Excessive Photo Abuse in Sydney
HaramDingo-ING
Posts: 1,493 ✭✭✭✭✭
Consider this Part 2 of the ongoing legacy that is the ludicrous amount of abuse that reviewers in Sydney have to consistently stomach on a daily basis. No, I'm not talking about a certain disk on the ground, I am talking about the endless Pokemon GO screenshot photo submissions, all the associated edits that come with them and just outright abuse. I write for those who review in Sydney, Australia and surrounds. Especially when one of your fellow Resistance agents posts this in the Wayfarer channel, you know it's bad.
What you are able to see as you scroll down is roughly about one months' worth of abusive photo reviews. Exclusively photo reviews. And every single one of them is Pokemon GO-related: they would either include an AR photo with a Pokemon on it, a screenshot of them playing Pokemon GO, a screenshot of something Pokemon GO-related, or include other random garbage such as carpets, beds, dirty floors or furniture.
For your convenience, I have categorised each of the abusive photos below.
AR Pokemon (13 photos)
Screenshots of Pokemon GO or other related material (6 photos)
this kinda makes it obvious as to where the majority of it is coming from...
Screenshots which includes a certain app overlay (20 PHOTOS!!)
And this is a whole combination of bad
The sheer volume of people nominating photos using screenshots and submitting it is extremely jarring. Anyone reviewing in Sydney will have seen a subset of the above, and even though I want to review as much as I can, the fact that this is literally half of what I'm seeing, it's awful. Understand as well that the For example, the Lord Nelson Hotel would have a title edit as "Lord Nelson Hotel place", or the May Hollingworth Plaque will have a description edit adding "nice place".
But anyone who even has the slightest idea of what the certain app overlay which is pictured above should be culled. How would we stop people from contributing photos if these people are getting to Level 38 in a cinch? Let me assure you that it's almost certain that none of these people have even passed the Wayfarer test, because all they would rather do is do abusive stuff anyway.
No one should be able to contribute photos without passing the Wayfarer test, or the app should at least be able to block photos from the Pokemon GO or Screenshots photo! Please assist because this is literally all I'm getting for reviews and it is not fun, does flagging anything for abuse in-review really do anything?
Comments
There's one that even includes the spoofing app overlay and the player username. Amazing. It's like they don't even know they are doing something wrong.
Hence my request to prevent more of this:
There are still some flaws however, as stated by others.
Thanks for this.
There needs to be some immediate action as this is dreadful. I fully get how disheartening it must be to see this repeatedly. So some quick targeted action but longer term, find a way to learn from this and filter this trash out.
A suggestion is better than inaction. No matter how many times I flag something as "explicit/offensive/personal info", it just appears over and over again. Mainly because they are stacking the photo review with more and more photos each time (as you can see, they're mainly screenshots, or cropped versions of the original wayspot photo, which should actually violate copyright guidelines), and so they appear again, over and over again.
It’s not like Niantic is doing anything to stop them.
Here are twelve more that I have found since posting the above:
The recurring pattern is that every single one of these are located in Circular Quay, Sydney. From some lousy student's exercise book to random objects and Pokemon graphics and selfies. Like, is this even Wayfarer or is it like some dumb Pokemon-themed Tinder/Pinterest?
Every third or fourth review that routes is this garbage enough. So I don't even want to review. You know how long it takes to just click at each abusive item? It is timeconsuming and wasteful.
This needs to be prevented from the beginning. Enough reactive work, more proaction. Make selecting 'existing photos' a privilege that has to be unlocked. Give trust over time, not to people who think it's funny to just post this and waste everyone's time. No one wants to go through this.
Andis had a post about this but only posted one example. This thread now has 53 examples. Fifty-three. Five. Three. Examples. And this is going to grow by the day. I guarantee you that.
I'm also impressed at how some of these are still in circulation, given that I flagged them using the built-in feature in Wayfarer weeks ago...
It "almost" feels like nobody ever looks at those reports...
@NianticDanbocat no one from the wayfarer team has even commented to say they will look into it.
The Wayfarer team is woefully ill-equipped to handle this. They just can’t stop it. They have oversight of Wayfarer itself, but not of the games that create Wayfarer access, so they can’t plug these holes. Niantic has not given them the tools, nor the permission.
Read around the internet and you’ll find out that Niantic internally has an identity crisis: that it doesn’t know if it’s a tech company, a platform, or a video game developer, and as long as they remain confused about their long-term goals, they will continue to allow their short-term situation to damage their potential.
Pokemon Go makes them money right now. Lightship/Wayfarer does not. So until they reorganize to align with a cohesive long-range vision, this absolute garbage will continue unabated.
I agree that Niantic has got somewhat of an identity crisis - which is even worse coupled with their severe lack of communication skills - but I disagree that they're ill-equipped to handle situations such as this. They're fully capable of taking away any user's Wayfarer privileges - not just within the Wayfarer site, but the ability to edit or nominate in-game is fully within the team's control.
I think they're oddly underestimating how persistent abusers often are and for how long they often keep going. Also, how much it impacts reviewers' morale. It's really sad how many skillful reviewers have long quit Wayfarer due to these issues.
A couple of weeks ago, I flagged a photo submission of someone sticking the **** as "offensive content", but it's once again circulating, this time with another photo featuring the pokeball in a star overlay icon.
Here's 8 more cases of photo abuse I've gotten since the last post.
I am absolutely sick of reviewing people's legs, feet, and other dumb things and all these screenshots and random things. Wayfarer is not some sick fetish platform. You know what is worse than rejecting one photo? Rejecting over 8 of them and having to tap/click each one.
And since Niantic has decided not to acknowledge this because you are running a 24/7 game and are asleep every weekend, I'm just going to quit for a week.
This needs to be prevented from the beginning. Enough reactive work, more proaction. Make selecting 'existing photos' a privilege that has to be unlocked. Give trust over time, not to people who think it's funny to just post this and waste everyone's time. No one wants to go through this.
If they did this, I currently wouldn't be able to submit at all unless I was granted that privilege, as the Android 11 crash when trying to take photos for a submission in Pokémon Go still exists (as I found out personally two days ago). The only reason it seems to not be talked about as much is presumably because the existing photo option exists, and provides an acceptable workaround for the issue.
I'm not saying I'm against your idea, as I definitely would be completely outraged and fed up if I was faced with what Sydney reviewers are having to put up with, but they'd need to fully fix this crashing issue first.
From what I have read, is this the Android 11 crash which is detailed in these two posts?[1][2] It sounds as if Niantic is just resorting to such quick workarounds, but not really addressing the issue at hand (is it really just due to photo resolutions?)
I have the same issue too on my Huawei **** 20 Pro with photos being taken in-app, often resulting in crashes. But not when I take the photos separately with the camera app and upload using the existing photo anyway, like what gives, right? The only thing is to wait for @NianticTintino to address and get back with the existing bug report.
Anywho, radio silence otherwise, I guess this is a problem that Niantic does not know how to address.
Jesus m-fing Christ. Huawei Mait 20 Pro. Sick of these dumb as forum filters. Niantic hates Australia.
I think I’ve reviewed every single one of these. If I have to review the Sydney Obelisk one.more.time………
‘Why can’t people just leave stuff alone? What is the actual point of all the photo spam anyway?
Yup, that's the one.
Not sure if it's specifically to do with the resolution. Changing it works for some people (sometimes it's a permanent fix and other times it works for a while but then stops), but not for everyone. My guess is that it's something else, as like you said, the same photo taken outside of Pokémon Go can then be uploaded from gallery just fine by using the existing photo option, even though if you take it in the app, it crashes the game (and it's only photos taken during the nomination process that do this - AR/AR+ photos don't crash the game). I doubt it's a RAM issue either, as I never experienced the crash on a phone with 2GB of RAM, but do experience it on phones with 4GB+ of RAM.
Anyway, this isn't really the thread to be discussing it on. Just thought I'd bring it up as it was relevant to your suggestion about the feature being an unlockable privilege.
Here are another ten, bring the total to 71. It didn't take that long to find more to stockpile.
This is really just pure idiocy.
I appreciate you for flagging this, @HaramDingo-ING, we'll have your report prioritized.
If all you're going to do is give a slap on the wrist to these people, then you may as well not do anything at all. If this is to stop, REAL punishment must be handed out, as these are clearly massive-repeated offenses.
Heck, i've gotten bigger punishments for stating facts on these boards.
Do you wish to let Giffard caught you for multiaccounting?
Hello @HaramDingo-ING! We have reviewed the report, rejected the invalid photo edits, and took action on 132 Wayfinders in accordance with our policies. While we are unable to discuss our actions in detail to protect the submitter’s privacy, they may include, but are not limited to, sending a warning message, placing restrictions on their Wayfarer, Pokémon GO, or Ingress account, putting their account on probation, or placing a temporary or permanent suspension on their Wayfarer, Pokémon GO or Ingress account. Thanks for helping us maintain the quality of the Wayspots.
“132 wayfinders”
Good grief!
Hope this is effective.
I like how the sentence says "We rejected (...) 132 Wayfarers"
****Sad Wayfarers' noises***
132 wayfinders?? Wow.
Imagine getting that many wayfarer accounts, just to abuse photo edits. Some people have way too much free time...
132 Wayfinders doesn't really mean anything, if only their Wayfarer accounts have been suspended.
Come on, they've caught spoofing, shouldn't they got 2nd strike warning already?
I'm wondering if the self-portraits of young children are being reviewed, adult video packages are being sent, or anything that can be held responsible for the application.