.

    My second reviewing location is Tinian (which picks up Saipan) in the CNMI. No clue how many reviewers there. I lived there for a while. The submissions are all in English, none in Chamorro (which is sad for separate reasons) and even then I feel like I sometimes struggle...

  • Hosette-INGHosette-ING Posts: 3,469 ✭✭✭✭✭

    @Kellerrys-ING YES!

    I think that different people are motivated by different things when they are reviewing. Some are trying to get upgrades. (Not me, I'm always capped.) Some want to populate their local areas. (Mostly not me, since my area has been heavily populated for years though I do enjoy spotting the occasional new street art nearby.) Some are motivated by badges. (Not me, got onyx a while ago.)

    My motivation, especially during the pandemic, is virtual tourism. I enjoy seeing new places via Wayfarer, and I'll sometimes take a couple of minutes to go for a walk via street view while I'm reviewing. I would love to review new places every couple of months, not just because I want to help populate those areas but also because it's a nice change of scenery while living inside the same four walls 24/7 for a year.

  • In response from my post: I agree, however it should be language specific. That said, the the Time Frame usage maybe a much easier algorithm for Niantic to implement vs my recommendation of range.

  • Nadiwereb-PGONadiwereb-PGO Posts: 1,119 ✭✭✭✭✭

    What should be language specific? If you mean that reviewers should only get submissions in their own language, then I disagree. I'm perfectly capable of reviewing submissions in just about any language as long as Google Translate can translate it to English.

    Cultural differences can be a much bigger problem, but then again, you can choose your bonus location, so presumably you'd choose a place where you're confident you won't be clueless about stuff.

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