St. Cloud Abuse Update 6
AisforAndis-ING
Posts: 1,072 Ambassador
To no surprise, the abuse continues:
Fisk Funeral Home
https://intel.ingress.com/intel?ll=28.250331,-81.30271&z=17&pll=28.250331,-81.30271
Does not exist at this location / Private Residential Property. This is probably upwards of the 10th fake POI to be moved to this location. Please also take note to investigate the ingress player/account who deployed into this portal immediately after it was created.
Bubbling Fountain
https://intel.ingress.com/intel?ll=28.355468,-81.239828&z=17&pll=28.355468,-81.239828
Third abusive resubmission of a removed portal with no pedestrian access. This portal has already been removed twice by Niantic, and it’s restoration was also unsuccessfully appealed on this forum already.
Corporate Campus
https://intel.ingress.com/intel?ll=28.22833,-81.307139&z=17&pll=28.22833,-81.307139
No pedestrian access, in the middle of a road / median.
“4All2NJoy”
In Update 3 I went into detail about the “for all to enjoy” callsign that was being used to signal abuse, and in Update 4 I went into detail about the “4All2NJoy” alt account that was being used as a method of targeted harassment against me (by digging up my friend code and adding me in Pokemon GO), and how the matching Ingress account was repeatedly deploying into freshly created fake/abusive portals. Well it should come to no surprise that upon hitting level 10, this Ingress alt account immediately began submitting and reviewing while completely stopping normal Ingress gameplay. This is very clearly an alt account designed to circumvent prior bans that have been issued over the course of me reporting this abuse, and it needs to be investigated for involvement with the abuse. The person responsible needs to be punished on their main account, or they will just continue to do this.
The problem with this person not getting punished is that since this account hit level 10, multiple other new Ingress accounts have begun appearing on intel in the area, several of whom have names that match users who have come onto this forum and argued in favor of the abuse. The rampant alt accounts need to be dealt with, because if they are not, it only encourages them to create more accounts and this will become an even bigger game of ****-a-mole.
Comments
These guys just don't give up...
They haven't got a reason to give up as long as they can create new nominations.
NJoy? Nurse Joy. All? Gotta catch them all. 42? Golbat. I don't know where I was going with this.
I appreciate you for your continued attempt in flagging the reports to us, @AisforAndis-ING! We have reviewed it and have taken action on the 5 Wayspots and the 3 Wayfinders in accordance with our policies.
The question that I would really like an answer to is did you by chance geo fence those two PRPs that keep getting new POIs? I know you can't actually tell us that due to privacy and that is fine, but there should definitely be an internal discussion on that. It would greatly help with the repeated abuse if they cant even play in those locations. Or at least stop them until a local can privately prove to Niantic that there is actually something at that location worth being a POI.
I think they should be able to mark cells as abuse areas and make them very slow to have things move (only upgraded stuff moves, edits take very long and so on). It would at least slow things, making it harder to do all the abuse while not making impossible to get things through.
There was some talk about part of London being marked as an "abuse vector" and behaving exactly like what I'm describing.
Wayfarer and reviewers should have nothing to do with advocating to prevent someone from playing a game. There's enough nonsense calls for punishment as it is, which absolutely no one here has any business making. All of that belongs exclusively to admins (and certainly not preventing gameplay).
I get that apparent abuse is frustrating, but people need to ditch the revenge aspect of wayfarer. Admins really don't need any of us to tell them how to punish people, or even that they should punish people.
Did you not catch the "Until they can prove that a POI should exist there"? If they can prove to Niantic that a POI should exist there I am all for a POI being there. I am not advocating for a blanket punishment, these locations have had POIs removed for being on PRP on several occasions. all I am suggesting is that maybe another step needs to be taken. I also stated that Niantic didn't need to tell us. Does it super suck the St Cloud players keep having their POIs taken from them YES!!!! but clearly just removing the POIs is not doing anything, considering that this is report number 6. and I fully agree that it should be in Niantic hands, but something needs to change and I would prefer that it change for the people causing the issues instead of the entire community. Like what happened with edits.
It's quite clear that the actions taken thus far are not enough to deter the *same individuals* from doing them again. Something has to get their attention, maybe losing their account would do that.
We may discuss punishment as much as we want, it's clear it's not our decision anyway.
But I have to agree that keeping people from an area to play at all is way over the top, it just doesn't make any sense.
That's not actually your concern or anyone else's. Our concern isn't to seek punishment. It's not to deter or stop people from making bad POIs. We're not moderators or admins. The only thing we do is to provide input on the creation of new POIs and try to maintain their integrity that way. Seeking punishment for people because of how they create POIs is crossing a huge line. That is ONLY for Niantic to decide.
I mean, sure, flag the submissions and and report the moved POIs. That's fine? And I'm sure you see this case as totally valid and worth taking the hammer to people. But I come to these forums, watch people throwing around "abuse" left and right regardless of whether it really is abuse, and calling for smackdowns, and I see that the most prevalent abuse is actually the vocal minority using their power to @ Niantic to hurt players. That's power they should never have and it's been used to punish people who were not at fault for anything.
Continued calls for the express purpose of punishing people (instead of focusing on the POIs, which is what they should be doing) is just unnecessary and leads to the current powertrip that people are having. Niantic doesn't need you to tell them to resolve issues by punishing people. They're capable of that decision on their own, and whether they decide to punish or to do something else entirely isn't anyone else's problem. And it's also not up to anyone here to decide whether their actions are sufficient enough.
"Something has to get their attention." It's just map points in a corporation's database at the end of the day? I wouldn't choose to put my energy toward some justice or revenge for just that.
In this case it's pretty clear that it's abuse, it's repeatedly the same fake waypoints in the same locations all in the same town and the same accounts involved. Why should those reporting have to keep putting in all this effort just for it to sprout up again a week later?
Each and every one of us who takes part in this system is negatively impacted by folks like this, and if they can't play nice then they should lose access. That's really all there is to it. I'd expect the same for anyone breaking the rules in any game or system that involves other people.
I mean, sure, flag the submissions and and report the moved POIs. That's fine? And I'm sure you see this case as totally valid and worth taking the hammer to people. But I come to these forums, watch people throwing around "abuse" left and right regardless of whether it really is abuse, and calling for smackdowns, and I see that the most prevalent abuse is actually the vocal minority using their power to @ Niantic to hurt players. That's power they should never have and it's been used to punish people who were not at fault for anything.
@CipherBlakk-PGO
I agree that this happens too much and I also dislike it.
This particular thread is not that. Notice how it's "Update 6"?
There's a problem here that needs a more permanent solution.
It's not to deter or stop people from making bad POIs.
I think reviewers are absolutely meant to deter or stop people from making bad POIs. Is that not the exact point of reviewing and being able to reject things? If we weren’t meant to deter or stop people from making bad POIs, why wouldn’t Niantic have us stop reviewing and just accept every submission?
as a public forum we have every right to voice our opnions nad frustrations, whether Niantic listens or not is entirely up to them.