Why is it so hard to polish the game board?

Let me preface by saying I’m proud of my city. We were ranked amongst the best cities in Canada, sometimes the best one, multiple times by a few media outlets in the past few years. That sense of pride and patriotism is the reason why wayfarer passionate me, I want to share my beautiful city and everything it has to offer with visitors.

Now here comes the problem: living in a vibrant city makes it so a lot of stuff is always moving. I’m using my city as an example but I know I’m not the only one with this problem. In the last month, they announced a new sports complex replacing a park, they’re renaming the library, a sports field. Lots of sports equipment are moving a few meters away in some other parks. They’re updating to cleaner playgrounds, baseball and basketball fields. When it’s about making new POI, it takes half a year, but it’s ok because we have the possibility to speed things up with an upgrade. But because of the proximity with a major city, edits are taking forever (literally, I started wayfarer in 2019 and some edits haven’t concluded yet) and there’s nothing we can do about it. I just know the library freshly named after a very famous local entomologist is going to be called “library” until 2026. Niantic will not remove anything if it’s visible on the very outdated satellite view, unless we makes a strong case for it on the forums, which is tedious. The cherry on top, pictures used to have priority in voting but now they seem clogged with the other edits (correct me if I’m wrong).


So, why is it so hard to polish the game board? When I review, I accept grammatical mistakes and poorly named POI as long as they somewhat define the object because I know it’s easier to pass an edit fixing the name than to pass the POI in itself. If I recall correctly, that’s what we are asked to do. But over time, it leaves us with a disgusting game board filled with grammatical mistakes and pictures taken at night. All of that because if you live somewhat close to a major city, nothing is moving. My solution? Why don’t edits have priority over normal nominations? Edits are some of the easiest agreements because 99% of the time it’s black or white. There’s no wrong answer, it’s “baseball fiel” or “Baseball field #2 at __ park”. There are probably also significantly less edits than new POI nominations (if I had to guess) so we could get through the backlog pretty fast. Other solution: I heard we will be able to look at edits on the wayfarer website soon(tm). Can we upgrade them? I don’t care, I absolutely will upgrade an edit to change the name of the local softball field to the new name that commemorates a late local volunteer.

I’d love to hear what everyone here thinks, maybe I’m the only one caring about having clean portals/pokestops. I just strongly think if Niantic really is about making us explore, then everything in the game should be welcoming enough to make you want to leave your house.

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Comments

  • Melurra-PGOMelurra-PGO Posts: 421 ✭✭✭✭✭

    I also would like the board (and database) to be more polished. I am an editor, but not even one who's like "typos make me cringe!!"; I just shake my head at Niantic's acceptance of such an inconsistent and unpolished product.

    I put a lot of effort into my nominations researching and writing them, not only because it likely helps them get approved, but also because that's just how I believe wayspots should be. Remembering that I can control my nominations but not those of others helps.

    I also submit edits from time to time, but only if it's very convenient. I may do it more if we ever get photos and edits on contribution management and if they fix descriptions in Pokemon Go being limited to 250 characters.

    There are several issues that make it difficult: edits not being in the contribution management; an inefficient and sometimes ineffective edit system (you say edits are clear-cut, but I see many where it is not clear which description is the old and new); edits from others to fix typos that just introduce new typos; and removal criteria being significantly less stringent than rejection criteria. I reached a point where I realized that I can't care about Niantic's database more than they themselves care about it.

    As for edits taking priority over regular nominations, I don't know how many edits are actually in the system or the ratio, so I can't really say if I'd be behind it. But we definitely need improvements in the interface regarding edits.

  • MargariteDVille-INGMargariteDVille-ING Posts: 2,846 ✭✭✭✭✭

    When PokeMonGo was new, every news outlet got someone to play it and write an article. Several commented on the poor names, descriptions, spelling, grammar. They're JOURNALISTS - of course they'd notice that. If Niantic hits the news again, the same thing will happen again. You'd think Niantic doesn't need that bad press - that they'd rather get all accolades for how great their game is.

    I play with my spouse, who prefers to drive. After visiting somewhere, while we go down the highway - I go thru my keys, fixing obvious mistakes. Not little stuff like "Of" to "of". But, for example, spelling mistakes when the picture is the sign - which has the correct spelling. Especially if it's a legal name - a legal entity that writes checks, and can sue and be sued.

    I also give a thumbs up to the picture/s that would look best with the current Ingress cropping. Niantic cuts off the top third, so we have many headless statues, and the bottom of signs that say something important on top. If a wayspot looks interesting, but has no (or poor) description, I'll research it to a better description. For example, a monument to an American who flew for China in WWII. He was heroic and had his own Wikipedia page. So I boiled it down to fit the Wayspot.

  • ZinkyZonk-INGZinkyZonk-ING Posts: 300 ✭✭✭✭

    Would love to polish my area too. Many new things. Many park upgrades. Some things not there anymore but you don't dare remove them because the item to replace them may not be accepted for months/years.

  • 26thDoctor-PGO26thDoctor-PGO Posts: 4,916 ✭✭✭✭✭

    On average mine take about 6-8 months to be decided on whether that's photo or text edit.

    I added a cleaner, brighter picture for a pub sign which they conveniently changed in the 6 months I was waiting for a decision. I haven't bothered to add the new one yet.

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