Wayfarer - End of Q1 2022
PkmnTrainerJ-ING
Posts: 5,138 Ambassador
Whilst looking for something else I came back to this thread;
containing details of what’s to come for 2022 for Wayfarer. As we are ending the first quarter of the year, I wanted to look back and see what Niantic have achieved and see what feedback others had on how it’s gone, and what they want next. (Sorry if I’ve jumped the gun and stolen a post idea @NianticTintino ) Just to be clear, these updates were all outlined for “some point” unless specified otherwise
For Ingress:
- Deferred uploads (for scans and photos) and upload management ✅
- Expanding the max daily contribution quotas and moving to daily accrual rate ✅
- Revised onboarding flow that locks submission features until you have passed the Wayfarer quiz ❓
As far as I know, that last one hasn’t been done yet, but do correct me, and was meant to come in Jan/Feb. I’m enjoying being able to Upload Later, especially on new photos for Ingress. Maybe 80 nominations is a bit much if you play both games though.
Ingress/Pikmin Bloom:
- Wayspot reporting feature in Pikmin Bloom ❌
- Adding the duplicates check in Ingress nominations flow ❌
Neither is implemented yet, and with the change to the 20m rule on Ingress, very few people want to be nominating Lightship-only POI so it would be useful. I’m not fussed about reporting Wayspots in Pikmin Bloom as I can do that on other apps (unless I get an inappropriate postcard from a POI that I can’t see on any maps).
For the website
- We’ll be switching your Wayfarer profile name and photo to your Niantic ID profile name and photo. Your Niantic ID is like your central profile across all the Niantic products you use. More information about the Niantic ID portal will be announced by that team on the Niantic blog in January. ❌
- More improvements to the Nominations Management page, including the ability to HOLD a contribution that is pending review if you decide you want to edit or delete it later; ability to better manage your Upgrades; and displaying your edit contributions as well. ❌
- More than 75% of a new Explorer's first nomination gets rejected which can be very discouraging. So we want to treat your first few nominations differently than ones you’ll do later, to let you ‘trial run’ the entire experience and learn early on how to succeed. ❓
- Re-tuning how cooldowns work to remove false positives on spammy behavior (no details yet, sorry) ❌
- Updating the rejection reasons to eliminate the discrepancies and confusion between the reporting options in-game and rejection options in the review flow. ❌
- And delivering fun education tools to help understand the criteria. ❓
- Speeding up decisions through things like more background signaling to remove coal from the submissions served to you for review. ❌
- A new review experience that feels lighter and more enjoyable to do (also replacing the confusing star-based questions) ❌
- A design refresh! ❌
So, none of these are achieved yet. We have had a few infographics but the response to, and quality of these has been mixed. I don’t believe the first few nominations process has changed, as we still get queries here asking why certain things aren’t accepted from new submitters. The Wayfarer addition to the Niantic Profile has been mentioned but is not currently showing. The stars are still on Wayfarer, as is a lot of coal. Updated rejection reasons would be fantastic too
General Plans (still working out the details and timing)
- Separating your GDPR data deletion request from the games (so that you can keep your Wayfarer account and stats, even if you’ve deleted your data from the games). ❓
- Introducing trusted user types and user ranks that unlock Wayfarer features as your rank up. ❌
- A new reward type (besides earning Upgrades via reviews) ❌
- Internal discussions on anti-cheat mechanics and improvements to the trust and safety experiences within the community. ❓
I don’t know if the GDPR stuff has been separated. I understand that’s important legally, but probably not important for the average Wayfarer. The trusted user types were discussed by myself and some other users in another thread, so an update on that would be great. I do wonder what other reward could be offered other than an Upgrade, and obviously we won’t know about any internal discussions.
Community Engagement led by @NianticTintino !
- Swag?! ❌
- New type of Wayfarer challenge, likely focussed on submissions ❌
- New engagement methods for continuously recalibrating and retraining together on the criteria ❌
- Wayfarer Ambassadors! ✅
- Wayfarer Twitter account, which I’m personally very excited to use for outreach to folks not often in the Forum ✅
- More AMAs ✅
- And much more. Stay tuned! ❓
We have the 12…I mean 11 Ambassadors and the Twitter account is going strong and engaging with users. We also have an AMA ongoing and will get responses for that in a few days. I wonder how often we need one after that though. On Swag, I haven’t seen any updates at Niantic Supply yet that are Wayfarer related. We haven’t had any new challenges yet, but maybe more for summer? I’m not sure what new engagement methods are being used if any, and Tintino hasn’t elaborated on the “much more” as yet.
On the Wayfarer App you’ve been asking about for years… ❌
I think this is probably a long ways off. Maybe end of 2023 at the earliest so I would be shocked if any progress has been made.
Anyways, that’s just my own view on things and what I can see has been implemented and not. Maybe some have been and I’ve not been aware of them, but it’s good to see that some progress has been made on the roadmap.
Comments
5 out of 26
Whilst correct, they never said when a lot of them would happen.
Adding the duplicates check in Ingress nominations flow ❌
important note on this feature, currently in pokemon go the longitude for each way spot displayed in this check is rounded to 4 decimal places so they appear in straight vertical lines rather than at their correct location. I believe this has already been reported as a bug but it really should be fixed sooner than later and not also affect ingress when this feature is added there.
Coming back to this again whilst I’m seeing a few Christmas things in the shops and a few trees going up (get that Seasonal reject finger ready folks!) I thought I would revisit this as some things have been done.
Firstly, we haven’t forgotten about Ingress!
So in late Jan/Feb we’ll be shipping:
On that last one, I don’t know as I haven’t heard of anyone locally reaching level 10 in a while and whether they’ve had to do the Wayfarer quiz, but happy to hear on it
Other in-game features I’m trying to push for toward the summer (but not confirmed) are:
For Pikmin Bloom you can use the link (https://niantic.helpshift.com/hc/en/23-pikmin-bloom/faq/3045-reporting-in-game-locations/) but it’s not in-game.
Ingress still doesn’t have the duplicates map, meaning if you’re not level 37+ on Pokémon GO, as well as level 10+ on Ingress and want a Portal Key for your new Wayspot discovery, you’ll need to check the map on Pokémon GO before you submit in Ingress
For the website
That was a lot. Working backwards, Wayfarer still looks the same, we still have star based questions, and as far as I can see I am still getting a lot of coal. I haven’t seen any updated rejection reasons, and the “fun education tools” may be the basic infographics they’ve done, which some members of the community have done a lot earlier and a lot better than they have.
Cool-downs, we have had the time reduced and better time for better reviewers so that’s kind of half and half? As for the first review/submission, I can only judge that based on the “where’s my stop?” and “why was this obvious piece of coal rejected?” threads that come up here to assume this hasn’t been done, but feel free to correct me.
We still don’t have edits, photos and other things showing in Contributions, regardless of what the emails say.
We do have HOLD! Yay?
Wayfarer profile isn’t showing my Niantic Profile stuff as yet
General Plans (still working out the details and timing)
I don’t know how they’re having internal discussions with a team of (probably) one person. Unless we are talking about the “fast track Appeals” or the forum badges, then we don’t have new rewards. We also don’t have different Wayfarer types and I don’t know about GDPR, I haven’t done a request recently
Community Engagement led by @NianticTintino !
Positives firstly, we have had an AMA since this. There is a Twitter account. We do have the 11 Ambassadors (though who knows what impact they have had). The most recent challenge has focused on accepted submissions so I am giving that one a pass.
Niantic Supply have done really well lately at stocking Ingress stuff and even the Pokémon GO Fest tees, but I’ve yet to see any new Wayfarer related swag. Maybe the Ambassadors kept it all? I put a ❓ but then realised that the mention about recalibrating on the criteria may have been the first Wayfarer Challenge?
Message from your Community Manager @NianticTintino
Hello Explorers! What an exciting last couple of months! It’s been great getting to be your Community Manager, be a part of the Wayfarer Team, and get to know more about what excites you about Wayfarer and exploration. I can’t wait for all of the new things coming in 2022 such as the new Twitter account, awesome swag, the new Wayfarer Challenges, and ways to make the Wayfarer Community Forum safe, exciting, and educational for all. I’m particularly excited about our Wayfarer Ambassador program and all of the great things we’ll be able to do. ¡Felices Fiestas y Próspero Año Nuevo!
On the Wayfarer App you’ve been asking about for years…
Know that I’m working hard internally to make this happen. I think the first version will be with a limited set of features for submissions. If we are a ‘go’ on this, I will be opening a window of opportunity for some of you to beta test with us! Stay tuned. ❓
Well, we do have a Wayfarer app. It’s iOS only, on TestFlight only and only really allows you to view the map and do scans at the moment. But it’s there?
Seems like the whole thing is obsolete.
Is your shiny, new forum badge not enough swag for you? @PkmnTrainerJ-ING
Are you not walking around wearing it with pride, I know I am!
In my opinion, priorities should be:
Contribution-management also shows edits and photo submissions
Edit and photo emails have made that claim since early December 2021. I believe the lie will continue to be included, past its one-year anniversary.
Best fix would be to make it true. Show edits and photo submissions on the Contribution page, as promised. Worse than a promise - presented as already true, when it is not true and has never been true.
But since they can't do that, they should change the email to stop saying edits/photos are on the Contribution page. I don't understand how they think it's OK to lie for so long. I wonder how many hundreds of thousands of emails have gone out with this false claim.