Resources for New Explorers: Submitting a Wayspot - Discussion
Gendgi-PGO
Posts: 3,274 Ambassador
Cute guide, I guess, would have been nice 2 years ago when Wayfarer first launched?
You also left off the part where people making submissions should brush up on Wayspot Eligibility (https://niantic.helpshift.com/a/wayfarer/?p=web&s=wayspot-acceptance-criteria) before making a submission.
Will these resources be made available to more places than just here? Without in-game push notifications or Twitter posts, you're kind of "preaching to the choir," so to speak.
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Its... actually nothing new. Better criteria knowledge would be more important than how to "create an account" (which is wrong BTW, your account is your ingame account and you don't have to register, it's already registered). Also, I agree that this might have been more interesting in the past when wayfarer got released. Also, posting this here only would be senseless since this place is like one of the last "points" on the list of processes.
Submitting a Wayspot:
Step 1: Submit your Wayspot for review
This is a frankly horrible infographic. The first step is NOT to just blindly submit a wayspot. The first step is to read the current criteria, to learn what makes an acceptable wayspot.
It is inexcusable that this isn't detailed as part of the process, and frankly shows just how little Niantic cares about how all of us have to sift through so much garbage while reviewing. The fact that reading the criteria is literally grouped into the very LAST step of the process, behind that of submitting and reviewing, is just insulting to all of the people who take the time to actually do things correctly.
You missed the mark yet again Niantic. Do better.
Casey made a post over a year ago:
I do know that one of their priorities in the ongoing development of Wayfarer is reviewer education as well as reducing abuse of the Wayfarer system. While neither are easy issues to solve, the team hears your frustration and is investigating ways to address it.
Their post (https://community.wayfarer.nianticlabs.com/discussion/comment/21654#Comment_21654) was deleted but is saved in a comment of mine (https://community.wayfarer.nianticlabs.com/discussion/comment/47652#Comment_47652).
Who can share any examples of evidence of Niantic making reviewer education (or handling abuse) a top priority in the last year? And, you can't blame covid - this is all online.
I'd put money on a community member putting out a better infographic by the end of tomorrow, versus how much time they spent on this one.
No offense @NianticCasey-ING @NianticGiffard @AnsonNIA-PGO , but i think ours are better and more informative (and were nore timely)
The infographic posted by @AnsonNIA-PGO really seems to be more about advertising that wayfarer exists rather than being a resource of how to use it. As mentioned by others earlier, It would have been nice to have when Wayfarer first launched almost 2 years ago, but is kind of useless now. Good resources for beginners would be things going over basic criteria, such as the infographics Roli posted above. And having more clear, easily undertandable, easily accessible criteria would be a much more valued resource.
If Niantic asked for feedback about what infographics/resources would be valuable, I (as well as I am sure many of us) would love to give our feedback, but after having given feedback so many times on the forums to see Niantic continually making choices that ignore what users keep asking for, it feels like anything we say falls on deaf ears.
How much resources did you waste on that?
Then again, how much time and frustration has it saved everybody? It's much better than the Niantic offering.
As for the Niantic infographic, where the bit on the flow chart that says "Read the submission criteria - take the Wayfarer Test"?
Step 1 should be “read the criteria available at <link> and ensure what you’re thinking of submitting meets criteria.”
The info graphic doesn’t deal with what happens when your nomination is rejected either.
The infographics shared by @Roli112-PGO after your post were made and publicized (here, on various Facebook groups, Reddit pages, and various Discords) well over a year ago. Many people involved in the content of those guides were also involved in creating the video below (also shared by Roli) that is a far better resource than every Niantic effort combined. Meanwhile, Niantic has promised (probably a year ago, at this point) for videos and better training material.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=brUqzevjxAg
Re: your second paragraph
Ugh, so many times "we value your feedback and are actually working on this" but absolutely nothing. We ask for better criteria and they remove all prior guidance even though "our definitions haven't changed." We ask for more visibility on disagreements and they (proudly) give us dark mode (which was included in W+ years ago). We ask for more involvement (and they promise to be more involved and close out bug reports) and then continue to ghost us for months on end in bug reports, only to close them out with apparently no product testing.
What are you talking about?
Do you think that this picture from Niantic might help anybody?
"How to nominate: step 1: nominate the wayspot". What???
Niantic actions only lead to frustration all around.
I love that the simple 'follow along' guide puts learning about what makes a great wayspot right at the very end of the process. Well after submitting your wayspot and even after passing a quiz about what makes a great wayspot. As many have pointed out before, there's a huge part of the problem right there that either Niantic cannot see, or don't care to do anything about.
Where's the step about sitting back and waiting 12 months for your submission to be rejected as being a live animal? Or the bit about having to earn upgrades to free your stuck submissions? Or any mention that your Pokemon account might be suspended if you review something incorrectly.
They didn't even mention having to scrabble back through 4 year-old Ingress AMAs to find some arcane bit of knowledge that might make your submission invalid. That's the best bit of the whole process :)
Oh I'm aware of those infographics and have posted them to my Wayfarer community discord. That was kind of my point (I was writing way too late at night), that basically our community puts out more useful guides than the low effort post Niantic just made, and that we usually put it out faster too.
They didn't even mention having to scrabble back through 4 year-old Ingress AMAs to find some arcane bit of knowledge that might make your submission invalid. That's the best bit of the whole process :)
Oh, wait, you're forgetting that those don't matter, anymore! Ignore all previous AMA & Wayforum posts. We won't actually advertise this change, though, and oh our "definitions" haven't changed, so please do consider following those out of date guides that aren't catalogued on any Niantic website.
And dont forget that when you submit a pool, or a McDonalds playhouse matters... you may submit it when its eligible, but we might flip flop our decision and make it ineligible resulting in a rejection... so maybe submit them when theyre ineligible, so you can make the cut when they become eligible.
Unless you're in LA, then it doesnt matter, the criteria will have flip flopped 5-6 times before your nomination makes it out.
So I might just be an idiot or not connected with the youth social media, but has the new infographic been posted anywhere? I don't see it on the wayfarer site. Was it posted on Niantic's official twitter, Facebook, tiktok,
Google+, blog, etc? Or is this just a preview of more infographics/resources to come that will be posted all together at a later point?hopefully we stopped it in its tracks and it will never leave this server
Unfortunately they posted it on twitter. Luckily people there didn't like it either.
...to seeing your Wayspot arrive in your favourite Niantic game!
In the already established Niantic practice, the company continues misleading, holding information, lying to and abusing it's biggest player base.
You did it! (again)
Posted to Facebook too.....
Do you have the links? Just curious to read the backlash.
https://twitter.com/NianticLabs/status/1400497532103430144?s=20 for Twitter. Comments there are just sad. Mostly concerned with abolishing placement rules, getting pool supply stores unfairly denied, separating Ingress and Pokemon Go databases, etc. etc. etc.
Thanks. The typical dumpster fire we're used to buy thankfully doesn't make is its way to the Wayforum often.
Wonder what this means
Hopefully something as useful as this:
Given this reason, please ensure your submissions don't contribute clogging and we recommend checking the POI density before nominating.
"We understand your concern, Mika. Please write your details on a frisbee and throw them over a rainbow" 😉
Sounds like Mika should be suspended for abuse. They are deliberately "clogging" the system by not "checking for POI density" before submitting. If you somehow manage to see any quantifiable density while performing your usual checks, best not to submit anything.
Thank you - first laugh of the day for me here. :)
But I think it's a horrible idea for Niantic to even give this idea weight by discussing in DM. It appears, to the public, as though they consider this a genuinely valid complaint that they may be able to resolve. If there was more clear guidance that the database is Wayfarer, and the games used to submit are merely UI's for input, I think there would be less gnashing of teeth. Of course, taking submissions out of the games themselves, putting them in a standalone app, and removing all game-specific portal/pokestop language would help as well.
That tweat exemplifies all the reason why Wayspot submissions and edits should be separated from all the game aps and spun out into its own standalone app.