Pokestops being powered up by additional photos will lead to photo abuse
GearGlider-ING
Posts: 1,331 ✭✭✭✭✭
So on The Silph Road, the latest text updates were mined, including a part that said:
If you scan this location or add a photo, the location will gain location points. When the location is powered up, it will provide bonuses depending on its level.
And since us the reviewer deal with photo reviews, I can already see a DELUGE of photo reviews of every trainer submitting their own photo to try and power up wayspots to the point where we'd have to sift through photos of floors, selfies, random pokemon screenshots, and just poor photos of the wayspot in general. Which can clog the queue and make actual wayspots harder to get through.
@NianticGiffard is there a way you can get confirmation that there's at least SOME plan to make sure this doesn't get abused like the crazy location abuse in come areas, or to make sure the queue doesn't suddenly get CLOGGED with photo reviews to a ridiculous degree?
Comments
Even if there's no abuse, it will still lead to a lot of very similar pictures, so I fail to see the point. I understand if it's the scanning, but if it's pictures that will require reviewing (and appear in the game) then it's crazy.
I tried to add a picture to a location in my area two months ago (just to improve the picture, as the original one is not very good). No feedback at all since... I think we all agree that it's already clogged enough as it is.
Agreed. This flood of horrible photos is gonna be exhausting.
Unfortunately I don't know how much say the Wayfarer team has got in the development of this.
We were already told that they've got no access to the AR scan system, which this new feature seems to be related to.
I continue to wonder about the way Niantic is managed as a company.
I second this. Or third this. Or Nth this. If there's an incentive to add photos then it should only reward high-quality ones. My teammates and I have spent a lot of time trying to eradicate really horrendous main photos submitted by one player (and it's an ongoing effort). With the Wayfarer system already overloaded it's hard to imagine adding more load to it is going to be a net win for players.
Given this is a datamined feature, I imagine this thread is not long for this world. If this is an accurate reflection of what they're planning to implement, though, hopefully there's more to this than we're seeing, such as a very limited availability of photo submissions for powering up (similar to how only certain wayspots will give rewards for scans in Ingress or Pokémon GO) or some kind of new pipeline for photo reviews outside of Wayfarer (not sure what that would look like).
For comparison, I've been submitting photos since they opened submissions worldwide in April. I just received my first photo decision this morning.
A (PoGO) friend on my area actively adds lovely photos to some of the more active play areas - a downtown "sculpture park." Her photo contributions are a breath of fresh air compared some of the (to be frank) terrible photos added from day 1. Being a very active reviewer, I have never seen her contributions in voting, but I do enjoy helping up-vote them once approved.
On the contrary, I the photo contributions I do review are generally people showing off their recent catches or selfies.
Anyways, I can't wait for more contributions that are irrelevant or downright abusive.
The last thing we need is even more work.
Well, the photo reviews that were all coming in from one place were a contributing factor to me not reviewing. The photos weren't vast improvements. With the rural priority given to photo reviews, I don't believe I will be able to get the few photos I submit done. If I am effectively unable to use the system there's no point in reviewing. Effectively using the system means I get a result in a reasonable time. There's no reason for rural priority photos. Could you at least cut the available photos to 3 per cycle if if the nonsense is implemented?
I can understand the incentive is to get the Pokémon GO folks scanning as many do not as they still believe it “removes stops”. If it was only boosted from additional scans, I’d be all for it.
I've sense the 'horror' already. Just look at this:
Someone, or some local players, are putting a total of 8 photos of a same Wayspot, with different angle and time. They're all look the same, and when a generic reviewer gonna review this, he/she might either choose 'all photos are meeting criteria', or choose photos taken at night and maybe some blurred-a-little ones, leaving the remaining left unharmed.
Backdays people were using Ingress to abusing this as much, but after photo contribution added to GO and now Pokestops will be powered up by additional photos..., well you can imagine the chaos resulted by this.
But why would 'the generic reviewer' remove valid pictures? Even if they are similar it's not correct to randomly pick some of them and saying they do not meet criteria when they do.
I will say I was guilty of this... Before I really knew what the process was. But in the end for my area it takes over 6mo for a photo to be approved. And I only got 1 stop approved and this was well after I had already submitted many stops in the area (now 8 in the cell).
Now I just add photos when the existing one/s are out of date, or just look gross (or shouldn't have been approved in the first place)
I have observed that the gym creation rule seems to be changing though. Brand new wayspots have been becoming the gyms when the rules state thats impossible. Also wayspots that don't have any additional photos or likes have been becoming gyms too.
So if the "rules" for gym creation haven't already been changed... It should probably just be oldest wayspot, or most interacted with becomes the new one. Or just totally random.
Those are rookie numbers. I've seen this in a group once.
Thanks for surfacing this, @GearGlider-ING! Currently, we are aware of this problem and will be monitoring for abuse. In the meantime, if you come across bad/duplicate photos, you can either reject them by not selecting the photos or flagging the photos for abuse.
Thank you, knowing that the Wayfarer team is aware of how this can be abused, and will monitor for abuse of it, helps.
"reject them by not selecting the photos" is the exact opposite of how reviewing works. Wayfarer asks us to select the photo we DO want rejected. So, what system are you talking about?
Ignoring the fact that you just described the opposite way the system actually works, how am I supposed to know which one to reject if there are two similar photos? If I pick one at random, and everyone else picks one at random it sounds a lot like the end result is going to be both being in the game. Can you please start indicating which photo is the current "active" one?
Submitting dozens of slightly different photos is not abuse. It's exactly what Niantic wants you to do, as they want as many photos of their Wayspots as they can get. As a reviewer they want you to approve every eligible photo, even if it barely different than the existing photo(s).
Abuse would be all the selfies, pictures of unrelated objects and otherwise unusable photos people will submit to try and get whatever rewards come from it without providing Niantic the data they want.