What qualifies for Abuse / Fake?
Hosette-ING
Posts: 3,470 ✭✭✭✭✭
What exactly constitutes a fake candidate? The text reads, "Use for nominations that are clearly fake, and do not actually exist at the submitted location." Some things are obvious, like if I review something that doesn't exist (at that location, or anywhere nearby) that's a fake. If someone submits the Eiffel Tower with the pin on the San Francisco waterfront the decision is trivial.
Is it a fake if the submitter grossly misrepresents an object that exists as being something very different than what it actually is? I've encountered several of these lately. The most recent was, "This is the entrance to (park name)", but it's actually a neighborhood entrance sign and there is no park in the entire city with the name they used. I've seen, "Entrance to historic orchards" for a mobile home park. I've seen elaborate fake histories constructed for completely ordinary things.
I can see two possible arguments. One is that the physical thing they are submitting exists so it's just a rejection and not abuse. The other is that the thing they are describing does not exist at the submitted location (or at any location), and thus qualifies as a fake. Where should we draw the line?
Comments
I would consider both examples to be faked. It is malicious to make something that does not meet the criteria appear to meet the criteria.
Good question and interesting examples.
There is a clearly a spectrum between Eiffel Tower make to the others covered. If there is a whole pile of completely made up rubbish then that is a deliberate attempt to present something that it isn’t. Is getting slightly “creative” with a title because you have seen other “trigger” words tick a box a fake, I think not. So there are clear areas for judgement calls which mean it could go either way.
A few months back I had one where a reject reason was fake - screams useless reviewers and all sorts of words not allowed here.
It was a new national trust reception building with a unique artistic decorative front. I had done a photosphere etc. I suspect it was too new and everything nice an crisp and sharp that made someone or ones select that reason. I selected a slightly different angle said to look at the photospheres to ensure a good view and a few days later accepted as it should be.
It did make me think that the term fake was not clearly defined enough. However I do think subtle distinctions requiring judgement calls are something that those reviewing very quickly don’t necessarily have time for.
@Elijustrying-ING Yeah, there's a line somewhere between overselling and lying. If you try to tell me the lamppost in front of your suburban house is historic because it's been there 20 years I'm just going to roll my eyes. If you make up a story about how it was the first lamppost in the state and it's a tourist attraction that seems like a fake to me. If you tell me that an office complex entrance is a park that's a flat out lie.
fake means something that doesn't exist at the submitted location. Main example: Objects stolen from other POIs/from the Internet.
misrepresents objects would be abuse -> abuse in my opinion.
A line should be between "I don't know anything so I write trash" and "I know it's trash but anyways".
Interesting question. You have made me think.
I would generally use it for something that is obviously not there. I.e. you can tell it's a photoshopped photo.
You are right with your lamppost example. The lamppost exists so my first reaction would be to reject - other rejection criteria but thinking it through the description is not genuine so that could be classed as a fake nomination.
I don't know where to draw the line either.
I will use it for obvious false information in the nomination by people seeking a couch stop. One recent example claimed to be a mural by a famous artist in a museum. The photo was a framed poster on a wall in a bedroom taken from a kid's bed (you could see their Spiderman bedspread, their legs under the bedspread). The streetviw showed it was a single family home.
I try to use it as little as possible, because many may start the game at a young age, for instance 13, and the 5 years later you're 18 and you might be paying for stupid submissions you made as 13 year old because you felt cheeky that day. So I rather avoid using the abuse button unless it looks like a cold calculated choice; Like one I got someone posted a historical sign on a stone wall, and it wasn't easy but I could tell the texture of the brick wall wasn't the same, I hunted the entire area looking for the for where it could really be, and just made it before the submission timed out to find where it really was, which was about a 3-5 min walk away.
Another instance, about 3-4 times there has been where people put a photosphere at the wrong place, so I always leave the photosphere to double check after the first time I caught someone doing so.
If it’s a lamp post I think I would just reject - with a lot of eye rolling 😂 - a certain irony that some of these are submitting things that would never get accepted no matter how elaborate.
It hasn’t been often I have encountered a full on fake.
There was the postbox carefully photoshopped with photosphere. But it was down a cul de sac They won’t place one where it’s not easy to just get out of van. Why photosphere an ordinary road - yes it wasn’t there on streetview. So a clear case of a something created virtually, for the sole purpose of a POI. A fake.
We had a fake here, at first it looked somewhat legit, except for the font, then you realise the text was copy-pasted from Wikipedia, then you notice the bad lighting and weird edges. Plus many knew that a local worked at the location and the plaque had nothing to do with the location.
It ended up being a horrible fake that got accepted. So after trying to report it multiple times to Niantic and failing each time, the portal was moved into the middle of the bay, surrounded by 20-30km of water - this was before the time move requests were limited to 10m. Reported to Niantic and it was still denied! Even after the description was changed to state that it was a fake, Niantic still wouldn't remove it.
In the end, after almost a year of trying Niantic finally removed the Wayspot. Either way, it should never have been accepted and Niantic should have done proper due diligence to ensure it was real or in this case, obviously fake.
For anyone who hasn't seen the discussion, here are some great examples of what I reported as fake without a second thought. Some of it was someone who took photos of one thing then submitted it in like eight different parks. There's another batch where someone photoshopped some clip art onto various things like walls and power boxes. The last one in the thread (for right now) is a fake soccer field in Roseville California with the main photo stolen from a club in New York.
The submitter (and I suspect it was one person, or a group working together) managed to get a ton of fake stuff approved. I came close to falling for a couple of them.
https://community.wayfarer.nianticlabs.com/discussion/26983/extensive-set-of-fakes-in-the-area-around-roseville-rocklin-granite-bay-california
Good point by @oscarc1-ING "Niantic should have done proper due diligence to ensure it was real or in this case, obviously fake."
The nomination process should not allow photoshopped pictures. Especially obvious ones, like clipart. They should not even go to review. Just error and don't attach the picture to the nomination - therefore the nomination can't be submitted. Same for watermarks, including date/time. And faces. And license plates. The software to detect these things is probably open source, meaning, free.
It's more difficult to automatically detect and block things like faces when one is nominating works of art that might contain photorealistic elements. I'd be OK with a reviewer flag like "please check for license plates in this image and reject if real-life personal identifying information is shown in the main photo" or "this image has been edited or modified, please review carefully" as opposed to an outright block. Maybe a flag to the submitter to verify that they are making these submission elements intentionally, too, as some issues may be accidental. I've edited photos in the past to crop or enhance lighting since anything that hints of near-dusk is prone to rejection as "pitch black", but those are minor manipulations done only in my phone's photo app.
@MargariteDVille-ING How would you programmatically identify a photoshopped photo with a high degree of accuracy, and especially without rejecting legitimate candidates?
I edit photos for most of the things I submit. Those edits are always about visual quality-- brightness, contrast, color balance, cropping... and rotation, because even though my photography has hung in galleries I seem to be incapable of holding a camera level. Cell phone cameras have improved dramatically in the last decade but they still have weaknesses and biases that can be hard to overcome while ****, and I think it's reasonable and good to allow people to present their photos as well as possible. I haven't ever edited a photo to deceive or misrepresent and I never would.
As for doing due diligence, that's generally what reviewers should have been doing. Niantic should certainly have done a better job once the wayspot was reported, but reviewers make almost all of the go/no-go decisions for new wayspots and Niantic doesn't typically come along behind them to check their work.
"1000 poles for 1000 souls "
"Artwork by F.armer"
Thats definitely misinterpretated. Thats just some kind of farming stuff.
@LukeAllStars-ING To me that should count as a fake. They submitted a candidate that was artwork with that title, and it definitely doesn't exist at that location.
Yup, thats abuse. But not Fake. Fake means "The nomination is Fake and doesnt exist at this location". The object does exist there, its just misinterpretated. That would mean that the rejection reason "abuse" would be the best.
For me this one is a "Fake", they have invented a false reason as to why this collection of tree saplings in their tree shelters should become a Waypont by claiming it is some sort of artwork. It's not misinterpreted, it is a simple attempt to present the reviewer with false information in the hope of generating a Waypoint.
I had one this evening
it was said to be a war memorial but didn’t quite look right. The style was wrong and on zooming in on inscription it was all about a religious figure and the position was clearly off.
It was distinctive and it may well be that the person the memorial was to was actually a local notable person but it was being misrepresented presumably as they thought it was more likely 🤷♀️
So like @LukeAllStars-ING I don’t think of this as fake. I would prefer to have a category of misrepresentation
@Hosette-ING Try a Google on: software to detect falsified pictures
I get paid for my software opinion - I'm not doing it pointlessly here for free.