[QOL] We need Coal pre-filters!
Rodensteiner-PGO
Posts: 1,707 ✭✭✭✭✭
@NianticTintino-ING i proposed this a few times before, we still just have way too much coal (direct 1* contributions) in the system floating around.
As we gather there are Reviewers that are in "Very Good Standing" easily flinging 1*s out of the system. Let´s say if something gets three strikes, and they are out.
- That is good.
On the other hand, if these Reviewers are not reviewing, then the coal just stays in the system and lingers.
The Idea is that a large part of the contributions gets pre-viewed by someone that is able to directly cut out the coal.
- Reviewers would have a much better experience when they dont have to take a look at EVERYTHING.
- Reviewers would have more time to review and accept good candidates
- Pre-Filtering would allow to even batch-accept stuff like playgrounds. Do we really have to 5*, 5*, 5*, 5*, 5* AND select "Playground" etc. ?
- Reviewers would not have to endure 30+seconds review time for coal.
There are enough reviewers in our midst (errm) that are capable of having a better, quicker use of wayfarer. Just talk to the Ambassadors about this idea.
Idea would be to have a page like let´s say the picture review - having 2o pictures where you can say Yes or No or Maybe
Comments
Hi @rodensteiner-ING,
Thanks for your feedback. I'm sure the Ambassadors would love to chat about this with me and the team. I'll make sure to bring it up and see what we can send up to the team in the form of suggestions.
That was a fast response. I believe it was either Tintino or maybe @NianticDanbocat that said they would be taking action to scrape out some of the coal.
I get that they can’t be specific, but would love to know how much they managed to reduce it by etc.
Good to know there will be a discussion on it behind the scenes.
@NianticTintino-ING I concur that coal is an ongoing issue and it's a burden on the throughput of the review system.
I would like to suggest that the submission workflow would be a great place to start addressing this issue, because keeping the coal from getting into the system is inherently more efficient than filtering it out after it's been submitted. Imagine that the following questions were asked during the submission workflow, each with YES/NO options that have to be selected:
That may not be the exact best set of questions, but it's what I put together off the top of my head. If the submission workflow had a list of questions that had to be answered before the submission was complete then some of the coal could be weeded out before it even gets to Wayfarer... and there would be a golden opportunity to educate the submitter at the precise moment when the information would be useful, and thus it would be more likely to stay with them. Sure, some people would lie but it would still be a teachable moment and it would weed out a lot of coal from well-intentioned people who weren't well-educated about the acceptance and rejection criteria.
I agree with this concept, but it seems like the WF team can only impact the actual WF process. The filtering you're talking about means making changes to the submission process within 2 games. We know the game teams have been slow to make changes since Ingress still doesn't allow you to add a category to your nomination. If we regular people ever get to use the WF app to make nominations, it seems like this would be possible. I don't mind switching over to the app for submissions, but I'm hoping to not be forced to review through it.
This is super-practical and I’m confident Niantic will never implement it because they have a skeleton crew manning Wayfarer on a shoestring budget with no company support. Really, for a tech company, some basic bots for reverse image search and reasonable controls that actually prevent submissions from a banned user should be basic protocols. And yet…
@SeaprincessHNB-PGO You are likely correct. The submission workflow should generally be common code that is skinned for each game but it doesn't entirely seem to be that way.
Niantic would lose a lot of submissions if people had to install a separate app for it. They'd lose me as a reviewer if I had to use a mobile app rather than a desktop computer.
That question would be difficult to answer with the current POI criteria explanation because it is interpreted so differently by reviewers.
Therefore, if this is to be implemented, the Wayfarer team will have to submit a fairly clear and detailed set of criteria.
However, I don't think the current team can do it. If they could, the coal would be gone by now.
Most reviewers today can't understand what's in the word situationally, so once someone on the Wayfarer team says it is qualified under the circumstances, everything is qualified.
This is evidenced by the frequent digging up of the Starbucks case that Casey has spoken of in the past.
@tp235-ING I agree. To be fair, the criteria are somewhat nebulous with occasional hyper-specific clarifications[1], they change and are clarified constantly without centralized communications of the changes, they're a combination of documentation, AMAs, and random employee opinions[2], and there's no single place that people can go to get all of the current information. To truly understand all of the criteria requires the equivalent of a lawyer, an archivist, a judge, and a scholar of obscure texts all rolled up into the same person. There's also no objectively right answer for every submission.
Most reviewers today can't understand what's in the word situationally, so once someone on the Wayfarer team says it is qualified under the circumstances, everything is qualified.
I recently saw a submission, multiple times, that argued that something not-eligible was eligible because Niantic said that things in apartment complexes can qualify. The person seemed to interpret that was roughly anything that's in an apartment complex qualifies rather than Niantic's obvious (to me) meaning that being in an apartment complex isn't a disqualifier.
Having said that, I still think the best way to minimize coal is to rework the submission workflow so that submitters get guidance while they go through the process. Relying on people to remember the criteria and the nuances and to keep track of all of the changes is just not a winning strategy for getting high-quality submissions. (Reviewers should get similar guidance during the review process.)
It still would be good to be able to filter out obvious coal early in the review cycle as well if there's a way to do it without a lot of coal false-positives. That would make the system more efficient overall and shorten wait times.
[1] Community pools are OK but pools in apartment complexes and hotels aren't, water towers that are fenced off don't qualify but other things that are fenced off do if someone has access to get behind the fence.
[2] The thing about painted fire hydrants blocking emergency services while something else two feet away from a fire hydrant not blocking emergency services is one of the most bizarrely illogical thing that I have ever heard WRT Wayfarer, and that's a strong statement.
@NianticTintino-ING thanks for the quick reply.
As we all know someone needs to pre-select what will be in the review and what will be churned out immediately.
There will be no short term changes to app and web as we know Wayfarer is the stepchild of a distant niece of Pokemon go.
We just need someone from the ambassadors that have "the keys to the city" and are able to siph thru the contributions.
Contributions are way out of hand since many years and the situation won't get better with having paid workers from Niantic not being able to afford time or missing Intel to be able to do this.
This needs to be outsourced to the community - and i don't think that it is that much different from the usual way (review)
In Danbocat's 2021 Playback and Roadmap Update, I remember the statement that one of their improvements would be:
Speeding up decisions through things like more background signaling to remove coal from the submissions served to you for review.
So a pre-coal filter. But I don't think it even slightly materialised. Meanwhile, Wayfarer is currently in its worst condition because I'm noticing there are MANY nominations submitted via the Wayfarer app, and there is no limit/distance restriction for those.
The ambassadors are just a mouthpiece. They will have no additional internal functions to just a semi-direct contact with someone who's tasked to talk to the community.
I do think it got better after the submitter test but there's still quite a bit. Personally I care more about accepting good stuff than "easy agreements" so I hate getting lots of coal in a row.
The submitter test that you can repeat forever every 15 minutes? I don’t think it’s had any impact myself.
@Hosette-ING I distinctly remember you saying Community pools are NOT ok. What changed your mind?
@29andCounting-PGO I don't believe I've ever said that... definitely not since Niantic changed their stance on them.
Residential pools, such as those in hotels, apartment complexes, and condo complexes, are not acceptable. Community pools that are run by the municipality are acceptable.
I think even that is more effort than some of the worst offenders are willing to put in 🤣
@Hosette-ING I guess I thought you were referring to community pools, like the ones in a gated community. Not apartments, or condos, but single family homes.
Surprisingly, in one of my Pogo social media groups was a thread of people talking about how hard the test was for them, and how they couldn’t pass after several tries. Some commenters were like, “you have to look very carefully” which made me LOL because no you don’t.
@Sunlitgarden-ING The worst offenders are willing to review with multiple accounts and systemically add dozens or hundreds of fakes to an area. Passing a test that they can look up the answers to online isn't much of an impediment.
@29andCounting-PGO Here's the quote from Niantic:
Similar to before the criteria refresh, swimming pools at private residences or hotels (or other similar residentially-focused locations) are ineligible. Other than that, pools would be a great place to meet and that encourages exercise and should be considered eligible. This includes public pools, pools or training complexes with historical context, reflecting pools, fountains, aquatic centers and cooldown centers, university pools, sport arenas/complexes and more.
I would take that to mean that a municipal pool would be eligible but a pool that's part of a residential complex (regardless of whether they are apartments or single-family homes) is ineligible. I don't think there's a lot of ambiguity in their statement.
How many times can they take that test and not pass?
I find that hard to believe.
The test at the time of OPR had some nasty traps here and there, but the test to become a Wayfarer reviewer is at a level where the correct answer is written in the question text.
Yet, those who fail the test are not capable of understanding the language.
To use this as an analogy in Japan, it is like having an eraser in front of you that says "PLASTIC ERASER" when you are asked to "write the English spelling of the word eraser" in Japanese.
(The photo shows the most popular eraser in Japan.)
For Niantic, which usually tends to make its distinctions known in a vague Zen-like manner, this is a fairly clear statement of distinction.
Well, even if it is not so clearly stated, the answer is naturally understandable if we think about it in terms of social common sense.
I am surprised by that. Did you mention it used to be a fail twice and that was it in most cases?
Guys and girls, you have went off topic here. Please keep to the topic. Niantic is happy to hear your ideas for working off the backlog and especially for getting rid of coal and coal miners.
You are just making coal here.
Good point. One of the ways of getting rid of potential coal would be running a script to auto reject based on some wording. We saw a lot of “begging” for new Wayspots in supporting information in Indonesia on ineligible items.
Would be worth running through some from time to time with a script, then have Niantic review a certain percentage. Following this, the script can be tweaked if needed (let’s say it looks for trees as a natural feature, but it picks up signs for trees or ones with plaques planted for special occasions that could be eligible) and then feed it back to those who have submitted coal in a meaningful way, perhaps with details on why it’s not eligible?
Personally, I'd like to be allowed to choose which nominations I can review.
In which language(s) would you like to review nominations (multiple choice of supported languages)?
∙ Review nominations for my current location (Y/N).
Review upgraded nominations for the country/region of your current location (Y/N)
Review nominations for dry areas (Y/N)
Please let me choose as I wish in this way.
Then I would not hesitate to exclude my country.
And it would be much more enjoyable to focus on reviewing the dry area nominations and concentrate only on EDITing the current location.
Agree, at minimum anyone "begging" for
PokestopsWayspots should have their nominations reviewed by Niantic review.Sometimes good POIs have risk to be rejected just because the submitters are "begging" reviewers to accept them.
Nah, you have to keep the paying customers happy.
Since Go is keeping Wayfarer Ingress and other games existing it's important to keep on our good side.
There does not appear to be ambiguity in the statement you quoted. But I've tried to point out to you before that the way you use the word "community" to only mean public, municipal pools muddies the message. Where I live (29andcounting is only 1 state away from me) the word community means both the larger town/area *and* the individual neighborhood you live in, where a pool would be owned and operated by a Home Owners Association.
So when you say "only community pools are eligible" many people read that and think their privately owned neighborhood pool is eligible when that is the opposite of what you're trying to say.
I'm not sure what single word would cover the kind of pool that is eligible. Public/municipal seems to be the best to convey that in the southeast.
I've seen someone recommend to use the yes in "What Is It?" categories to pop-up choice clarifications and ask whether it fits certain guidelines on the submitter's end. Maybe it is more feasible for the reviewers end as there is no need for cross-app tweaking?
That’s a good idea but you’ll always have the bad actors who nominate a nearby rock and say “Yes it’s eligible” when prompted with any kind of warning.
“What is it?” didn’t exist when I did my first nomination which happened to be a giant rock. (Accepted)
There’s also an issue that Ingress doesn’t yet ask a submitter to make a selection of this.
@SeaprincessHNB-PGO just curious as to why you think you live one state away from me? I’ve never said what state I live in.