"Improper" Rejection Reasons
For me, this isn't exactly a complaint, more just a look at my own Wayfarer history. I've been nominating new locations since the very first day that OPR was opened to Ingress players, and continuing on through Wayfarer have managed to get more than 400 new locations accepted into all the games in various cities. I even got an indoor one accepted at the CNE grounds in Toronto! All in all, together with my local Ingress/Pogo colleagues, we must have put in more than 1000 things for y'all to spin.
You wouldn't know it from the way the AR playfields are now, but... there were a LOT of incorrect rejections when OPR started. It was nearly impossible to get any playgrounds approved, nor things like tennis or basketball courts. But knowing what Niantic wanted and having persistence for some repeated rejections, most finally succeeded.
Out of curiosity, I went through my "rejected" list on Wayfarer, and tallied all of the rejection reasons the site would show me. I only counted the "other" as a reason when that was the ONLY reason given, as in the reviewers just gave it low marks.
Now, in general, while most of these reasons were ultimately wrong, and nearly all of them were eventually accepted upon resubmission(s), they mostly did still have a vague connection to why the reviewers didn't like them. (Go look up @Hosette-ING's threads for commentary on that.) Except, of course, where they didn't.
There were a few in particular that grated every time though.
- "Generic Business" -- because the nomination was of/at/in/near a storefront. This was SUCH a bane, and was used so inappropriately by reviewers, that Niantic finally after years of complaints retired it. But unfortunately reviewers seem to have moved on to using "Location Inappropriate".
- "Mismatched Location" -- usually because it was indoors
- "Title or Description" -- a LOT of reviewers don't like punsters, even though creative titles ARE encouraged by Niantic. I'm actually quite surprised at how few of those needed resubmission before finally getting accepted though. I'm incorrigible!
- "Low Quality Photo" -- both used when a nomination was, well, ugly, or when it was impossible to take a photo square-on to the nomination without putting myself in danger or punching through a wall/fence
- "Natural Feature" -- this one has a higher count than average for most submitters, because I've been nominating a series of locally historic artifacts, but they're kind of a rough sell to reviewers.
- "Pedestrian Access" -- a hiking trail entrance? really?? Or a storefront with a perfectly good parking lot or sidewalk? Something IN THE MALL??? A good number of mine were things in rural areas and/or along hiking trails, and I make no apologies for finding perfectly good candidates well into the woods away from a roadway.
But as some guidance to any potential reviewers that happen this way, DO make sure to choose accurate reasons when you reject something. It's MUCH more useful feedback to a submitter when you don't just randomly pick something in vain hopes of not getting a cooldown. But to my point above, the "Location Inappropriate" is not intended to be used against a social club or exercise gym that happens to reside in a shopping plaza.
Rejections dating back to July 2018 include these reasons:
78 Generic Business*
34 Natural Feature
23 Pedestrian Access
21 Temporary or Seasonal Display
18 Mismatched Location*
17 other
13 Title or Description
12 Private Residence or Farm
12 Location Inappropriate*
9 Low Quality Photo
6 Not historically or culturally significant
6 Not visually unique
3 Location Sensitive
2 Orientation
2 Obstructs Emergency Services
2 License Plate
1 Person
1 Live Animal
1 Fake Nomination
Comments
Niantic isn't straightforward on ANYTHING. I don't understand why people expect rejection reasons to be the exception.
When we begged for rejection reasons in emails, Niantic first said no - that people could use them to "game the system". Finally they agreed to give three reasons, throwing random ones in every now and then to throw off the cheaters from using them to create bots.
My recent PSA: https://community.wayfarer.nianticlabs.com/discussion/33752/psa-rejection-reasons-are-not-reliable-information
As for "Location Inappropriate", I've written about this a few times, and the root cause is that the workflow is problematic. Niantic uses the word inappropriate as a proxy for adult-oriented. Inappropriate could be a reasonable proxy for adult-oriented but whether it functions well that way depends upon which direction you approach it from. If you start with adult-oriented and ask, "Is this an inappropriate location for a wayspot?" then it's easy to answer yes.
What happens if we approach it from the perspective of the review workflow? Let's step through it. I get a new candidate to review. I examine it and decide that it's not a good place for a wayspot. Here's how the workflow goes:
(Note: I'm linking to the screenshot rather than pasting it in the post so that it doesn't have to wait for image moderation.)
What's wrong with this workflow? If I see the word inappropriate in this context I'm most likely to interpret it as "not a good place for a wayspot". I have a solid mental association of adult business -> inappropriate, but encountering the word inappropriate during this workflow does not immediately suggest adult-oriented to me. The review workflow does not guide the reviewer toward using this for adult-oriented locations until they have already made their decision and are confirming it so they can get on to the next candidate. On that final screen the text "Use for Nominations whose real-world location appears to be explicit or inappropriate" is the least prominent text on the page. Even worse, they're still using the word inappropriate in the explanation.
This rejection reason is intended to be used for two categories of submissions. The first is liquor stores and similar retail establishments that sell products that are intended only for adult consumption. It's also intended to be used for... entertainment establishments that feature scantily-clad adults dancing suggestively, or other businesses that focus on adult s*xual expression. However, there is nothing in the review process that states that directly. To me this reads like something that was decided on by a group of people in a long drawn-out meeting who were obsessed with saying things as delicately as possible and were too busy arguing over language to think about how the workflow would actually flow.
Location Inappropriate is one of the rejection reasons that ranks highest in complaints about bad rejection reasons, which means that it's a constant source of customer frustration. Niantic could make this significantly better by reconsidering the language that they use and thinking through the workflow from the perspective of a reviewer making decision rather than starting with the intent of the decision (adult-oriented business) and constructing language to match that.
@NianticTintino-ING I'm tagging you in the hopes that you will see this and prioritize it on the product roadmap, and also that in future designs the team will think more about working forward from the user perspective rather than backward from the product features.
I meant to say @0X00FF00-ING - That's a cool list - of your rejection reasons. Thanks for compiling it! I'll guess that it's pretty typical. Altho I believe I don't have as big a percent for "natural feature". I've nominated a good number of sports fields, but they're either accepted or rejected with something else.
I just got a nomination rejected for no reason at all. Nothing in the email, nothing on my Contributions page. I don't know what to improve! 😂