Where am I going wrong?
HankWolfman-PGO
Posts: 4,895 ✭✭✭✭✭
Let me first start by saying I feel like I'm a competent reviewer and submitter, with a decent grasp on the eligibility, acceptance and rejection criteria. Review wise, I am in great standing with roughly an 80% agreement score. As for submissions, the vast majority of my nominations go through first time, and on the odd occasion when they don't, I can usually pick up on what needs to be improved and get it accepted (sometimes we do make little mistakes after all).
I am having trouble with one particular nomination though, which I am certain is eligible, but it keeps getting rejected. The rejection reasons don't tell me anything that I can really do to improve my nomination (people keep picking "does not meet criteria" despite the fact I feel I've done a good enough job explaining why it does, and I've even had people reject it for abuse previously, which I put down to them simply being unable to come up with an actual valid rejection reason and not wanting to adhere to the actual criteria guidelines - I'm a seasoned reviewer and know that people don't always pick valid reasons to reject). The most recent iteration of this nomination is below.
Now first off, I realise that's a *lot* of supporting info (the supporting picture which I've not included shows the banner in the window that says they won Curry House of the Year 2018, and also shows a newspaper article that they have pinned up inside the restaurant from when they won this award). My reason for that much info is that in previous iterations, I didn't have as much information (for a while, I didn't realise you could add so much extra text to a nomination using an edit on Wayfarer, so I tried to keep things as compact as possible). I figured more information would allow the reviewer to make an informed choice about the nomination, as this is always something I appreciate when reviewing things myself (though I am autistic, so maybe other people don't like having all the details? That's part of why I'm asking for help though!).
I included links to both the eligibility and acceptance criteria pages, as I know not all reviewers will have seen the criteria refresh from the end of last year. I also included links to trip advisor to show that it has a high popularity with other people that have visited it, and that it's not just my own love of curry (though I included my own testimonial as well). What more can I do? This restaurant is small, but it's easily one of the best local independent restaurants in the area (and has the awards to prove it) and, if I take the criteria at face value, then it definitely ticks the boxes that it needs to tick to be accepted (great place to be social with others, permanent place, safe and accessible, and contains accurate information). It also doesn't meet the rejection criteria as it is most definitely not "A generic business, chain, or franchise that is not locally unique".
Any help from fellow reviewers (and indeed from Niantic representatives if they feel like chiming in on whether they think this is a good nomination) would be much appreciated. I feel this place is more than worthy of being a wayspot, and I will not give up on it easily, and I hope others here see the value of it as well.
Also, as a side note, the upgrade was not my choice. I probably would've rather kept it un-upgraded, but I got the 5 free upgrades and they were applied to all 5 nominations I had in voting at the time.
Comments
(I haven't checked surroundings or street view if something could "harm" your submission)
But based on the provided information : picture, description and additional information this is an eligible and acceptable submission.
You explained very well why this is not a simple generic business, why it's a nice place to be social with friends, how it's popular/considered hot spot with Trip advisor reviews.
Can you find any ref/URL to the "news article" and any other media about this "Curry House of the Year 2018" award? This may help to "add some weight" to your claims.
(Also, try to see what's the best street view angle and try to take a 2nd picture that can help reviewers to locate this business.)
Otherwise, don't give up and try again!
I did try looking online for the article, but the local newspapers don't seem to keep many articles stored on their websites - I'm unsure if they do this just because it saves on website space, or whether it's because the physical copies are available at the library/records office, and thus an online record may be slightly redundant (though I would think having both would be useful). I did hope the picture of the physical copy would suffice, but I can try to get in touch with the people who produce the paper and ask if they have got an online record that I just haven't managed to track down yet and can link to. Thank you for the suggestion :)
Far too much supporting text, 3/4 of this will not be visible to reviewers due to a character limit on the review screen. Get a better, direct photo of the curry house. For the supporting info, just get a close up of the award banner. Don't bother with mentioning Trip Advisor - too easy to fake stuff on that site.
Make you text short and to the point. Do not tell reviewers "this is eliglble because.......", or "this should meet all the relevant criteria", good reviewers should know what is eleigible and these sorts of comments can annoy some reviewers. Your supporting info should be something like:
"Award winning restaurant, Curry House of the Year 2018. See https://starbecktandoori.co.uk/ for more details. Very popular independant local restaurant in Harrogate"