Wayfarer system improvement

Berga997-PGOBerga997-PGO Posts: 3 ✭✭
edited July 2021 in General Discussion

Hi everyone, atm the review times can be pretty long in many places, so an improvement of the whole system is pretty much needed. The upgrades don't really resolve the problem (although they mitigate it) and the last wayfarer challenges (who don't resolve it neither, but at least they are still a good starting point) showed it: even if you get some of them, if too many wayfarers get them, the whole system gets slowed. What is needed is an incentive to make players review (possibly with good results, but this is another problem) daily: the upgrade at 100 agreements is too slow to get (and in some areas without reviewers almost impossible) and lowering the target would only slow the upgraded nomination, making upgrades even less desiderable.

Imo the best way to handle this would be to give an in-game reward each agreement (or every x agreements) to reviewers (i play only pogo and i can''t really help Ingress and WU players without knowledge, so i'd like some suggestions/opinions): ie in pogo players could get 1 gold every agreement reached, still capped with the usual total 50 daily gold given by the gyms (in this way there wouldn't be any unfair advantage bewtween reviewers and other players, everyone can still enjoy the game without downsides); in this way you would incentivize the reviewers, but also help rural players (but also others who can't get into gyms, reducing the frustration given by toxic behaviours of some players), getting some gold to takes pokeballs, remote passes (or limited boxes) and let them enjoy more the game. Imo the coin rewards would be the most interesting, but other (items) could also work.

The review quality wouldn't be too much affected, since if you want to get rewards you have to review "well", so it's a win-win situation imo. In this way the review minimum level could also be lowered, since more players would like to review (and they would get more confident with good/bad wayspots they could nominate later). Obviously there's always the problem with bad reviewers (the criterias got clearer, but often this isn't enough), but, with wayfarer "more advertised" by these rewards, the community could get a very huge help.

What's your opinion on this idea? Could it work? Could it get better? Or is it bad/useless?

Comments

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

    One thing to be cautious of is creating perverse incentives. There have been multiple times in the history of OPR where reviewers had a (real or perceived) incentive to do a lot of reviews and get agreements. They figured out that the quickest way to do this was to reject everything. While they certainly racked up a lot of agreements the outcome really wasn't very good.

  • Berga997-PGOBerga997-PGO Posts: 3 ✭✭

    I didn't think about that, it could be a problem. I'm not sure about a solution for this, there'll be always someone who will try to abuse the system, sadly. Still, with the rewards "capped" (and also not wayfarer-exclusive), I hope the idea of "more reviews/rejections = more rewards" would not prevail over "better reviews = less time to reach an agreement = faster rewards", since not everyone will try to abuse this

  • tp235-INGtp235-ING Posts: 1,383 ✭✭✭✭✭

    We still think that free rewards (avatars and poses) are fine, but pokecoins and item rewards are not desirable.

    If that's the case, it would be a more favorable incentive overall to delay reviewing players who can only submit spammy, low-quality candidates, and prioritize reviewing players who submit high-quality candidates.

    Neither Niantic nor we should want low-quality POIs. It's because they are submitted with useless upgrade applications that they are delayed.

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

    @Berga997-PGO If rewards were effectively money, which they would be with PoGo coins, I'm 100% certain that a bunch of reviewers would take this route. It wouldn't be universal but probably the Universal Naysayers would dominate in some areas.

    My suggestion has been that people get a very limited number of submissions, like maybe one per month, and they can earn more by reviewing. This might create an "accept everything" incentive but I think that Niantic's honeypots could be enough to keep that under control.

    Also, one of the ways that Niantic can make queues move faster is to help people submit less garbage. My estimate is that at least 50% of the queue is complete and utter rubbish. If Niantic guided submitters better then probably half of the garbage wouldn't get submitted.

  • Kuleisbjorn-PGOKuleisbjorn-PGO Posts: 112 ✭✭✭

    People abuse this already, because a rejection needs less votes than a nomination getting accepted.

  • Freakmaster5050-PGOFreakmaster5050-PGO Posts: 60 ✭✭

    That is an easy fix. Flag accounts that continuously give out rejections. If they are doing so serially, then they get banned.


    honestly they should already be doing this. So many bad reviewers out there that ban everything that isn’t explicitly listed in criteria.

  • SeaprincessHNB-PGOSeaprincessHNB-PGO Posts: 1,608 Ambassador

    The problem with tying rewards to quality submissions is that people in areas with not much to submit get punished unfairly. It could also create bottlenecks when multiple players in the same area all submit the same 5 star candidates instead of working collaboratively because they want to be the one who gets the reward. In my area, we have people who will scour Google Maps looking for good submissions (tennis courts, playgrounds, etc). We add those things to a custom map so anyone who wants to make a submission but doesn't know where to go can find a good candidate. We have over 200 things identified and still keep finding new stuff all the time. We work pretty well together, allowing each person to "handle" their own playing area. I'd really hate for that to become a cut-throat endeavor where we all fight over submissions.

  • Roli112-PGORoli112-PGO Posts: 2,236 Ambassador

    So you counter a solution by saying it's not good because of rogue reviewers... But you're solution also has that problem, but suddenly honeypots could control them for yours?

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

    @Roli112-PGO I try to think about issues systemically, and I understand that situations that seem similar are not always symmetric in terms of incentives and behaviors.

  • Berga997-PGOBerga997-PGO Posts: 3 ✭✭

    Honeypots could work well, if well used (I didn't find many info, usually I know they are a clear rejection, I'm not sure if there are other with a clear 5* rating. If not, they could also be added). In this way you would punish toxic behaviour by reviewers, in both ways (always 1*/5*). I also know that the rewards would be actual money (I don't know the equivalent for Ingress, but it would work in the same way, obviously), but, since the daily amount in pogo is very limited (50) and it can be earned by gyms, less reviewers would risk a suspension (or a ban) for it. Your idea imo is also good, although it could be viewed badly by the community (they could feel restricted), but surely limiting the submissions you would speed up the queue. And the garbage matter is always a problem, I think every reviewer feels the same, but it's not so easy to fix: surely with better and clearer criteria people would submit less bad wayspots, but a lot of them sadly just don't care about it, they won't get penalized (and they don't think about slowing the queue). I'd like to have a solution about this, but suspensions/bans would risk to hit also good submitters (ie if they're really unlucky with reviewers) and I can't think about "lighter" penalties.

  • Gazzas89-PGOGazzas89-PGO Posts: 2,619 ✭✭✭✭✭

    There is the issue that sometimes you just get a run of rejections, literally this morning g I had 16 rejections in a row of coal. It would need to be a fairly high level of rejections, but then people will just start randomly accepting stuff to beat the algorithm

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