Change Bonus locations more frequently.

AgentX1976-ING

As the title says, it would be appreciated if we could be able to change bonus locations more frequently. Either that or be able to opt in to a section to give us reviews for nominations from areas that are not getting enough reviewers. I would be more than happy to help out other locations on a very frequent basis so that their backlogs can be cleared. I'm sure others would too.

niktero-PGO

Answered in December 2021 AMA (I agree that this little change would help so many areas!!)

1. Allow changing Bonus Location more often - Are there any plans to change the current policy on Bonus Location currently only being changeable annually? 
   1. Good question. We know that there are still ‘dry voting areas’, and that dedicated contributors such as yourself would be willing to help out other communities in mapping out their locations. We certainly think there are better ways to enable good honest reviewers to do this and are thinking of a new Explorer ranking system and different rewarding mechanism that helps here. On the question about upgrades - no upgrades are not viewed as a tradeoff between accuracy and speed of resolution. Upgrades reflect how aligned your decisions are with the community only.  

AgentX1976-ING

Well then it's time for an update on this.

MargariteDVille-ING

Seems like it would be an easy fix -- change the #days for bonus location change from 365 to 14? Or 30?

PkmnTrainerJ-ING

Being able to change every 30-60 days would be great.

Provided we had notice of that same period for any country challenges so we could change before it started and then change to somewhere else.

EvieEvolved-ING

This would be great for ‘dry voting’ locations. I know someone who changed their bonus location to Malawi, Africa in September and went through the whole Malawi backlog in less than a month… now they’re stuck in Malawi until September 2023 and haven’t seen any more Malawi nominations since October 2022.

if they’re concerned about abusive coordinated voting in popular locations, then we could post in a thread asking for a bonus reset from one ‘dry voting’ location to another ‘dry’ location and let a Niantic person reset it for us.

tp235-ING

As it stands, we feel that a one-year commitment is too long.

However, considering that having them change too often would be mere zapping and also to check the response of the nominators in the area, we think it is safe to detain them for 90-180 days.

Also, as much as I have wanted this for some time, regions that are too low-density, such as sub-Saharan Africa and Micronesia scattered across the Pacific Ocean, are difficult to pick up with the current Wayfarer system.

For areas below a specific density, having the upgrade system automatically apply and having reviewers from around the world review them would be a faster solution than if we were to install bonus locations.

These would be possible if the Wayfarer setup screen allowed multiple "languages to use" to be selected.

I believe this would make the bonus locations even more helpful.

SeaprincessHNB-PGO

https://community.wayfarer.nianticlabs.com/discussion/comment/186648#Comment_186648

I'd argue that country challenges (if we ever have those again) shouldn't be handled through the bonus location at all. We should be able to opt in for each one through a different mechanism and then get the nominations to review.

PkmnTrainerJ-ING

https://community.wayfarer.nianticlabs.com/discussion/comment/187230#Comment_187230

That would be ideal. But this is Niantic organising it so bonus location change is probably the best we can hope for.

niktero-PGO

https://community.wayfarer.nianticlabs.com/discussion/comment/187230#Comment_187230

Well, it is possible. Niantic has some system that outlines each country's boundaries and controls the area people can see upgraded nominations. If we could opt in on a forum post like how it was done for the India event then potentially they could assign us a whole country instead of just a bonus location for the event timeline.