Warning for "influencing" nominations
RoryKim-PGO
Posts: 4 ✭✭
I received this email earlier today:
Hello Trainer,
We have confirmed that you have been trying to influence other reviewers to vote on your nominations in a specific way.
We recommend you review the Nomination Criteria (https://niantic.helpshift.com/a/pokemon-go/?l=en&p=web&s=in-game-locations) before submitting any more nominations or edits and avoid using any unrelated information/codewords in your submissions. Note that any further violations can lead to the permanent suspension of your Wayfarer and your Pokémon GO account.
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I replied to them this afternoon asking for some clarification, but I'm curious if I can get other people's feedback here. I have never tried to "influence" reviewers to vote a certain way (at least not consciously?). I try to submit points of interest that fall under Wayfarer guidelines, such as sports practice areas (basketball court, tennis court, etc), playgrounds, churches, murals, Little Free Library, mile markers).
One thing I almost always post in the supporting information section is that it's "safely accessible from the sidewalk and/or parking lot". Sometimes I would add that it falls under Wayfarer guidelines for valid POI (which I wonder is what's being flagged as trying to "influence" reviewers). I submitted three different seating shelters at a park a few months ago, and explained that they were not duplicate entries and they were different shelters and they qualify as pavilions (which is an acceptable POI).
The only other thing I can think of are the location edits I submitted last year, which were valid (and accepted). I had some nominations that I submitted at a park that were accepted but were a tad too close to another stop in the game, so I suggested it be moved over just enough to show up in Pokemon Go (again, not trying to abuse the system but just wanting that particular pavilion or volleyball court to show up since it does in fact exist). Since there isn't a way to explain to reviewers what it is that I was trying to do, I would explain it in the "edit description" section. Again, I did these edit suggestions last year - and they were accepted - so I don't know if that's what I'm being warned for.
The warning kinda came out of nowhere and now I'm not so sure if I want to review or nominate anything ever again. I'm one of the more active members in my community when it comes to submitting Waypoints, and I never tried to game the system by falsifying points of interest.
Comments
" I had some nominations that I submitted at a park that were accepted but were a tad too close to another stop in the game, so I suggested it be moved over just enough to show up in Pokemon Go"
Bingo. Don't do that.
I'm not trying to be purposely obtuse here, but that's considered a bad thing? What purpose do edit suggestions serve (in this case, location edits)? The POI (pavilion, volleyball court, recreation center, etc) exists in real life; the Waypoint marker was only being moved over enough for the other stop to show up in the game. I wasn't trying to abuse the edit system to create a crazy cluster of stops (like I've seen posted in TSR subreddit).
Description edits are only supposed to... well... edit the description. Not to be used as a supporting information field for a location change.
It is a misuse that is often coupled with cell optimization (exactly what you described) and it's also something that Niantic has already claimed they don't like. You are supposed to change the location of a POI only to improve it (ie. to get it to a place that better represents it), not to move it to other cell so that it shows up in PGO.
When location edits first got added to user reviews, people asked for a supporting statement(and still do) but Niantic was emphatic about not adding that because they wanted move edits to happen without influence. So using the description or title edit is basically two forms of abuse, it's not what it is for, but you're also using it to end run around their intent for reviewers to make their own judgement.
And to clarify on the move edits, moving is for when the pin isn't on the poi, not for moving the pin around on the poi. Even if you can keep the pin on the poi by moving it from one side to the other to cross a cell line, that's manipulation.
re: the first part of your comment. So when I submitted my first two location edit suggestions last year, they were both rejected. Because reviewers didn't know which one to choose. I've run into this issue many times when reviewing other people's location edits as well. It's frustrating that there isn't an appropriate section to explain why you're suggesting a location edit. Now that I know this is frowned upon, I'll refrain from making any location edits (or any edit suggestions really) in the future. I was caught off guard by the warning of possible permanent suspension of not only my Wayfarer account, but my Pokemon Go account.
Niantic has already established that description edits are only to improve the description. Using them for any other purpose, especially to communicate with reviews, is abuse. Niantic has also been on record that moving Wayspots just so that they would appear in a specific game is also classified as abuse. Location edits should only be done to make the location more accurate or to place the Wayspot at a logical "point of discovery". For example the front facade of a building is the logical point of discovery if the Wayspot is a building while the back of the building would not be a point of discovery.
To follow up on what @TheFarix-PGO said, here is the direct quote from Casey:
The location of the pin should accurately reflect the Wayspot's location in the real-world, regardless of whether it has converted into the desired in-app location or not.
As @TheFarix-PGO said, location changes should only be submitted to make the marker more accurate or if the marker were to be closer to a logical point of discovery representing a larger location (e.g. a welcome sign for a large park).
https://community.wayfarer.nianticlabs.com/discussion/comment/49710/#Comment_49710
There is also a stronger statement in the November 2020 AMA though you'll have to scroll down to get to it:
How close to the actual object or location should the pin be dropped in the nomination?
Since the main goal for Niantic apps, and therefore what the Wayspots should facilitate, is to explore and discover new locations around you, the marker pin should be on top of the object nominated. Submitters can verify the location selected before they submit the nomination but purposely moving the pin to manipulate a specific app’s gameboard is not allowed.
https://community.wayfarer.nianticlabs.com/discussion/10321/november-ama-your-questions-answered/p1
But it's exactly the point. People were refusing the changes because you were probably not moving it to a better point, but to a point that would allow it to show up on PGO. It's considered abuse.
See the AMA answer that was posted right above.
If I haven’t made any location edit suggestions this year, is it still possible I’ll get additional delayed warnings (and subsequently a permanent suspension) for any other suggestions I made last year? I guess this is more of a question for someone who works for Niantic.
edit: I just searched through my email for the last edit suggestion email I received. November 2020. I haven’t made any location edits this year.
Niantic is clearly doing database queries to look for location-description edit combinations and taking action on them. But there is also no clear statute-of-limitations for this type of abusive edits either. If you made any such abusive edit in the past, you will likely get a warning.
TL,DR: If you want to stop getting flagged as an Abuser, and also want Pokestops, make sure to place the pin where it would generate a stop. Not only does the company not care, but if it happens to become a gym, they will appreciate the extra revenue from raids done there.
The worst thing you can do on this forum is being honest. You will either get scrutinized to all hell or get warnings (like me).
Until now they didnt hit the biggest support-edit-user, that I know. So I doubt, that there is a general background check. Maybe the check happens, when somthing else is flagged for whatever reason. If there would be a general database check, then it would be impossible, that Niantic didnt find this players actions.
Afaik he did support edits to hundreds of portals, often twice. He used multiple text edits, because according to his statements there was a time, when edit reviewing time was boosted/prioritized, when there are multiple edits at the same out there for the same portal. So he had for example 5 support edits for one lcation edit....
Then he moved the portals to optimized locations, including tricks like reverse psychology and so on. And after earning additional pokestops he moved them back. Today this towns portals are all roughly correct located, because he moved evrything back to its original (or better) places. If you would visit that town now, you wouldnt recognize the abuse in PoGo ingame. No really hard clusters anywhere. There are additional stops evrywhere, but the density is not as high to see that abuse without comparing the situation to IITC with s2 plugins....
Since nowadays state of this city is fully fine, I would never snitch on him. Especially since Niantic is violating their own strike policy with these ban mails. They skip the 1st strike and instantly throw out the bans, that are part of a 2nd strike.
The mails dont fit the accusation, since the first paragraph (the one that reads like the accusation) doesnt even mention edits. It talks only about nominations. And since they do it for stuff, that could have happened long time ago, people cant remember, what they might have done wrong. So there is need for specific examples in there mail, so that this bans could have an educational effect. But Nianitc is unable to do education ...... since ever ....
Like I said, I wouldnt snitch on him. The town and its crazy amount of location edits is nethertheless a running **** in our social media. It has it's own telegram-sticker:
(this is the shape of the area of his town)
So that guy gets one's come-uppance, on a regular basis in our TG or discords groups. this is by far more educational than evry stupid and obscure ban mail, that says, that you shall re-read the criteria, but the criteria are hidden behind the wayfarer-login, that they block for this stupid bans 🤦♂️
But for all the lack of logic we have an telegram sticker too:
and this is why the location editing was restricted, because people like this forced Niantic's hand, people misusing and abusing the feature to gain Pokestops and gyms they should never of had to begin with.
It's also why, in my humble opinion, that I think title & description edits should be seen separately to location edits. That way, it would aid in cutting down some of the influencing of decisions a bit.
That's why Niantic should display supporting pictures. There should be the supporting picutre of the submission (if it had one), then there should be the possibility to send a new supporting photo.
Further there should be an explanation about the yellow man to check for streetview. Since Germany has nearly no streetview, I learned about that only from supporting statements, that explained how to use the yellow man. Today this is considered to be abuse, although it is only the part of the education, that would be Niantics task.... and they would put this on the same level as the above mentioned reverse psychology tricks.
Since Niantic isnt even able to handle fakers after 5 times of appeals with multiple fakes, then the assumption is, that they even rate these things higher than submitting lots of fakes. Totally underwhelming. I simply grab my popcorn and wait, how long it takes until they find the person, that I mentioned.
Nope. It's not persons like him. this town was only conspicuous because of the crazy amount of edits, that the people had to review from there. The town and its wayspot network is not suspicious. So it's by far no comparison to the hard abused clusters like the football field in Zaragoza, Plaza de Espana at Sevilla, Las Palmas Gran Canaria or other random spoofer spots.
And even at these spots Niantic hesitated to do something against the abuse. Only after begging in multiple threads here in this forum they did something for example at Zaragoza, but even after Niantic removed there stuff, there are now nethertheless way more stops then possible left.....
In the end ....
I reported and appealed at least 300 fakes on my own, and few more hundreds with support and preliminary work of other players here in this forum. And after all of that they treat me and others like trash.
I won't do that again. My volunteer work now reduces to submitting, and only barely reviewing for sometimes single upgrades.
And dont forget that this ban wave now is out there since lots of weeks. They had enough time to fix their useless mail. They didnt. Simply incompetence.
As @Raachermannl-ING says. You do and help Niantic where you can, you submit submissons, you try to correct wrong locations and report (although the game surface & options are reduced) wrong wayspots and then Niantic is not even able to prove the violation to prove what one is supposed to have done. Best of all if 2 different admins make 2 different statements 👍🏻 you know immediately that something is wrong here. The spoofer is even better, the Niantic are still pulling money out of their pockets with their actions, a red warning ... and out of nowhere you will be withdrawn from circulation for 30 days.