My nominations are almost a year old
ChallengeStyx-PGO
Posts: 7 ✭✭
Hi! In Oct 2022 i submitted a handful (7) of nominations to try and get a new park, campground, & apartment complex in our town some wayspots. One was almost immediately denied, the rest have since sat unreviewed ever since. Ive submitted a handful of others since which are also dormant, including using my appeal on the one that got denied. Ive tried using my "Upgrade" (not entirely sure what that does) on one to no avail, and Ive done quite a few reviews to see if thats why mine are going untouched. Its been pretty disheartening and I havent submitted anything since May 2023 because of this.
What did I do wrong? Do I need to review even more wayspots, cus if so, Im not getting local ones anymore.
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An upgrade will get your nomination through the "in voting" phase more quickly by showing it to a wider range of reviewers.
Just to double check, the upgraded nomination shows "Upgraded" and a lightning bolt symbol rather than "Upgrade Next"?
Stuff can get stuck in queue if other nominations in the same level 17 S2 cell or an adjacent level 17 S2 cell are currently In Voting. Are all of your nominations particularly close together?
It says Upgrade Next. So I guess its not upgraded yet.
And yes. Theyre relatively close.
Showing how much i know, i have no earthly idea what a "level 17 s2 cell" is. I kinda know the map is broken down so things seem well spaced out, but thats a level of nuance im not familiar with.
For a bit more detail, these are the ones im concerned with:
Oct 2 2022 - Appealed
Oct 2 2022 - In Queue
Oct 2 2022 - In Voting
Oct 2 2022 - In Voting Upgrade Next
Oct 2 2022 - In Voting
Feb 8 2023 - In Queue
May 8 2023 - In Queue
Upgrade next doesn't do a thing, in your case. It only means that IF you get an upgrade available, it will increase the area where people can vote for your nomination so it will get go quicker through the queue and you get a faster voting result.
In some areas, it can take weeks / months / years / longer without an upgrade. With an upgrade is way quicker, days / weeks.
A solution could be to start reviewing yourself and earn some upgrades, or be patient.
The appealed is odd; when did you appeal? Because it looks like you appealed a nomination of oct 2nd. From other posts, it looks like they are now handling appeals from Februari 2023.
Ok so ill try and crank through some more nominations. Ive noticed it takes a week or two for my reviews to even go towards the upgrade percent.
Define "some areas", cus unless im delusional YEARS for a suggestion sounds outrageous. Is this an area with a ton of other suggestions or an area with only a few players?
Could be both. Number of waypoints in the area could also be a factor of influence.
If you search on this forum, you'll see that some other posters mention long times as well.
Nonetheless: the fastest way to get those through, is to earn upgrades.
It seems there are geographical disparities about Appeal ques. My que is 3-4 months old. I do not know why there isnt geographical equality.
Could you please elaborate on your question? What Geographical disparities are you referring to regarding appeals?
Thanks,
They are currently reviewing appeals from February everywhere. There were a few months where they reviewed in LIFO order, meaning the most recent appeals were reviewed first, but only for a few months, from March to May. If you saw someone get an appeal decided before yours was, it was probably during that time period.
@ChallengeStyx-PGO
reviewing can be a deep dark hole of unknowns. I cannot comment on why yours have taken so long. But if you review have you selected your local area for reviewing.. You may also be in an area with few reviewers
I know I review and I did not choose my area and I end up reviewing stuff on the other side of the country 4000K away. And when I feel my nominations are taking a while I do a lot more reviews to help get the queue down. Don't know if it helps me but it certainly helps others :-)
I don't use upgrades. But if you do. You are going to have to ensure they pitch perfect. Because they will probably be reviewed by non locals and without local knowladge can appear to be harsher.
This will sound crazy. But nominate again. Don't wait as it has been so long you cannnot tell how much longer it will take. Make sure as the nominator you nail every part of the criteria. Use nomination forum for help.
When you create. Do not submit immediately. Click submit later. Get home. Log into Wayfarer. Open up contributions. Now upload nominations. Refresh page (nomination may take a while to load.) When you see it put it on hold... Now edit the TEXT for title/description and supporting information. Once done. And if unsure. copy and paste (NOT screenshot) your nomination into the improvement forum. It may go on hold as embedded images but don't worry. And then just ask for help
You can also take photos early. Edit to square shape. And when creating the nomination use those photos.
Good luck
People consistently claim that Appeal que is stuck (having Appeals in que for more than a year). Is that false and all Appeal ques is globally the same approximate date... like the reference to February?
Thanks for the explanation.
Yes, we are reviewing appeals in FIFO order. There is no disparity based on geographical locations. The date shown in Wayfarer is the date the original submission was nominated and not the date the submission was appealed. This is what causes the confusion.
I hope this addresses the confusion.
Thanks,
IMO if there is still issues on it Niantic should considered adding a Appealed Date. In the nomination window.
So. Here’s an update.
I began **** out reviewing nominations. In doing so, I found a nearby suggestion that showed one my of suggestions was a wayspot already, it just isnt in PoGo. Withdrew it.
After the agreements started to trickle in, the “upgrade next” that had been sitting there since February finally upgraded. After about half an hour it was approved. It has become clear this is the only way I can get suggestions through the system.
So over the next few days I’ve reviewed more, really putting my nose to the grindstone, upgrading the most solid suggestions first. As of right now I’m sitting at 1260 reviewed with 4 upgrades redeemed. Agreements have slowly trickled in in the meantime.
And here is where my frustration is turning into anger. The next one to go through was an apartment complex’s sign. It’s on a riverfront trail, directly next to a massive park, and I have seen plenty of these be wayspots so I thought it was a shoe-in. Rejected for Private Residence & Other Rejection Criteria.
Fine. Appealed. Whatever. This made me wary about another of my suggestions since it was tied to the apartment complex, so I was gonna wait til last to upgrade it. I kept getting errors when trying to select the next spot to upgrade, and lo and behold it automatically popped it on that one. It was rejected by the next morning. Private Residence & Other Rejection criteria. Saw that coming.
Finally the agreements trickled in enough for the 4th upgrade. There is an RV Campground tied to the apartment complex under the same name. There’s absolutely no way in hell this one gets denied.
Anger has become rage. I can possibly see why marking a public apartment complex as Private Residence can happen, but this is absurd. How is the title or description POSSIBLY problematic here? Can we stop allowing people to use “Other Rejection Criteria” without using the comment feature?
What do I even do at this point? Let my suggestions wallow in limbo for a goddamn year? Or grind my **** off to get upgrades only for them to be rejected for the most frivolous of reasons?
@ChallengeStyx-PGO
The reviewers may have added a comment when making their decsion, but comments are not shown to submitters - only Niantic can see them.
Generally 'Other' means the reviewers don't think your submission meets the criteria of being a great place to explore, socialise or exercise.
Whilst apartment welcome signs do occasionally get wrongly voted through they're generally correctly rejected.
What did you put in your description and supporting evidence for the RV Camp to show that it met the criteria?
As a reviewer, I always enter comments if I have to use the "other" criteria, though I know that submitters don't see it. I rather wish they would! That would help alleviate some irritation, I think. Either that, or create better options from which to choose when having to deny a request.
@ChallengeStyx-PGO I have learnt to ignore nonsensical excuses for rejection. I think some reject them and don't click the right thing just so they can move on. Many may not know how to use other rejection criteria so click on the first thing.
To me, based on the evidence shown (and I don't have access to all the nomination material) both of the nominations fail. First one I would see a generic place name sign. It is not a great place to explore, exercice or socialise. So would use other. As for the second nomination it looks like a temporary sign and the sign is not a great place to explore, exercise or socialise . That is why I would reject it. Some people may be pedantic and wanted to see Title reflect the word welcome. We may never know.
As for using upgrades. An upgrade may well go to people who do not live in this area and may judge it harder as they don't have local context. And if I were to use an upgrade I would work hard to ensure I, as a nominator, did all the hard work so there is no ambiguity. Personally upgrades have not made one iota difference in the acceptance of my nominations so I don't even use them but as they are important to others and hard to gain then I would certainly put a lot of effort into the nomination.
Asserting that upgrades made the difference to a nomination in a queue. May be true. But equally may not be true. We may never know.
But there a myriad of other reasons why people review. From gaming the system, wanting rewards, wanting to gain upgrades etc etc. For them processing quickly maybe important. And they might be lazy so ... that onus on us as nominators putting the effort in up front is more important.
This is a game we chose to play. I learnt after much rage to let it go. To focus on the right nominations done as well as I could. My success rate has gone up and my acceptance of rejections is in a happy place as I know I would have rejected them in all likely hood. And my rage had an impact on my playing the game and that was not good. I was advised to have a breath and to back off, breathe and approach it for it was - a game and to understand why I was doing what I was doing. I could have gone off at that but no - those forum contributors advising me were right. (I still have a wobble but hey)
And I also learnt to use the criteria and improvement forums to create better nominations. Photos, subject matter, how to use supporting info, right text and description. Still get it wrong.
May I suggest you put you submit your nominations when you get home not on site. Then open wayfarer, go to contributions, upload your submissions, refresh the page, the minute you see your nominations put on hold. Now edit the text, description and supporting information. You can copy and paste into the nominations improvement forum and ask if it would fly. Of course does not guarantee a pass but it can help.
And you are right in asserting there needs to be more effort on the onboarding and ongoing training/knowledge management of reviewers to help the game. But that is a different story :-)
Good luck
@Faversham71-ING Knowing that apartment signs aren't allowed is good knowledge. It seems impossible that things would incorrectly be approved seeing how hard it is to squeak through even the most solid submissions.
The camp's supporting info displayed the actual RV park w/ its access, and the info said "Camp Eddy is a new RV camp that makes perfect sense for a stop (should have said wayspot). The immediate area needs some help getting Go established (again, single game-minded)." I really dont understand how this could have gotten the spot flagged for "Title or Description" tho.
Ive begun resubmitting the RV Camp and here's what ive done so far. The supporting image is very similar to the previous one. The image is of the plaque on the camp office, just in case the previous sign might be tagged as temporary. Ive put it on hold until yall say this is good. Is there anything i should fix?
I wont even bother with the apt complex knowing that its not supposed to be accepted.
@ChallengeStyx-PGO - Permanent sign is much better - the big thing you're missing with the nomination is giving reviewers an idea which of the three criteria it meets - explore, socialise or exercise. Not being familiar with RV Resorts I'm not the best person to advise on which criteria to use, but socialise seems the best. Looking at the web site it looks like it's got a shared social area, and music nights - personally I'd probably go for that rather the camp as a whole, but if you go for the camp as a whole make sure you include it - maybe with a link in your supplementary info to their events page.
Hopefully others will have more ideas.
A picnic table patio by the river got denied for "Other" and "Not historically or culturally significant", despite the new rules promoting picnic tables, and the fact i supported it with its proximity to the riverfront trail.
I did include the food truck fridays the camp does and the proximity to the events Las Colonias holds. So SURELY. Theres no WAY this gets denied now.
And the the pavillion the camp has been stuck in "In Voting" since Oct last year and i cant upgrade it.
These two stops are my last try. If these get denied Im done trying to help a community that doesnt want it. Its unbelievably frustrating seeing big cities with tons and tons of stops that are almost identical to the stuff ive submitted that have gotten denied. Some areas of this town need DESPERATE help getting stops and specifically gyms since the remote passes that saved the game in 2020/2021 are being treated like theyre evil or something. There arent enough local players reviewing things to not upgrade my submissions, so I get to sit back and watch those bigger, active communities strike my stuff down.
I get that some things ive submitted arent supposed to be accepted, like the stuff in the apartment complex. But I wouldnt be submitting them if I hadnt seen these exact things be stops elsewhere.
Another small update. The spot from above got accepted. Woo.
But just when I thought things finally were going right, about a day and a half later it’s shown up in Ingress, but not Go. So even when I win, I can’t win.