Niantic, please teach people how to review nominations

I'm going to keep posting these until the community learns how to properly review contributions and nominations and/or until Niantic implements a training feature to show agents how to properly use Wayfarer without wasting everyone's time. It's not my fault that people don't read instructions or care about the game enough to review contributions properly. I realize we have a handful of children on here, but that's really not an excuse to let the game go downhill. All of my Niantic reviewed appeals have gone through 100% of the time so it's just the community not knowing what they are doing and what to approve and reject. This issue will likely continue until Niantic chooses to give the community the same training it gives its employees. Community, kindly review the criteria FULLY and PROPERLY before **** something down just because you're salty or having a bad day. Don't take it out on other people just because. I'm sick of valid nominations taking 6+ months to get added to the game because the playerbase rejects it multiple times before a Niantic appeal finally goes through, overriding the objectively incorrect opinion of the players. If there are players that are mucking up the system, that issue should be addressed and FIXED. Seems like NIA just exacerbates the problem by allowing these types of players to continue reviewing contributions unchecked. Please see below:
Rejected for "Inappropriate Location" | Niantic overturned your factually incorrect assessment
Rejected the first time for "Other Rejection Criteria" - REAL SMOOTH THERE, COMMUNITY
Literally located in front of an existing waypoint... NICE! Ya'll's were really reaching with this rejection!
Nature Signs are valid. Now you know!
Ya'll's rejected this for lack of Pedestrian Access when there is a sidewalk visible in both images. This is blatant trolling and you know it. Violations like this should cost players their ability to review contributions in general. Three strikes and if you keep violating, you get locked out for longer and longer periods - first 24 hours, then 72 hours, then 7 days, then 2 weeks, then 4, then 6, then 3 months, then 6 months. Eventually people will learn how to properly review contributions and stop fooling around or move on to some other game to grief players in when they're having a bad day. It shouldn't have to be the good, hardworking players who suffer.
Located at a public church with other active waypoints. Gated.
A welcome sign for a recreation center is an "Inappropriate Location"? Hmmm... The factually incorrect nature of all these rejections SCREAMS ulterior motive. If they're actually that bad at reviewing then a solution should be implemented to prevent this kind of thing from continuing.
This nomination was rejected for "Orientation" which means the reviewer thought that the photo was crooked enough to be denied. Niantic disagreed. So say 'hello' to Bruce Rustad. For those of you who don't understand, photos can be shot at any angle so long as the subject is right-side-up. If the bench in the photo was sideways and the photo required rotation to correct it, THAT would be an example of a good rejection for "Orientation"... but this? This is just me taking a photo in portrait instead of in landscape... If you aren't able to discern the difference, you shouldn't be reviewing nominations in the first place because you don't understand what is being looked for and you're going to be **** down a handful of valid nominations and likely pushing through a bunch of invalid ones.
This bench was rejected for 'Location Inappropriate'. It is on a public golf course. Niantic approved the appeal after 6 months and the waypoint is now online.
Another Niantic appeal approval:
Ya'll's hit this one multiple times over the last 2+ years for 'Other' before it was finally brought online.
This one I might be a little more understanding of because of the images I chose, but I still maintain this is one of the more unbelievable rejections:
Rejected for: 'Location Inappropriate', Niantic disagreed and brought Tom and Kate here online:
Rejected for "Inappropriate Location", Bud Seeley was brought online by Niantic in October.
Comments
The majority of those are just poor submissions.
[Deleted]
Sorry you lost me on this as I found it very difficult to work out what you were trying to say as some comments seemed sarcastic and others not. It is too long.
I presume the essential part of what you are trying to get across here is your frustration with the variability of reviewing. Most of us have had that feeling, but the first thing to do is have a long hard critical look at my submission- could it be better? And there will be the odd unfathomable choice of reject reasons.
Finally the people that are active on this forum tend to be genuinely interested in ensuring good reviewing etc so are not the ones to vent your frustrations at.
Almost all of those are just not eligible. Please read the eligibility criteria before making any more nominations (or comparing that your nomination got rejected).
There are a lot of ineligible nominations in this list.
I find it interesting that three memorial benches (no information was given indicating they were notable) were accepted on appeal, given that rejecting them is one if the few things Niantic has actually been explicit about. Another one in the Niantic appeals inconsistency column.
What a trash post. Be ashamed. You’re blaming reviewers and there’s, like, one good nomination there. Cemetery locations aren’t eligible. Memorial benches aren’t eligible. Memorials to unremarkable people aren’t eligible. Learn the criteria and improve your nominations. You are the reason for your rejections, not reviewers.
I know from previous posts that you are completely unwilling to hear anything the community has to say but I'm gonna say this anyway. Grave markers and really anything in cemeteries are almost never acceptable wayspots. Memorial plaques and benches are only eligible when they're for a notable person. It's very frustrating that Niantic's internal reviewers are making such poor decisions on your appeals but nearly everything you've posted here is not eligible. Please stop making such antagonistic posts and make an effort to improve your understanding of criteria.
@NianticGiffard this post contains a number of good examples for the team to use to improve its internal training so that future appeals of these kinds of wayspots are rightfully rejected.
@KingWinterGreen-ING
Was this you or someone else?
Niantic diagrees with you and has overturned your choices. Good day.
Yup! That's me! I create great farms and if that upsets people based on their opinions about the game, that's a personal issue. Niantic has no rules regarding portal density. Feel the freedom to continue your thought process but I doubt you're going to make any leeway.
So now you're admitting that Niantic trains its employees poorly. This is kinda laughable. Can we please have some sort of consistency?
Strong opinion and factually incorrect at that. Please review submission criteria.
If something is too long for you to read, then don't bother responding to it. It clearly wasn't for you.
I've found the people on this forum to be wildly mean-spirited and spiteful so I'm glad you're having a good experience but it doesn't mean everyone else is. If you think there aren't problems in the appeals and nominations system then you are being willfully ignorant.
The post isn't too long. It's just formatted poorly. It even confused me to begin with. You said you've got a 100% success rate with appeals but then showed screenshots that were of rejected appeals.
I could dissect each of your nominations and point out the numerous flaws, but really there isn't any point as you choose to constantly ignore any advice anyone gives you and just rant at people who don't agree with you.
You have a singular vision that all of your candidates are valid. It would be funny if it wasn't so delusional.
Of course they are. The staffs are not always consistent.
If they do then that Polish Wayspots reporting drama were never happen in this forum.
Too bad that you missed the opportunity to reflect that someone was trying to help, and just decided to be rude.
The people of this forum have tried to help you over and over again and you have ignored every piece of feedback you have ever gotten and demonstrated a marked aversion to expressing gratitude.
Ok, let's go through these
The first one, with what you've shown, seems to be a graveyard, so thats why it will have been rejected originally.
Second, based on niantic saying its tied to something, it might already be in the database, if not, I probably woukd have accepted that, if you gave context on who the person is
Third, yeah, i would accept that, they seem locally famous enough to accept
Fourth, that's a cactus, nature signs usually tell a lot about said nature, but that picture is a cactus and I've no idea what the sign says, get a better picture, assuming the sign tells about the cactus in general
Fifth ..... yeah, that defo should have been accepted, you've been done dirty with that one
6th yeah, that dove should have passed as well, it looks really nice and interesting, the rejection reasons seem random
7th that one I would reject, you've not sold on who the person is, why the memorial, what's so important, the rejection reasons arw correct
8th without knowing about this, at first guess I would accept. I assume its not like a medical place or anything?
9 and 10, memorial benches are not allowed, dunno why niantic accepted on appeal, but based on your descriptions alone, they shouldn't have gotten through at all
11 (so many scrolling ups and downs) same as benches, shouldn't have gotten in, niantic is wrong again,unless there's something special about the person, it's just bog standard
12, same as 9 and 10
13, that's a good one, photo might not have been as good when describing a bench, but I'd have accepted thatvone
14, same as 11. Though really you've sh ot yourself in the foot, you've admitted there's loads of memorial plaques/trees like these in the area.
Last one is kinda hard to decide, niantic tend to say no to singular holes, but that one is unique, so I'd maybe be OK with it, its just that it could interfere with people playing golf, so it's a toss up for me
Emmm, they do? 20 meter rule
Thanks for reporting this, @KingWinterGreen-ING! We have reviewed the report and have taken action on 67 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.
You took action against 67 Wayfinders as if they're incorrectly rejecting his nominations only?
Should've done this against people who approving Wayspots on restricted area of military bases. Or, those **** bots that are causing massive rejections abuse over Germany!
What ? this time you're going to have to give a little more information on what you've done and why
Are you saying you've taken action on 67 wayfinders for rejecting invalid candidates?
This looks like its going to be setting a very bad precedent of Niantic approving things against their own criteria, and then reprimanding reviewers for doing things correctly
We need more info here please @NianticGiffard . This guy posted a big list of things that aren't eligible (grave stones and memorial plaques) and you took action on folks for rejecting them? Or is this about how they reviewed just the 1 or 2 that actually could be seen as eligible?
Since when do you punish reviewers for allegedly wrong reviews? Funny that you can do this based on a report from a player, who whines about the rejected nominations, without any explanation whatsoever. Meanwhile the task force for researching the german rejections wave didn't do anything for the past 3 months. Should I ask every one here in germany to post their own discussion with their rejected nominations? This could take a while to process, but at least you occasionally answer these reports.
You can't expect the reviewers to vote perfectly on every nomination. Even your own employees did some strange decisions lately. Why do you start punishing them? I have a feeling you will loose some valuable reviewers if you keep doing this. No one will risk their account for doing free work and getting punished for it.
I didn't know that rejecting noms was something you could even get punished for, that's wild. Very interested to see if this was a one off or not. If this is how things are going to be going forward then the implications are enormous, but if this was just a one time mistake I'm not sure what Giffard was thinking going full loose cannon. Bizarre moderation choices recently.