Wayfarer Criteria Challenge

Hello Explorers,
I’m excited to share the very first Wayfarer Challenge of 2022! As I mentioned yesterday in the New Wayfarer Challenges! post, we’ll be hosting several challenges over the coming weeks that’ll be a bit different than we’re used to… and that includes the rewards too. For our first challenge, we’re focusing on something we’ve been hearing from you all and our Ambassadors for some time now: improving the Wayfarer Criteria.
Wayfarer Criteria Challenge:
For this Challenge, we want to focus on the Wayfarer Criteria by further clarifying the criteria that the community finds most challenging… the most on the fence about if you will. This challenge will collect all of our participants' challenge submissions and the top three most submitted will be chosen to be elaborated on by myself and members of the Wayfarer Team.
To participate and put your top criteria selection into the pool, all you’ll need to do is log into Wayfarer, review contributions, and when you come across a contribution that you find to be the most confusing to you, take a screenshot of it and submit it to the Criteria Challenge Form (1 submission per person + must be another Explorers contribution, not your own). Once you take the screenshot you can continue with the review as you normally would. Make sure that your screenshot includes only the Main Photo, Title & Description, and Supporting Information
Sample Screenshot:
Timeline:
The Wayfarer Criteria Challenge will be a week long - beginning today August 17, 2022 and running through the end of August 24, 2022 (PST). At that point, we will close the challenge and form submissions.
Rewards:
- New Wayfarer Forum Badge
- All participants will get a newly created Wayfarer Forum Badge on their profile
- 1 Upgrade
- All participants who submitted within the same criteria as the winning top 3 criteria (from the challenge form criteria drop down menu) and review at least 100 nominations will receive an Upgrade
We’ll post the results in the community on August 30, 2022 and add it to the existing Criteria page as well. And that’s it! Feel free to submit any questions below and keep an eye out for the next Wayfarer Challenge coming soon after this one.
Check out the discussion here.
Safe Exploring!
Comments
Hello Explorers,
We have an update that we hope will give more clarity and time for more to participate in the Wayfarer Criteria Challenge. First update, is to share more about our purpose for this challenge. For this challenge, our intention is to start tackling the Wayfarer Criteria. As some of you may understand, addressing our criteria is a huge undertaking to say the least. This challenge is one of our approaches to making sure we do it right; but we needed a place to start. This challenge will provide us with 2 major things:
I’m excited for the larger impact this challenge will bring & hope that it will provide the much needed space to address it. The conversation won’t end after this challenge. The Wayfarer Team and I hope to address all criteria once we get this first attempt right and will be bringing in our Ambassadors along the process.
The last update, we are extending the challenge timeline to allow for more submissions until 11:59pm PST on August 31, 2022. The new date for posting our responses will be September 2, 2022.
Thank you again for your participation and safe exploring!
Explorers,
Thank you to all who participated in our new challenge and those that shared their feedback. We are happy to announce that we have had over 1000 participants. You still have a little but of time left before we close the submission form and start working away at posting the challenge responses this Friday, September 2, 2022.
Again, thank you to all who participated and we are excited to announce our next Wayfarer Challenge soon.
Hello Explorers,
The time has come to announce our Wayfarer Criteria Challenge results! Again, thank you all who participated in our new form of Wayfarer Challenge. I’m excited to continue bringing new challenge types but don’t worry, the past challenge types aren’t gone. Now, a quick challenge summary and the Top 3 winning criteria!
Submissions Summary: While there are very unique and interesting nominations that would make great Wayspots, there were others that seemed to tip-toe very closely to the rejection borderline. We hope that the clarifications and poins made below will help you with your nominations next time you come across a great Wayspot candidate. Several things were very apparent across majority of the submissions, check out these points below:
These points were a higher level summary of the submissions and points that kept being questions. Now we’ll dive deeper into some of the submissions. While I wish there was a better way to show this, I wanted to make sure we gave you more information than not enough. Hope this helps!
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Top 3 Criteria Deep Dive:
Unique Art or Architecture:
The average of the questions were based around how we define art, sculptures, and architecture. While some are rather easy and traditional forms of art that we all can agree on, others push the boundaries of art and architecture which sometimes works and other times…. not so much. We should consider if the candidate is truly interesting, unique to the area, and what makes it stand out. Impressive architecture in one setting may be mundane or commonplace in another. Below is a collection of some of the photos which highlight not only this criteria but also help us address others.
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Hiking Trails and Markers:
Hiking trails and markers make great Wayspots. This includes urban footpaths and routes intended for pedestrian use. However, this doesn't mean they should all be accepted. We’re happy to add some clarification to these as they are clearly a great place to be social and they spark exploration. Below you’ll find some details that we hope will help as you review similar types of nominations.
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Private Residence and Farmland:
Our take has been that candidates on private family residential property are ineligible. This includes outward facing boundary walls that are part of the residence or otherwise on the privately owned residential land. However shared spaces of apartments, gated communities, or other shared spaces might be eligible assuming it otherwise meets criteria and is intended to be accessed by a community, even if not everyone. Easements, “right-of-ways,” and sidewalk are too broad to make a global statement on, but the guidance is the same as above - if it is part of a private residence, it is ineligible. IF evidence supports shared municipal use land, it is not ineligible.
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Bonus Criteria:
Parks and Plazas:
Parks and plazas are great places that host local culture and can be a place to socialize, exercise, and explore. Check below for some additional context regarding parks and plazas.
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Explorer, we hope this was informative and a fresh/official take on some of the criteria y’all nominated. As promised, we’ll be adding this to the Wayfarer Website, the Community Forums, and the Wayfarer Help Center for increased visibility and criteria clarity. Thank you all again for your participation and feel free to provide feedback on this approach. What part did you like? What part would you like to see changed and how? We look forward to addressing other criteria in the near future as we continue to learn the best approach. Rewards will start being distributed during the next two weeks and should be completed by September 16, 2022!
Safe Exploring!
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