I don't think people need to worry about reviewing. But if they are concerned, one of the best ways to prove that you are doing your best to judge by your understanding of the rules is to add a comment if you reject something. We know that is only available to Niantic. If they later determine that the submission is valid, at least they can read your thoughts on why you rejected.
I've been writing things like, "I'd like to approve this but I can't prove the location. Both photos are identical and it can't be seen on satellite or street view. Google maps shows this is a residential street, which typically means the person is trying to get a couch stop."
If satellite or street view changes between when I review and Niantic looks at it, at least they can see that I put thought into why I rejected it.
Uff the drama in some of those, lol. Managed to find some pics from today's Zaragoza and there are still some S2 cells that are packed, but clearly, someone is definitely removing stops, because it used to be mad all over the place. I wonder what they are planning to do with Dubai - seen pics with 20+ stops in close proximity over there.
So this is the reason a lot of people are complaining that they get banned in Niantic games after getting some wayspots declined. I'll admit some are just abusers, but we all had at some point a perfectly good wayspot rejected just because. Specially when a lot of PoGO players started reviewing and suddenly a statue was rejected because of weird reasons like, "live animal" or natural feature. I remember having a graffiti mural in a public square made as an homage to domestic violence victims rejected as "natural feature". So I'm really concerned about losing my account because some people just don't know how to review under the criteria or were in a review ring and review accordingly to some agenda and good wayspots get rejected. This is very bad for the community.
I've been seeing a lot of influencers encouraging people to stop using routes and Wayfarer today; videos, social media posts. There is a lot of misinformation and fearmongering being spread.
Previously when things hit the fan staff would be willing to sit down for an interview. This might be the time for something like that again before this gets further out of hand.
@NianticTintino-ING you didn't respond to anyone wrote their concerns here since you drop this before last weekend. People are now stop using Wayfarer due to this. Even there are too many misinformations spread through social media. What were your team really going to do?
No one would like to get into Trainer level 37 and got banned immediately after they submit something that become rejected. No one would got baited to use Wayfarer too if you decide to lower access requirement further into level 35 or lower.
The average player doesn't know that. These influencers are referring to both and their followers are none the wiser unless they make the effort to come here.
ZioniK, Jonkus, Poke AK. Just three such influencers who have been saying otherwise. Tons more I'm sure. People in the comments of their posts are freaking out thinking they might get banned due to pending routes and Wayspot nominations. That's why I suggested someone at Niantic have a video interview again to clear up confusion.
I have raised the fact that there have been questions asked here.
I appreciate that role of influencers is to do just that. However I prefer to plough my own furrow and make up my own mind.
I am conscious that the critical issue is a lack of solid facts available to all. I don’t have time to go digging around in the myriad of issues that seem to be getting tied up in all of this. And good communication and Niantic are not things that sit well together.
What I am clear about is that this policy, at the start of this thread, is about sanctions as a direct result of abusive (as defined by Niantic) behaviour on wayfarer and nothing else. Any other abusive behaviour in another Niantic area eg a game will not doubt be dealt with by a different policy.
No doubt it benefits the key abusers to create a chaotic picture and mix lots of unrelated things in, and I can appreciate fully many of the concerns and fears raised, but it might be a good tactic to let the facts emerge.
So, I assume the bans are due to that thing in the neatherlands with the voting bot/ring. But on twitter everyone is freaking out and even removing their submissions. Maybe this is one of these times that a niantic employee should come out and say, clearly, what the ban wave was for and that just having waypoints rejected won't get you banned
The player highlighted in one of the videos @AlexMTG-PGO is interesting.
Their stops like absolutely fine as nominations. They are located in the Netherlands I think.
Maybe they got inadvertently caught up in the Netherlands abuse.
Maybe the stops that were submitted were helped to be pushed through by other local players but also having no connection to the widespread abuse.
Maybe they did do something.
Maybe they did absolutely nothing incorrect, it wouldn't be the first time Niantic have made such horrible errors.
In the meantime more people report bans and a lack of information exacerbates the reputation of Wafarer as something toxic to completely avoid with regards to reviewing and submitting.
I'm trying to get in touch with Zyonik through someone we know in common. I couldn't care one iota what PokeAK has to say about. His entire brand is built around controversy and making people angry. He won't listen to what anyone has to say.
> Some players from the Netherlands and surrounding countries got their 30-days suspension because of their nominations.
> Many of them complained the suspension in various social media.
> The influencers noticed this and (assuming they never touch Wayfarer before?) spread misinformations and awareness into wider audience to not using Wayfarer and create routes, without knowing the full context at what's happened to the players got suspended.
> Without any Wayfarer staffs give any clarifications or respond to us since Tintino drop the policy last Friday, people tend to listen to the influencers instead to Niantic. (Where is the targeted 50% forum engagement?)
That's pretty much the current situation for now? Although the situation from Japanese players' side is quite interesting, if I say.
I've been told that one of the other reasons people are getting banned is for submitting pokemon related items, be they legit or murals or whatever. The theory is that its to dk with monster hunter copyright issues. To me, nia tic really need to come out and admit to that one, because that means completely legit waypoints could lead to bans for a rule that doesn't exist
Comments
I don't think people need to worry about reviewing. But if they are concerned, one of the best ways to prove that you are doing your best to judge by your understanding of the rules is to add a comment if you reject something. We know that is only available to Niantic. If they later determine that the submission is valid, at least they can read your thoughts on why you rejected.
I've been writing things like, "I'd like to approve this but I can't prove the location. Both photos are identical and it can't be seen on satellite or street view. Google maps shows this is a residential street, which typically means the person is trying to get a couch stop."
If satellite or street view changes between when I review and Niantic looks at it, at least they can see that I put thought into why I rejected it.
What is a review ring?
A group of voters who vote against the criteria successfully in coordinated ways
Zaragoza
Milan
Soc Bom Bo, Vietnam
These are at least popular clusters known in this forum
and caused some drama.I would hazard a guess that most people who nominate or reviewer will not even know this is happening.
Dedicated groups of users maybe
Serial abusers will work a way round as their goal is disruption as a game not the game itself
Seriously. If I were not a user of these forums I would be blissfully unaware something was going.
Uff the drama in some of those, lol. Managed to find some pics from today's Zaragoza and there are still some S2 cells that are packed, but clearly, someone is definitely removing stops, because it used to be mad all over the place. I wonder what they are planning to do with Dubai - seen pics with 20+ stops in close proximity over there.
Then report it here or in-game report form.
So this is the reason a lot of people are complaining that they get banned in Niantic games after getting some wayspots declined. I'll admit some are just abusers, but we all had at some point a perfectly good wayspot rejected just because. Specially when a lot of PoGO players started reviewing and suddenly a statue was rejected because of weird reasons like, "live animal" or natural feature. I remember having a graffiti mural in a public square made as an homage to domestic violence victims rejected as "natural feature". So I'm really concerned about losing my account because some people just don't know how to review under the criteria or were in a review ring and review accordingly to some agenda and good wayspots get rejected. This is very bad for the community.
I've been seeing a lot of influencers encouraging people to stop using routes and Wayfarer today; videos, social media posts. There is a lot of misinformation and fearmongering being spread.
Previously when things hit the fan staff would be willing to sit down for an interview. This might be the time for something like that again before this gets further out of hand.
The route bans were only for using the exploit though?
@NianticTintino-ING you didn't respond to anyone wrote their concerns here since you drop this before last weekend. People are now stop using Wayfarer due to this. Even there are too many misinformations spread through social media. What were your team really going to do?
No one would like to get into Trainer level 37 and got banned immediately after they submit something that become rejected. No one would got baited to use Wayfarer too if you decide to lower access requirement further into level 35 or lower.
The average player doesn't know that. These influencers are referring to both and their followers are none the wiser unless they make the effort to come here.
I was asking if you knew :)
I haven't heard of anyone being banned for creating a route only farming XL.
ZioniK, Jonkus, Poke AK. Just three such influencers who have been saying otherwise. Tons more I'm sure. People in the comments of their posts are freaking out thinking they might get banned due to pending routes and Wayspot nominations. That's why I suggested someone at Niantic have a video interview again to clear up confusion.
Based on a previous update on the matter and a local reviewer. There is anti-voter ring measures.
No doubt. Have you seen anyone banned for anything other than abusing XL in routes?
I'm not suggesting people have been banned for routes aside from that, just that people are afraid. Don't know of any no
Just a question, I wasn't inferring you were :)
I couldn't see the Jonkus video. Do you know if there is one?
Commentary from him I've seen was just posts on Twitter/X. The other two did post videos today
Thanks.
I have raised the fact that there have been questions asked here.
I appreciate that role of influencers is to do just that. However I prefer to plough my own furrow and make up my own mind.
I am conscious that the critical issue is a lack of solid facts available to all. I don’t have time to go digging around in the myriad of issues that seem to be getting tied up in all of this. And good communication and Niantic are not things that sit well together.
What I am clear about is that this policy, at the start of this thread, is about sanctions as a direct result of abusive (as defined by Niantic) behaviour on wayfarer and nothing else. Any other abusive behaviour in another Niantic area eg a game will not doubt be dealt with by a different policy.
No doubt it benefits the key abusers to create a chaotic picture and mix lots of unrelated things in, and I can appreciate fully many of the concerns and fears raised, but it might be a good tactic to let the facts emerge.
So, I assume the bans are due to that thing in the neatherlands with the voting bot/ring. But on twitter everyone is freaking out and even removing their submissions. Maybe this is one of these times that a niantic employee should come out and say, clearly, what the ban wave was for and that just having waypoints rejected won't get you banned
The player highlighted in one of the videos @AlexMTG-PGO is interesting.
Their stops like absolutely fine as nominations. They are located in the Netherlands I think.
Maybe they got inadvertently caught up in the Netherlands abuse.
Maybe the stops that were submitted were helped to be pushed through by other local players but also having no connection to the widespread abuse.
Maybe they did do something.
Maybe they did absolutely nothing incorrect, it wouldn't be the first time Niantic have made such horrible errors.
In the meantime more people report bans and a lack of information exacerbates the reputation of Wafarer as something toxic to completely avoid with regards to reviewing and submitting.
I'm trying to get in touch with Zyonik through someone we know in common. I couldn't care one iota what PokeAK has to say about. His entire brand is built around controversy and making people angry. He won't listen to what anyone has to say.
I knew that pokeak was not worth listening to when he started zshouting about wokeness
The final straw for me was when he tried to justify physical violence as a way to interact with other humans. It's just such a gross mentality.
In summary,
> Some players from the Netherlands and surrounding countries got their 30-days suspension because of their nominations.
> Many of them complained the suspension in various social media.
> The influencers noticed this and (assuming they never touch Wayfarer before?) spread misinformations and awareness into wider audience to not using Wayfarer and create routes, without knowing the full context at what's happened to the players got suspended.
> Without any Wayfarer staffs give any clarifications or respond to us since Tintino drop the policy last Friday, people tend to listen to the influencers instead to Niantic. (Where is the targeted 50% forum engagement?)
That's pretty much the current situation for now? Although the situation from Japanese players' side is quite interesting, if I say.
I've been told that one of the other reasons people are getting banned is for submitting pokemon related items, be they legit or murals or whatever. The theory is that its to dk with monster hunter copyright issues. To me, nia tic really need to come out and admit to that one, because that means completely legit waypoints could lead to bans for a rule that doesn't exist
I haven’t seen any reported on Twitter/X or on the forums, but where there have been bans have we seen any that affect Ingress accounts as yet?