Niantic's standards for people in public spaces is quite unrealistic [rejected appeals]
SiIverLyra-PGO
Posts: 952 ✭✭✭✭✭
Both @SerAmanda-PGO and I had two appeals rejected the last couple of days for similar reasons that both seem very unreasonable. After sharing with the community and discussing it we think it's worth raising these rejections here for discussion (and hopefully a comment from Niantic).
My appeal:
SerAmanda's:
Both of us have made an effort so that the presence of people in the photos will be minimal. Naturally, seeing as those are public spaces that are meant for socialization, it's virtually impossible to take a photo that's completely people-free.
Now let me refer to the Criteria section on the Wayfarer website for a minute.
(From "Eligibility Criteria"; emphasis on photos with people that are actually closer to the camera than in either of the photos in the appeals above)
(From "Rejection Criteria"; emphasis on "as the subject matter" which was not the case in either of the appealed nominations)
(From "Content Guidelines" - no recognizable faces in either of the appealed nominations; or at least not any more recognizable than in the photos that Niantic have provided in their examples for "a great place to be social with others")
So my question is... did Niantic fail to properly clarify the criteria on having far away, unrecognizable people in photos of public spaces? Or did Niantic's appeal reviewers just... well... fail to read the Criteria section on the website themselves? Because no one we've shared these appeal rejections with actually thought they made sense.
Comments
Thanks for posting....
@NianticTintino-ING @NianThib
I don't think this is about the criteria needing clarification, but rather about appeals. We rely on appeals when nominations don't go as expected. Appeals do take a long time to resolve so the hope is that they can be relied on and I think mostly they can.
However as these two show (and there are plenty of other examples eghttps://community.wayfarer.nianticlabs.com/discussion/45753/help-explaining-rejection )
Sometimes the appeals are returned not just as upholding the original decision when to experienced reviewers something seems amiss, but also giving a new reason that does not make sense.
Those doing the appeals are human s can make mistakes, but how do we feedback into that when there are examples that are not slip ups but well out of line?
Like, seriously, if they can identify someone in that first picture, then the computer they are using will need to be used by the fbi or nsa, cause being able to pick out and identify someone in that picture is massively unrealistic as for the second on, like, yeah, there's maybe a person or 2 on the right, but it took way tok long to see them
@SiIverLyra-PGO interestingly, this was accepted on appeal after it was rejected by the community for people.
@Elijustrying-ING I disagree - This is ALSO about the criteria.
I think it is a very valid point for Niantic to clean up their web pages. No point in having rule ABC and then use examples that break rules ABC
Humans are visual. We copy what we see.....
I know it is not the only problem we have but. For quick wins. That is surely a quick win. Use Valid Photos in your examples. And appropriate text. Otherwise people will, rightly, whinge...
And when I am reviewing and I go to reject, my rejection option for a photo is FACE only - not human or other body parties. And it does not help that the rejection criteria sections talks of photo subject matter. That implies to me I am making the human or part thereof the subject matter. Just remove "as subject matter".
Better example photos and better text. Simples
Misaligned messaging = misaligned expectations.
SiIverLyra-PGO nice. post. It is why I get up when bats go to bed when wanting an image at a public space. Cafe owners think I am bats 😁
My go to rule, if I see any part of a human in my photo, I go again......
You're right, I wasn't sure how to word my post and ended up misrepresenting my intent. This is about Niantic's decisions on these appeals being illogical more than about criteria being unclear.
Hello @SiIverLyra-PGO,
Thank you for sharing. I'll be sure to share this with our team and provide some feedback.
Thank you Tintino, I'm looking forward to that feedback.
Submitter: "No one could identify a face in this picture"
Niantic: "Enhance 224 to 176. Enhance. Stop. Move in. Stop. Pull out, track right. Stop. Center and pull back. Stop. Track 45 right. Stop. Center and stop. Enhance 34 to 36. Pan right or-and pull back. Stop. Enhance 34 to 46. Pull back. Wait a minute. Go right. Stop. Enhance 57 to 19. Track 45 left. Stop. Enhance 15 to 23. Gimme a rejection right there."
My appeal was just updated as accepted. @NianticTintino-ING my thanks to the team for taking another look at it. Hopefully some steps were taken to ensure that cases like this don't happen again...
That’s a good result 😎
@NianticTintino-ING So I have a question
The request here was why was this rejected based on the criteria of X
They appeal here and it is accepted
But the quick win of making the webpages that have the appropriate images and text remain
How does helping SiIverLyra-PGO actual address the fact the Niantic webpages contribute to this. Frankly, I deal with webpages.. If Niantic cannot update images and replace text within half a day....... to help clean up misunderstandings.
Dev to SIT. SIT to UAT. UAT to PRD. to replace two images and update what 6 words. Seriously I could change it.... And I am not a developer. There is no code to change. Replace images with right images with same name upload. Remove or replace text. publish.
Why on earth would Niantic not tweak it.......???? I am confused........Mis-aligned explanations will = mis-aligned behaviours. Any UX/CX, advertiser/marketer - propagandist, let alone psychologist will tell you that
SiIverLyra-PGO I don't disagree with your appeal... Sorry to drag you in. And excellent your prop was approved ;-)
Agree with you that Niantic fails to make many clarifying tweaks that don't require coding. I imagine they have an arduous internal approval process for even the most minute correction. And/or, the current webpages were extensively workshopped and signed off on, so they don't see the need to change. Not only would it be making the update in the XML, which is quick and easy, but new text and images would have to be created and go through the approval process...
However, in this case, if I am understanding correctly and Lyra's appeal went from rejected to accepted, that means it *is* okay for there to be unrecognizable people in the background of photos. Therefore, the photos on the help page showing unidentifiable people are not problematic and don't need to be updated. (Though I agree that the Niantic example photos have clearer faces than in Lyra's and Amanda's photos. I suppose still not identifiable though.)
You put so much effort into this post and the photos you took and nominations you created look very solid, at least on the surface. I'm sorry to you for how demoralizing this must be for you. It's triply frustrating that you were forced to wait for such a considerable period of time to travel through the upgrade queue just to get a rejection on flimsy reasons.
All of your fellow Wayfarers are happy to see this is being corrected for you, but it's extremely important to correct this going forward as well. It seems Niantic is having trouble meeting their own standards.
Agreed. A great point was just raised over on the Wayfarer Discord server - SerAmanda and I got these rejections overturned only because we protested them here on the forum. How many wrong rejections were decided on appeals that were made by users who don't know about the forum/aren't interested in posting about it here? How demoralizing must it be for those people?
Niantic's reviewers recommend we "review the Wayspot criteria again" - I really think they're the ones who should be following those criteria more closely.
This is something that the Ambassadors are raising.
Agree with all the above.
An additional thought is: We should have compassion on our fellow volunteer reviewers who interpret things the same (incorrectness) as paid Niantic staff. They all read "face" and thought it meant ANY face.
And: This is working as designed. The documentation has been exactly this for what, 5-7 years. People have complained the whole time. IF Niantic wanted it to be clear, they would have made it clear by now. At least internally! They must WANT this (and other) ambiguity.
Well, this is awkward.
We did bring up the point that only the two appeals in the original post got looked at again...
@NianticTintino-ING hate to ping you again, but can you help with this? Seeing as it's the exact same issue.
Niantic's AI probably recognizes a face. And I don't know if it can be taught the nuance of not being the subject matter.
I think our best bets are to
Niantic uses human reviewers ONLY for appeals. I would ask you kindly to not spread conspiracy theories again
Wow, you are really out there.
In my first reply I pointed out that Niantic reviewers use documentation that has been misinterpreted and unchanged for 5-7 years. It's Niantic's decision to leave said documentation as it is. Given that Niantic can't understand their own criteria, we should have compassion on non-Niantic volunteer reviewers who read it just as incorrectly as Niantic employed reviewers.
In my second post I said our best bet is to remove the faces in the first place. Work around them or take the picture from a different angle if possible.
But they just ignore issues after they promise they'll correct them. I've been waiting 40 days to receive Upgrade reimbursements here https://community.wayfarer.nianticlabs.com/discussion/comment/222608#Comment_222608 and they ignore it. I'm flabbergasted that you even received a response here.
What do we do about all of the other rejected nominations which will never see the light of day via the appeals queue? Here's a great example here: https://community.wayfarer.nianticlabs.com/discussion/comment/223562
I would argue that the second nomination is very far from the target and is difficult to focus on.
I would argue that the second nomination is very far from the target and is difficult to focus one.
Are photos allowed in these public spaces, with reference to the weird decline?
You second post starts with "Niantic's AI ..."
And this thread is about appeals. Appeals are handled by humans so whatever follows in your message doesn't apply here.
That's not the rejection reason for the example you've marked. That example monument should be rejected for lack of safe pedestrian access, and that's it. The photo itself is fine - not perfect, but fine.
This rejection was just overturned as well.
Fingers crossed that kind of rejection won't happen again to anyone...
inb4 actual faces in murals/artworks get rejected