With regards to Wayfarer this is the greediest, crassest decision Niantic have made.
Nobody will get a response back, they won't communicate or listen to anything we say. Anything they say in the December AMA about exploring, socialising, how you are looking to improve Wayfarer and how important maintaining quality and integrity are is 100% lies.
This is a massive F*"k You to the Wayfarer community. I hope the community stop submitting and reviewing as a massive F*!k You back.
I just checked the basketball half court submission I have in the system. It has basketball in The title. Now it could be coincidence but it is at in voting status.
I don’t know when the change happened but it is the only one out of a few that is in voting.
Context I only submitted at start of August and as it takes over 2 years to resolve normally I submit and then ignore unless I am considering an upgrade.
@NianticTintino-ING are those with Basketball being picked up for fast track?
As I said it could be a coincidence.
I have a MUGA nearby I can submit - I haven’t bothered before as it not a priority as it won’t appear in PoGo and there are other things in that park so I might try and submit that.
Having played the game, it's pretty generic and definitely doesn't have anything extra that would make UK people want to play a game based on a sport that isn't that popular here.
I want to address the creepiness factor. I would genuinely like for everyone to stop calling adults who randomly happen to be near playgrounds or want to use sporting facilities at schools creeps. This is a very unhealthy obsession in our society.
Growing up, my mother routinely used the walking track at the local high school after school hours to exercise. No one ever accused her of being a creeep. She was just a middle aged woman out trying to lose weight and get some exercise. We were in the suburbs. There were no other places to walk on level ground where she could know exactly how far she'd walked and time herself. My father ran along the road but my mother didn't feel safe doing that as a woman alone (and we lived in a really hilly area so it was difficult).
My cousin is a sports fanatic and in his 20s and 30s used to organize his friends to play football or baseball. Sometimes he was able to reserve a field in a park for that. But where we lived, the parks didn't have football fields. So he'd have to organize a game at a local school during a school break. He did this for years. No one at the schools cared. No one in his group damaged the field or was there to creeep on kids. They got together to play a fun sport and build up camaraderie (two of Niantic's primary tenets).
I think it is damaging to assume that every adult who is on school property AFTER HOURS is being creepy. There are a LOT of areas in the US (I can't speak for anywhere else) that are underfunded so that schools are the only places that have maintained sports facilities like basketball, soccer, track, etc. Not everyone lives in a county that can afford to maintain outdoor sports fields. I went to a place this year to nominate stops and I was APPALLED at how neglected the single county park was - the tennis court fencing was falling down, the net was completely gone, the basketball court had cracks in it, the volleyball net was sagging and had holes in it, etc, etc, etc. I'm sure people in that area go to the school if they want to play on a maintained court/field.
I'm not advocating that Niantic reverse their policy against K-12 nominations. But I want the conversation to change. Stop calling people creeeps unless you have hard evidence that they are a creeep.
On the few occasions I've been asked I usually show them Go and then explain how it uses real world locations, things of historic, cultural value that bring people together and help us to learn and share local and wider interests.
'This is a Victorian postbox, this one is a George V postbox, this one is Edward VIII postbox, this is a Elizabeth II postbox although I'm not sure why it is in the game and made it past reviewers as they don't fall under the acceptable criteria for.... Wait come back!'
@NianticTintino-ING Well after all those years finally Niantic has come to it's sense.
Our community stopped long ago NOT submitting things on school grounds.
We learned that having something near a Kindergarten will mostly lead to the same thing: when it is accepted, it won't get online because the area is blocked.
We never thought that sporting grounds at a school are not eligible. Our sporting grounds are always used by everyone else.
It is time that you just accept the fact that Kindergartens, Fire and Police Stations are public grounds that are Wayspots like Playgrounds and Majors Offices.
Everything everyone said in the last years does not apply anymore. There are no large crowds blocking the entrance to the fire station. There are no cars blocking kindergartens.
Literally didn't even know we didn't have eiir ones uo here till I started submitting the post boxes lol confused me so much when I just saw a post office one
I have a concern about this, I really do. Explain to me the difference between a person playing a Niantic game (NBA All Roads) on a K-12 property and a person playing a Niantic game (ingress or Pokemon Go) on a K-12 property. I don't see the difference, I think all K-12 should be respected and the Niantic games shouldn't be allow there. I'm interested in your thoughts.
Remember these won't be in Ingress, so agents won't be able to use them as anchors. They are only going to be in NBA All Worlds. That being said, I don't think it's a good idea.
I'm almost in complete agreement with you. I think fire stations are still highly dependent on the access. Like, I've caught pokemon at one and was super uncomfortable waiting to leave the station because it had no traffic signal (except the one THEY could activate) and only a single driveway. It was on a fairly busy road so it took me FOREVER to turn left out of their drive (I should have just turned right and not fooled with it). The entire time I was waiting, I was convinced a fire would happen and I'd be the bozo blocking the fire engines from getting to it. But we have another fire station with a huge driveway and a community building behind it so the public are clearly welcome to come and go on their property.
Similarly, we have a police station with a memorial garden that has 2 dedicated parking spots. There are 2 gyms in that garden that can both be reached from the parking spots. So I feel completely comfortable pulling in to interact with the gyms (as long as I am super careful to then put my phone back on the car mount so I'm hands free when leaving). I know we have other police stations in my area but that's the only one I can think of with POI.
I also feel a tad more protective about POI not being on school grounds for really small kids. But, again, there's an exception to every rule. We have a local elementary school that installed an accessible playground. It was a collaboration with the city parks department. It is an official city park with a sign posted about the hours that it is open to the public. I firmly believe 100% that should have POI despite it being on the grounds of an elementary school. Having POI there might make people more aware of this amazing community resource!
I do hope that a method for a district to block this will be very easily available, the current removal takes a bit of searching to find, and given that this is a profoundly bad idea, adminastrators or going to need the tools to keep this off the grounds if they so chose.
The problem with exceptions to rules is that, in Wayfarer, those exceptions quickly become the rule. So I'm not quite sure how this will work at all....
Pokemon Go trainer nominates a Basketball Court on school grounds named "Basketball at Smallchildschool" under the Basketball Court header. This court goes to Niantic to review based on header and name.
Pokemon Go trainer nominates a Basketball Court on school grounds named the same as above, but under the Outdoor Sports or Recreation header. Does this also get pulled into Niantic Review?
Ingress agent nominates "Basketball at Smallchildschool" and is not compelled to choose a "What is it" header. Does this get pulled into Niantic Review?
Ingress agent nominates that same court, but the name is "Hoops of Fun!" with no header. They do not use the word "Basketball" in their description or supporting info. Does this get pulled into Niantic review?
Pokemon Go Agent submits "Hoops of Fun!" with the same non-basketball-explicit description and supporting info, as an Outdoor Sports object only. Does this get pulled into Niantic review?
Trainers/agents quickly become savvy and start submitting courts without explicit trigger words, under a generic header like "Outdoor Sports". In their supporting info, they selectively quote @NianticTintino-ING and reassure reviewers that Niantic now considers some things on school grounds as eligible. Obliging reviewers, upon receipt of these candidates in voting due to the lack of trigger words or categorization, vote to accept the Wayspot, which due to lack of Niantic review now exists in Ingress and Pokemon Go.
Trainers/Agents see Basketball Courts on K-12 schools in game, and start submitting tennis courts, football fields (or pitches), and the like because stuff on K-12 grounds is now clearly eligible because one thing went through.
Oh, I forgot my followup, the final scenario - Niantic updates its magic set of trigger words to include "Hoop", "Hoops", "Court", "B-Ball", "BBall" "Dunk", "School", and "Lebron James". Thousands upon thousands of new submissions are pulled into Niantic review as a result. Niantic's internal reviewers, faced with a Sisyphean queue of new reviews, are overworked and unable to review appeals of any kind. And so the backlog grows....
All of a sudden every mural will be painted by LeBron James, every play park built by LeBron James, every basketball court is similar to the one LeBron James played on .... ok some might actually be similar lol.
Comments
With regards to Wayfarer this is the greediest, crassest decision Niantic have made.
Nobody will get a response back, they won't communicate or listen to anything we say. Anything they say in the December AMA about exploring, socialising, how you are looking to improve Wayfarer and how important maintaining quality and integrity are is 100% lies.
This is a massive F*"k You to the Wayfarer community. I hope the community stop submitting and reviewing as a massive F*!k You back.
They’ve clearly got even more dollar signs in their eyes with this NBA one than they did with Pokémon.
Dumping all the courts into the database with no images with no explanation and then this too.
Wonder how much NBA paid for it all.
Interesting….
I just checked the basketball half court submission I have in the system. It has basketball in The title. Now it could be coincidence but it is at in voting status.
I don’t know when the change happened but it is the only one out of a few that is in voting.
Context I only submitted at start of August and as it takes over 2 years to resolve normally I submit and then ignore unless I am considering an upgrade.
@NianticTintino-ING are those with Basketball being picked up for fast track?
As I said it could be a coincidence.
I have a MUGA nearby I can submit - I haven’t bothered before as it not a priority as it won’t appear in PoGo and there are other things in that park so I might try and submit that.
Having played the game, it's pretty generic and definitely doesn't have anything extra that would make UK people want to play a game based on a sport that isn't that popular here.
So we are not meeting up in…
*pulls up file*
Scot…land…to play virtual basketball? Dang it.
Of course! Wooo... high five!
Sorry, basketball talk made me go American. Apologies.
Apologies to all Americans too :D
I mean, you can still come to the land of scot to play basketball on a phone rather than playing actual basketball lol
Great idea. Would anyone like to meet @PkmnTrainerJ-ING , myself and @GazzaMor-PGO@Gazzas89-PGO ?
Look out for three grown men shiftily standing in the middle of a Glasgow primary school and looking at their phones.
Makes a change from standing shiftily at playparks tbf
I’d join but I don’t fit the shifty part ( and maybe some others😂)
I want to address the creepiness factor. I would genuinely like for everyone to stop calling adults who randomly happen to be near playgrounds or want to use sporting facilities at schools creeps. This is a very unhealthy obsession in our society.
Growing up, my mother routinely used the walking track at the local high school after school hours to exercise. No one ever accused her of being a creeep. She was just a middle aged woman out trying to lose weight and get some exercise. We were in the suburbs. There were no other places to walk on level ground where she could know exactly how far she'd walked and time herself. My father ran along the road but my mother didn't feel safe doing that as a woman alone (and we lived in a really hilly area so it was difficult).
My cousin is a sports fanatic and in his 20s and 30s used to organize his friends to play football or baseball. Sometimes he was able to reserve a field in a park for that. But where we lived, the parks didn't have football fields. So he'd have to organize a game at a local school during a school break. He did this for years. No one at the schools cared. No one in his group damaged the field or was there to creeep on kids. They got together to play a fun sport and build up camaraderie (two of Niantic's primary tenets).
I think it is damaging to assume that every adult who is on school property AFTER HOURS is being creepy. There are a LOT of areas in the US (I can't speak for anywhere else) that are underfunded so that schools are the only places that have maintained sports facilities like basketball, soccer, track, etc. Not everyone lives in a county that can afford to maintain outdoor sports fields. I went to a place this year to nominate stops and I was APPALLED at how neglected the single county park was - the tennis court fencing was falling down, the net was completely gone, the basketball court had cracks in it, the volleyball net was sagging and had holes in it, etc, etc, etc. I'm sure people in that area go to the school if they want to play on a maintained court/field.
I'm not advocating that Niantic reverse their policy against K-12 nominations. But I want the conversation to change. Stop calling people creeeps unless you have hard evidence that they are a creeep.
I think that I already got the answer for my question:
And the answer is: MONEY!!!
I wouldn't assume that and we were making fun of ourselves.
However @Gazzas89-PGO I apologize for saying you are shifty.
The other one I'm not so sure about :D
Me? I have been asked a few times what I’m doing when scanning plaques on Ingress and just say “Pokémon GO” with a laugh, and they wander off.
I’m rather tall so hard to miss, so not sure I can look overly shifty without being noticed. 😆
I tell people I’m playing Harry Potter.
On the few occasions I've been asked I usually show them Go and then explain how it uses real world locations, things of historic, cultural value that bring people together and help us to learn and share local and wider interests.
'This is a Victorian postbox, this one is a George V postbox, this one is Edward VIII postbox, this is a Elizabeth II postbox although I'm not sure why it is in the game and made it past reviewers as they don't fall under the acceptable criteria for.... Wait come back!'
Your location? E II R postboxes? I thought they’d rather die that do that.
It's fine, I've been accused of being shifty while playing the games, so I expect it lol
I don't live beyond the wall :)
Most Scots would neither know nor care what cypher is on a box.
It was only a few... proud is the kindest word I can think of... people that got a wee bit over excited and blew a box up.
@NianticTintino-ING Well after all those years finally Niantic has come to it's sense.
Our community stopped long ago NOT submitting things on school grounds.
We learned that having something near a Kindergarten will mostly lead to the same thing: when it is accepted, it won't get online because the area is blocked.
We never thought that sporting grounds at a school are not eligible. Our sporting grounds are always used by everyone else.
It is time that you just accept the fact that Kindergartens, Fire and Police Stations are public grounds that are Wayspots like Playgrounds and Majors Offices.
Everything everyone said in the last years does not apply anymore. There are no large crowds blocking the entrance to the fire station. There are no cars blocking kindergartens.
Same as the occasional 🏀 field at the school.
Literally didn't even know we didn't have eiir ones uo here till I started submitting the post boxes lol confused me so much when I just saw a post office one
I have a concern about this, I really do. Explain to me the difference between a person playing a Niantic game (NBA All Roads) on a K-12 property and a person playing a Niantic game (ingress or Pokemon Go) on a K-12 property. I don't see the difference, I think all K-12 should be respected and the Niantic games shouldn't be allow there. I'm interested in your thoughts.
Remember these won't be in Ingress, so agents won't be able to use them as anchors. They are only going to be in NBA All Worlds. That being said, I don't think it's a good idea.
I'm almost in complete agreement with you. I think fire stations are still highly dependent on the access. Like, I've caught pokemon at one and was super uncomfortable waiting to leave the station because it had no traffic signal (except the one THEY could activate) and only a single driveway. It was on a fairly busy road so it took me FOREVER to turn left out of their drive (I should have just turned right and not fooled with it). The entire time I was waiting, I was convinced a fire would happen and I'd be the bozo blocking the fire engines from getting to it. But we have another fire station with a huge driveway and a community building behind it so the public are clearly welcome to come and go on their property.
Similarly, we have a police station with a memorial garden that has 2 dedicated parking spots. There are 2 gyms in that garden that can both be reached from the parking spots. So I feel completely comfortable pulling in to interact with the gyms (as long as I am super careful to then put my phone back on the car mount so I'm hands free when leaving). I know we have other police stations in my area but that's the only one I can think of with POI.
I also feel a tad more protective about POI not being on school grounds for really small kids. But, again, there's an exception to every rule. We have a local elementary school that installed an accessible playground. It was a collaboration with the city parks department. It is an official city park with a sign posted about the hours that it is open to the public. I firmly believe 100% that should have POI despite it being on the grounds of an elementary school. Having POI there might make people more aware of this amazing community resource!
I do hope that a method for a district to block this will be very easily available, the current removal takes a bit of searching to find, and given that this is a profoundly bad idea, adminastrators or going to need the tools to keep this off the grounds if they so chose.
The problem with exceptions to rules is that, in Wayfarer, those exceptions quickly become the rule. So I'm not quite sure how this will work at all....
Oh, I forgot my followup, the final scenario - Niantic updates its magic set of trigger words to include "Hoop", "Hoops", "Court", "B-Ball", "BBall" "Dunk", "School", and "Lebron James". Thousands upon thousands of new submissions are pulled into Niantic review as a result. Niantic's internal reviewers, faced with a Sisyphean queue of new reviews, are overworked and unable to review appeals of any kind. And so the backlog grows....
If you add all the already existing trigger words, do you get your nomination reviewed at double speed?
All of a sudden every mural will be painted by LeBron James, every play park built by LeBron James, every basketball court is similar to the one LeBron James played on .... ok some might actually be similar lol.