I don't buy this argument at all. Nominators are required to read the criteria and take a test on it before they can nominate. How are they able to pass the test without knowing the criteria beforehand unless they are already engaged in cheating?
The test is very simple, you can do it without reading the criteria (it lets you) and even by guessing you can complete the test completely, especially since you get a chance 15 minutes. I don’t condone the abuse but if people see nominations in the game then they think it would match the criteria in some way or form.
I agree comepletely with all your points, but I think it’s gonna take a while, seeing how slow niantic reacts.. those bots could easily stay around for many months or even years if niantic doesn’t step up their game..
"Now I assume that in the same village some people saw those things getting accepted and they started copying him. But that is not their mistake. It's yours (!)"
That's not how this works. The criteria are the criteria, it is the responsibility of every single user of Wayfarer to learn and know the criteria. If they see something appear on the map that they feel doesn't meet the criteria it is their responsibility to either clarify their understanding of the criteria or acknowledge that the POI should not have made it through and move on. There are avenues to report things that violate the rules to a point that warrants removal, although admittedly this is not always effective.
At no point should any Wayfarer user look at something that should not have been accepted but was and think "Whelp, if they got that through so can I!" and start abusing the system to get Wayspots everywhere.
This whole blame Niantic for not catching the abuse narrative is odd to me, "they let it happen" ... what? They can't be everywhere all at once. Stuff slips by, it's like blaming the police for not stopping every single crime before it's committed. Bonkers. That's not how life works.
Anybody who looks at people getting away with abuse shrugs their shoulders and thinks if you can't beat 'em, join 'em. Deserves what they get.
I had some waypoints in that region (I'm not from that region but submitted them when I was visiting). These where bloso trailmarkers. Since in the fakes bloso images were used, my waypoints got removed and also got a mail about my submissions not meeting the criteria (luckily it's a warning I got and not a ban). Since they don't (wanna) tell you which nomination is 'bad', this was a guess for me. Seeing this thread, things start to make some sense. My nominations were from May and before this abuse started. Also the locations were accurate and the trailmarker was really present. So despite the criteria were ok, I'm taking part in the fallout of the actions of niantic.
So I'm with the general feeling here that users should be educated (as soon as possible in the train / chain) and niantic should be more transparent when addressing users for so called abuse. If you ask for details to learn from your mistakes, they always reply with "we cannot disclose this information". I understand they need to follow some 'no exceptions' rule, but at least review the feedback on the large 'actions' they do and learn from them.
People clearly need better things to do. The best way to get people to stop doing Wayfarer abuse is to stop them from playing anything. That's clearly on the cards and well in progress.
First my apologies for my English, as it is not my native language.
I am one of the people that got banned, due to my submissions in Destelbergen. I respect the work Niantic is trying to do with all the fake stops, however, I think many of my nominations were flagged as fake unrightfully.
When looking on Google Maps with the coordinates,
It does look like a fake nomination.
However, the pictures on Maps are six years old, and when looking at the next two pictures, it is clear that it is the same place.
Some other trailmarkers that got removed:
Look, if those green cycling trailmarkers weren’t POI, then I admit, I submitted a lot of wrongdoings. However, I am certain they were once in the Wayfarer showcase. When looking at the showcase now, Hydrant signs are in them:
I messaged Niantic for a ban appeal and hope to get an answer soon.
Destelbergen - Witte graal @ 51.061377 , 3.827898 | Front yard decoration at some private residential property.
The holy grail @ 51.060068 , 3.827556 | Same photo as above but placed at another location.
Schelderoute - spookpaaltje @ 51.060006 , 3.82584 | Pole without any sign with a trailmarker like word in title.
Infobord onthaalouder @ 51.06073 , 3.819721 | Sign of a childcare business at this residential property. Shouldn't exist just like a regular child daycare place.
Bruintje Het Paard @ 51.061948 , 3.817887 | Decorative facade tile on private residential property.
Vogels, Vogels En Nog Eens Vogels @ 51.06193,3.81759 | Same as above but another tile at another private residential property further.
@NianticAaron I would love to hear you opinions on Bo's post above this one here.
It proves that you guys at Niantic incorrectly flagged nominations. Which led to him and other players getting an (unjustified) ban. I have 2 questions.
A: What will be done to keep this from happening in the future?
B: Why should players keep nominating POI's if even legit POI's who are featured on streetview can get flagged and removed with no apparent reason? And also why should they do it if even legit POI's can get you banned.
"If it is in the showcase it must be ok." isn't quite the right mindset. I'm not the largest fan of those trailmarker signs but they still encourage movement in different ways like cycling and walking. I still prefer trailmarkers which have a set route over these numbers which only connect nodes. But that's my opinion.
That aside the hydrant signs are a completely different thing. They are being titled infosign while the only thing they do is point at nearby underground hydrants mostly within like 2-3 meter. These hydrants are used by several services including emergency services (firefighters). I don't think it is wise to have wayspots around these locations where people would gather up and block these lifesaving services.
It so happens one player decided to give a hydrant sign a try by using 'trailmarker' in the title. Reviewers were either mislead or bots picked it up and auto accepted it due to having 'trailmarker' in it's name. As soon as this happened it opened the gates for more of these invalid wayspots.
Anyways, @NianticAaron please have a look at the few players who got affected by the purge of this area. Valid wayspots were removed and some players got wrongfully affected by this.
It's quite clear from the picture that whatever this "dreamcloud" is, it is fixed to the ceiling of something. So I did some research.
The portal is located within the walls of this company:
IGEPA: A quick google led me to their site, according to that site they're a wholesale company specialising in a couple of area's such as funerals, printing, stationary and the health care sector.
So, it's basically a POI within a store without any cultural significance. Oh yeah, and stores close, so it more than likely isn't reachable for half the time.
All those that believe it applies to them can go through that process. It is a personal matter between them and the Niantic team. There is no point in anyone trying to plead their case as it is between the individual and Niantic everyone has the right to privacy. it is better that the full policy including appeals is carried out as intended.
If they are removing those cycling trail markers and banning people for submitting them, then they don't know what they are doing. Those are genuine cycling trail markers. I looked up the first one and it appears to be in the correct location. It is a marker for a 2.4 km cycling trail between node 73 of the Leiestreek, and node 35 of Scheldeland. The trail passes this location and the marker points in the direction of node 73 as expected. You would expect a marker there because of the intersection with the Markiesstraat. The surrounding area also matches with what we see on Streetview. I added a map of the trail below. I put a red arrow were the marker is located. These trails can be verified at https://www.fietsnet.be/. @NianticAaron, if the team is actually removing these and banning people for them, please take another look at these, because they are genuine cycling trail markers.
And how am I supposed to spin it then? Go into the shop each time? And what with closing hours? + there's no actual way of knowing wether or not that thing is there without going into the store.
According to the rules, there is nothing wrong with a waypoint not 'reachable' 100% of the time. There are waypoint in parks and cemetaries that close over night. There are waypoints on islands that are only reachable for 7 months by boat. Not always playable 100% of the time, but well within the niantic rules imho.
I'm sorry but why would this be PRP? The term PRP stands for Private Residential Property. This is always used for single family residential housing. Appartments for example are not PRP as they house multiple families. You looked up this place called Igepa and figured out it's a company and that's correct. But it is something completely different than a residential place.
About wayspots not being reachable half the time is fine. If I'm not mistaken wayspots are allowed to be in-door and/or placed behind closing doors/gates. This one in particular is an unique piece of artwork only found here as it was made for this company. It's been hanging in the showroom for almost a decade. A place a lot of employees but also clients visit every day.
I'm not sure why you're trying to get rid of this using the PRP thing. Compared to the ones I mentioned earlier on facades of single family residential houses this is one is valid.
Beside this one I also have nominated other in-door wayspots. One is even inside a hospital. Before someone screams 'obstruct emergency services'... no it's in the main hallway where visitors check in at the reception. It's indoor and behind doors which close at night which is fine. Wayspots don't have to be accessible 24/7.
Let's be honest, you interpret the rules whatever way floats your boat.
I've seen you cherry-picking other locations.
Now, how could you possibly know wether or not those art-tiles are on single-family homes? Did you go there and check? Or did you check with "burgerlijke" stand?
Oh, and regarding that hospital-POI, it's not like a POI's-radius is over 20m and can be accessed from multiple corridors/areas of the hospital.
But let's shift our focus to the people being unjustly banned instead of deleting more wayspots.
The local community already got a ton of actual eligble wayspots removed. Can't we give them a break instead before we get more innocent players banned because we're so dead-keen on removing everything that we personally don't seem to agree with.
I pointed out an area with tons of fake POI's and somehow @NianticAaron took his comb and went over everything in a broader area with the utmost detail resulting in an unfair ban for multiple players.
Wow so now niantic is banning people for 90 days/permanently while they submitted legit trailer markers? Damn that’s rough and way out of touch.
Honestly I’m very disappointed about niantic’s response to the bots and they seem to be losing it, and their resources can not outweight the botting resources the botters use..
it’s a shame that niantic is not being able to handle this properly and the Netherlands, germany and Belgium have become a war zone.
You are complaining about Water signs not being safe enough, because 'fire fighters' use them, this is ****. They never use them, seems like you don't know how these work. These signs are also located just next to the walking paths, next to other POIs, so they are 100% safe. But yes, the quality of these portals is not enough.
But to come back to the 'Droomwolk' POI, this is located in an industry park, with loads of passing trucks every day. If you look at streetview, you can see all the Igepa trucks.
Industry parks shouldn't be places where you play games, and this POI is even located in the building, with no access to other people besides people who work there.
Also, look at the quality. If we will accept indoor temporary **** like this, we can nominate all the paintings in an museum.
Seems like a cheap portal that shouldn't have been accepted for safety, reach, quality and company issue reasons.
All, can we get the focus back to Destelbergen and the issues there. If you think the droomwolk is invalid or not worthy, make an in-game report or create a separate thread. Thxs.
Paintings at a gallery/museum can be accepted. You must be able to prove they're on permanent display there, but if you can do that, then they are perfectly eligible. Or would you rather Niantic deleted the wayspots for things like the Mona Lisa?
You could look at Google Street View and see the object through the window. It's barely 10 meters inside the building looking from the outside. With PoGO having a spin radius of 80 meter I don't think there's any issue touching this wayspot. Ingress has half this distance, still seems reachable.
Anyways, back to the real topic over here as requested.
And no one thinks about the situation of the boy who did the most nominations. I know he did it to do good, to have a lot of pokestops in his neighbourhood (in citys there are plenty, but far away). He had first seen it from someone else and he thought it was oke, so can you blame someone so bad at this as he even didn‘t know it was wrong? He only copyd what another one did. So now he and his brother got banned and can‘t play on go fest, I know they spent their pocketmoney to buy a ticket for it. A cruel disapointment for these boys. What do they know about it if they see that such things come true? The blame is than the bug in the game who let it happen. I hope they get a compensation for their lost ticket, because I know they are good boys.
Comments
I don't buy this argument at all. Nominators are required to read the criteria and take a test on it before they can nominate. How are they able to pass the test without knowing the criteria beforehand unless they are already engaged in cheating?
Ah yes, the so-called test. Do you think 10 questions can control wether or not a person completely understood everything in the criteria?
The test is very simple, you can do it without reading the criteria (it lets you) and even by guessing you can complete the test completely, especially since you get a chance 15 minutes. I don’t condone the abuse but if people see nominations in the game then they think it would match the criteria in some way or form.
I agree comepletely with all your points, but I think it’s gonna take a while, seeing how slow niantic reacts.. those bots could easily stay around for many months or even years if niantic doesn’t step up their game..
As shameful as that would be…
Nice to see some action taken. Look forward to seeing more abusers punished and removed from the voting pool.
"Now I assume that in the same village some people saw those things getting accepted and they started copying him. But that is not their mistake. It's yours (!)"
That's not how this works. The criteria are the criteria, it is the responsibility of every single user of Wayfarer to learn and know the criteria. If they see something appear on the map that they feel doesn't meet the criteria it is their responsibility to either clarify their understanding of the criteria or acknowledge that the POI should not have made it through and move on. There are avenues to report things that violate the rules to a point that warrants removal, although admittedly this is not always effective.
At no point should any Wayfarer user look at something that should not have been accepted but was and think "Whelp, if they got that through so can I!" and start abusing the system to get Wayspots everywhere.
This whole blame Niantic for not catching the abuse narrative is odd to me, "they let it happen" ... what? They can't be everywhere all at once. Stuff slips by, it's like blaming the police for not stopping every single crime before it's committed. Bonkers. That's not how life works.
Anybody who looks at people getting away with abuse shrugs their shoulders and thinks if you can't beat 'em, join 'em. Deserves what they get.
I had some waypoints in that region (I'm not from that region but submitted them when I was visiting). These where bloso trailmarkers. Since in the fakes bloso images were used, my waypoints got removed and also got a mail about my submissions not meeting the criteria (luckily it's a warning I got and not a ban). Since they don't (wanna) tell you which nomination is 'bad', this was a guess for me. Seeing this thread, things start to make some sense. My nominations were from May and before this abuse started. Also the locations were accurate and the trailmarker was really present. So despite the criteria were ok, I'm taking part in the fallout of the actions of niantic.
So I'm with the general feeling here that users should be educated (as soon as possible in the train / chain) and niantic should be more transparent when addressing users for so called abuse. If you ask for details to learn from your mistakes, they always reply with "we cannot disclose this information". I understand they need to follow some 'no exceptions' rule, but at least review the feedback on the large 'actions' they do and learn from them.
It's all a case of collateral damage.
People clearly need better things to do. The best way to get people to stop doing Wayfarer abuse is to stop them from playing anything. That's clearly on the cards and well in progress.
Hey there,
First my apologies for my English, as it is not my native language.
I am one of the people that got banned, due to my submissions in Destelbergen. I respect the work Niantic is trying to do with all the fake stops, however, I think many of my nominations were flagged as fake unrightfully.
When looking on Google Maps with the coordinates,
It does look like a fake nomination.
However, the pictures on Maps are six years old, and when looking at the next two pictures, it is clear that it is the same place.
Some other trailmarkers that got removed:
Look, if those green cycling trailmarkers weren’t POI, then I admit, I submitted a lot of wrongdoings. However, I am certain they were once in the Wayfarer showcase. When looking at the showcase now, Hydrant signs are in them:
I messaged Niantic for a ban appeal and hope to get an answer soon.
Many thanks in advance,
Bo
First of all thanks for cleaning up the mess in this area. Looks good now though a few wayspots were missed in between the ****.
I'm not sure if you guys are finished but here is a list of more stuff that should have been removed.
Destelbergen - La Bahia @ 51.061134 , 3.829845 | Google Maps photo.
La Bahia kunst @ 51.061162 , 3.830355 | Same Google Maps photo as above but a duplicate placed further.
Zwarten ond infobord @ 51.061691, 3.829848 | Just a dog with 'infosign' in title.
Wandelroute 525 @ 51.06214 , 3.829611 | Fake street light trailmarker.
Destelbergen - Witte graal @ 51.061377 , 3.827898 | Front yard decoration at some private residential property.
The holy grail @ 51.060068 , 3.827556 | Same photo as above but placed at another location.
Schelderoute - spookpaaltje @ 51.060006 , 3.82584 | Pole without any sign with a trailmarker like word in title.
Infobord onthaalouder @ 51.06073 , 3.819721 | Sign of a childcare business at this residential property. Shouldn't exist just like a regular child daycare place.
Bruintje Het Paard @ 51.061948 , 3.817887 | Decorative facade tile on private residential property.
Vogels, Vogels En Nog Eens Vogels @ 51.06193,3.81759 | Same as above but another tile at another private residential property further.
@NianticAaron I would love to hear you opinions on Bo's post above this one here.
It proves that you guys at Niantic incorrectly flagged nominations. Which led to him and other players getting an (unjustified) ban. I have 2 questions.
A: What will be done to keep this from happening in the future?
B: Why should players keep nominating POI's if even legit POI's who are featured on streetview can get flagged and removed with no apparent reason? And also why should they do it if even legit POI's can get you banned.
Opened up wayfarer this morning and some streetlight trailmarkers are still in voting. Also I could still spot about 10 of them on the nearby.
"If it is in the showcase it must be ok." isn't quite the right mindset. I'm not the largest fan of those trailmarker signs but they still encourage movement in different ways like cycling and walking. I still prefer trailmarkers which have a set route over these numbers which only connect nodes. But that's my opinion.
That aside the hydrant signs are a completely different thing. They are being titled infosign while the only thing they do is point at nearby underground hydrants mostly within like 2-3 meter. These hydrants are used by several services including emergency services (firefighters). I don't think it is wise to have wayspots around these locations where people would gather up and block these lifesaving services.
It so happens one player decided to give a hydrant sign a try by using 'trailmarker' in the title. Reviewers were either mislead or bots picked it up and auto accepted it due to having 'trailmarker' in it's name. As soon as this happened it opened the gates for more of these invalid wayspots.
Anyways, @NianticAaron please have a look at the few players who got affected by the purge of this area. Valid wayspots were removed and some players got wrongfully affected by this.
If we're going to flag PRP-portals, how about this one: https://link.ingress.com/?link=https%3a%2f%2fintel.ingress.com%2fportal%2f899bdedae6b43d1a8db939ede8b4b2f7.16&apn=com.nianticproject.ingress&isi=576505181&ibi=com.google.ingress&ifl=https%3a%2f%2fapps.apple.com%2fapp%2fingress%2fid576505181&ofl=https%3a%2f%2fintel.ingress.com%2fintel%3fpll%3d51.102808%2c3.443771
It's quite clear from the picture that whatever this "dreamcloud" is, it is fixed to the ceiling of something. So I did some research.
The portal is located within the walls of this company:
IGEPA: A quick google led me to their site, according to that site they're a wholesale company specialising in a couple of area's such as funerals, printing, stationary and the health care sector.
So, it's basically a POI within a store without any cultural significance. Oh yeah, and stores close, so it more than likely isn't reachable for half the time.
There is an appeals process.
All those that believe it applies to them can go through that process. It is a personal matter between them and the Niantic team. There is no point in anyone trying to plead their case as it is between the individual and Niantic everyone has the right to privacy. it is better that the full policy including appeals is carried out as intended.
If they are removing those cycling trail markers and banning people for submitting them, then they don't know what they are doing. Those are genuine cycling trail markers. I looked up the first one and it appears to be in the correct location. It is a marker for a 2.4 km cycling trail between node 73 of the Leiestreek, and node 35 of Scheldeland. The trail passes this location and the marker points in the direction of node 73 as expected. You would expect a marker there because of the intersection with the Markiesstraat. The surrounding area also matches with what we see on Streetview. I added a map of the trail below. I put a red arrow were the marker is located. These trails can be verified at https://www.fietsnet.be/. @NianticAaron, if the team is actually removing these and banning people for them, please take another look at these, because they are genuine cycling trail markers.
Hi Niantic,
I am also one of the affected players that got banned for 90 days due to the problems on wayfarer.
there were some more trailmarker routes removed that shouldn't be imo?
for example:
both of these are there, with coordinates and everything as shown on picture.
If it's really the case that these are not valid pokéstops. then warn us in advance and we will not submit these kind of pokestops.
The problem is that you see alot of new pokestops and other people think they meet criteria because they see similar stops.
I hope this problem that is happening to wayfarer will be solved asap so people won't get banned in the future because of the bots.
I do hope all the 'good' stops will be brought back and the bad ones will get removed so peace can return...
Thanks for listening @NianticAaron
Kind regards,
ilenion
PRP is not business property. The R stands for residential.
And how am I supposed to spin it then? Go into the shop each time? And what with closing hours? + there's no actual way of knowing wether or not that thing is there without going into the store.
According to the rules, there is nothing wrong with a waypoint not 'reachable' 100% of the time. There are waypoint in parks and cemetaries that close over night. There are waypoints on islands that are only reachable for 7 months by boat. Not always playable 100% of the time, but well within the niantic rules imho.
I'm sorry but why would this be PRP? The term PRP stands for Private Residential Property. This is always used for single family residential housing. Appartments for example are not PRP as they house multiple families. You looked up this place called Igepa and figured out it's a company and that's correct. But it is something completely different than a residential place.
About wayspots not being reachable half the time is fine. If I'm not mistaken wayspots are allowed to be in-door and/or placed behind closing doors/gates. This one in particular is an unique piece of artwork only found here as it was made for this company. It's been hanging in the showroom for almost a decade. A place a lot of employees but also clients visit every day.
I'm not sure why you're trying to get rid of this using the PRP thing. Compared to the ones I mentioned earlier on facades of single family residential houses this is one is valid.
Beside this one I also have nominated other in-door wayspots. One is even inside a hospital. Before someone screams 'obstruct emergency services'... no it's in the main hallway where visitors check in at the reception. It's indoor and behind doors which close at night which is fine. Wayspots don't have to be accessible 24/7.
Let's be honest, you interpret the rules whatever way floats your boat.
I've seen you cherry-picking other locations.
Now, how could you possibly know wether or not those art-tiles are on single-family homes? Did you go there and check? Or did you check with "burgerlijke" stand?
Oh, and regarding that hospital-POI, it's not like a POI's-radius is over 20m and can be accessed from multiple corridors/areas of the hospital.
But let's shift our focus to the people being unjustly banned instead of deleting more wayspots.
The local community already got a ton of actual eligble wayspots removed. Can't we give them a break instead before we get more innocent players banned because we're so dead-keen on removing everything that we personally don't seem to agree with.
I pointed out an area with tons of fake POI's and somehow @NianticAaron took his comb and went over everything in a broader area with the utmost detail resulting in an unfair ban for multiple players.
Wow so now niantic is banning people for 90 days/permanently while they submitted legit trailer markers? Damn that’s rough and way out of touch.
Honestly I’m very disappointed about niantic’s response to the bots and they seem to be losing it, and their resources can not outweight the botting resources the botters use..
it’s a shame that niantic is not being able to handle this properly and the Netherlands, germany and Belgium have become a war zone.
You are complaining about Water signs not being safe enough, because 'fire fighters' use them, this is ****. They never use them, seems like you don't know how these work. These signs are also located just next to the walking paths, next to other POIs, so they are 100% safe. But yes, the quality of these portals is not enough.
But to come back to the 'Droomwolk' POI, this is located in an industry park, with loads of passing trucks every day. If you look at streetview, you can see all the Igepa trucks.
Industry parks shouldn't be places where you play games, and this POI is even located in the building, with no access to other people besides people who work there.
Also, look at the quality. If we will accept indoor temporary **** like this, we can nominate all the paintings in an museum.
Seems like a cheap portal that shouldn't have been accepted for safety, reach, quality and company issue reasons.
All, can we get the focus back to Destelbergen and the issues there. If you think the droomwolk is invalid or not worthy, make an in-game report or create a separate thread. Thxs.
Paintings at a gallery/museum can be accepted. You must be able to prove they're on permanent display there, but if you can do that, then they are perfectly eligible. Or would you rather Niantic deleted the wayspots for things like the Mona Lisa?
You could look at Google Street View and see the object through the window. It's barely 10 meters inside the building looking from the outside. With PoGO having a spin radius of 80 meter I don't think there's any issue touching this wayspot. Ingress has half this distance, still seems reachable.
Anyways, back to the real topic over here as requested.
And no one thinks about the situation of the boy who did the most nominations. I know he did it to do good, to have a lot of pokestops in his neighbourhood (in citys there are plenty, but far away). He had first seen it from someone else and he thought it was oke, so can you blame someone so bad at this as he even didn‘t know it was wrong? He only copyd what another one did. So now he and his brother got banned and can‘t play on go fest, I know they spent their pocketmoney to buy a ticket for it. A cruel disapointment for these boys. What do they know about it if they see that such things come true? The blame is than the bug in the game who let it happen. I hope they get a compensation for their lost ticket, because I know they are good boys.