Improving the system
WheelTrekker-ING
Posts: 3,275 ✭✭✭✭✭
We have seen so many issues with incorrect rejections, people that don't understand criteria, abuse, etc...
In order to improve the system we need several changes and I'm going to try to outline some possible improvements, I'll create a separate poll for each one so we can discuss the details and try to find out something that can be presented to Niantic as proposals for improvements backed by this community. You'll find that these ideas aren't new.
The first issue is the automatic usage of Upgrades. This should stop and an upgrade should be applied only when the wayfarer selects a nomination that they want. Many people report that they stop reviewing when they think that they are going to reach an upgrade but they want to use it for a nomination that they still haven't send, and it is also an issue for new people that aren't aware of "upgrade next" and they find out that the upgrade that they have earned has been applied automatically to a nomination that it's not their prefered one.
Goal: Avoid the usage of an upgrade in a nomination not desired by the Wayfarer. Prevent that people stop reviewing because they don't want an upgrade at that moment.
Allow us to store more than 10 upgrades. There are people that might review a lot but at that moment they are not sending any nomination, so when they reach 10 stored upgrades they lack that incentive to keep on reviewing. An upgrade is something hard to reach and by itself it's not useful, you still need a nomination slot, so increasing the number of stored upgrades would be beneficial without any direct drawback in the system. At the very least I think that people should be able to store 20 upgrades, but a higher number like 50 would be enough to most of the people.
Goal: Keep those reviewers that spend a lot of time on Wayfarer as they get more upgrades to use later when they send more nominations.
Next improvement is the ability to send again a nomination that has been rejected. If you use Ingress and are within 25 Km of the nomination you can send it using a remote nomination, but this should be simpler and available for every one. It would use a nomination slot like any other nomination. In order to use it you would go to the rejected nomination in Wayfarer and it would have a button "Renominate", that would open a dialog explaining that it will use one of your nomination slots, allow you to edit the texts (title, description, supporting info) and then send again.
Goal: Equal opportunities for Ingress and Pokémon Go, renominate a rejected candidate without traveling back to that location.
Big change: appeal ONE rejection reason. We've seen so many nominations rejected with totally wrong rejection reasons. This proposal doesn't suggest that Niantic would review and approve the nomination, only that you can appeal one of the rejection reasons in your nomination using for example one upgrade (it must cost something or otherwise everybody would appeal every nomination), then a Niantic's employee would review that rejection reason: a picture of a house rejected due to "live animal", the person that used that rejection reason is doing a bad job in Wayfarer, maybe the nomination is not valid due to other reasons, but that reason is bogus and it creates issues as people are unable to understand why their nomination has been rejected.
If Niantic agrees that the rejection reason is wrong then the reviewers that selected it are notified that they have failed a review, maybe hit them with a cooldown and force them to take the test again. If someone gets another strike for a bogus rejection again, then the cooldown would increase. The original nomination remains rejected.
Goal: prevent bogus rejection reasons, educate reviewers about criteria and in the end help the system by removing bad actors that force valid nominations to appear several times up for review.
Test for nominators: Of course we can't go only about bad reviewers, there are so many bad nominations. The first step is that when someone is able to nominate they should be send first to the wayfarer site, they must read the guidelines, criteria, etc... and then pass a simple test that ensures that they don't make basic mistakes. Much simpler than the one for reviewers, focusing on things like "don't request a pokestop", "don't send a picture of anyone", etc... And by all means: In Pokemon Go adjust the nomination screens so they don't ask people "why is this a good pokestop".
Goal: prevent basic mistakes by new users. Don't clog the queue with useless garbage. Prevent frustration by new users that don't understand why it has been rejected.
Poll: https://community.wayfarer.nianticlabs.com/discussion/15575/improving-the-system-test-for-nominators
Please, vote in each separate poll and/or suggest refinements for each of these proposals. I'm sure that I'm missing some bits at the moment and that they can be improved, but overall these ideas have been floating around for a long time and it's time for Niantic to acknowledge them and work in order to provide a better experience for everyone involved.