Don't submit routes if you love playing Pokémon Go
PomeranianMom18-PGO
Posts: 1 ✭✭
Niantic if you are reading this I have feedback. I have played for 7 years. I love Pokemon Go. I am just a suburban mom who plays with my kid. I used to play but not contribute. Slowly I've started doing more to help contribute Pokestops in areas where there are none, review nominations in on Wayfarer, and submit a couple routes in popular locations where there are none.
I received a mysterious and vague warning this week threatening to suspend my account for violating routes guidelines. For the first time in 7 years I was compelled to go to Reddit for answers, and it sounds like everyone who got this warning has contributed at least one route. My kid cried because she's worried we will lose all the beloved Pokemon we've collected together over the years. It's honestly been a disturbing experience - I feel sick logging in and seeing this warning.
I submitted 7 routes and 6 were published. I deleted the last one because it was still pending and I'm scared. I took the time to create routes because there were none along popular trails where people take daily walks and play Pokémon. I wanted to help a community that has given me joy over the years.
I think it is terrible that you would ban your most engaged, community-minded players for being helpful when you depend on us to make the game fun. It is a game that cannot scale or be successful without an active and passionate community.
I am now afraid to contribute to routes. AFRAID! What a crazy bad user experience! If I could, I would delete all the routes I contributed - not worth the risk. I recommend other players DO NOT submit routes if you value your account.
Contributions should be received with gratitude, not threats of punishment. It's the complete opposite emotional experience one would expect from being an active contributor to a product that depends on user generated content.
Why not take an educational approach? Why not use simple algorithms to tier players by risk level and segment your approach? Surely a middle aged mom who has never violated a rule in 7 years and contributes in multiple ways shouldn't be banned for trying to help Niantic be more successful.
I will give Niantic the benefit of the doubt and hope I and others receive an apology for this violation of our loyalty, trust and goodwill. I will be happy to chalk it up to moving fast and breaking things. However, I think it is important that improvements be made quickly - this isn't right.
Comments
I'm not sure if you've seen https://community.wayfarer.nianticlabs.com/discussion/43913/exclusive-new-pokemon-go-feature-comes-to-explorers-routes-creation-discussion , but the last pages also discuss multiple occurances of people getting warnings and / or shadowbans (resulting that showcases not appearing)
I agree this situation is utterly ridiculous. They should just have their own staff create routes.
Just a question before the staff closed this thread down: what kind of Route did you submit that lead to the warning?
For real, their own judgement to review Routes are a bit questionable; I've seen some Routes in the cities that are just standard paths from Pokestop A to Pokestop B without anything interesting about the Routes.
I also worry about this as I have heard rumours of people in my local community having routes reported for no fair reason and I have seen routes removed unfairly without just reasons, so it is scary.
I think honestly submitting routes and waypoints that don't conform to standard or break rules in some inoffensive way should simply remove the ability to use creation/submission features and not remove access to the account unless clear and proven abuse has occurred (fake wayspots and routes shaped in offensive ways for example).
It does strike me as odd that if you report a wayspot for being fake or removed it largely is rejected. To have much success, you need to create a thread with geotagged photos - this at least puts up a barrier against a few people incorrectly reporting even if it's disadvantageous for many to go through that process. But with routes people can get them removed (what feels like a few reports) abusively, just because they have beef with the nominator or dislike the street it's on, rather than breaking rules.
If you want to get the attention of the Pokemon GO team, you're posting in the wrong place. The Wayfarer team does not handle anything to do with route submissions.
Yet Tintino created a thread announcing Routes.
They should have just used ingress missions as routes, this is a mess
Just really quick, to save some time, hope and expectations: No, Niantic will not be reading this. And they sure as h... won't be responding to it.
That's how they choose to do things here. Every day.
@Innerlize-PGO Ingress missions are a mess too, but they are differently-messy. The problem with using them for PoGo is that Ingress missions will frequently be tied to wayspots that don't exist in Pokemon Go.
True. But no one at PGO communicates, listens or actions anything so PGO players come here because at least people talk about it here
And as PGO is a Niantic game so when there are no lines of communication where do you go :-)
To the person who so intelligently hit the Disagree button yet again: I want you to be right. I want to be wrong. But also, here we are - please point me to all the fcks Niantic are giving this post? I'll wait. At some point, we'll die of old age, but I will still hope that I am the one who is wrong here.
Feel free to tag me sweetie, when you can prove me wrong.
Edit: Yeah, didn't think so.
Coward.
I understand that you are offended by the ban, and I am sorry to hear that you have been banned.
However, since this is a Wayfarer forum and not a Pokémon GO forum, I don't think you will get the answers you want.
And since we don't know what route you submitted to get banned, we can't guess what went wrong.
You could at least try to post a picture or something of what route you submitted.
Have you tried contacting anyone from pogo support lately? Well, I have. Got a good old robomonkey copy paste bs. Routes are a massive problem for people who created them/tried creating them.
@PomeranianMom18-PGO take a deep breathe, you're not alone. Niantic won't respond, support will spew the same messages over and over and in here they have a "let's ignore it and they will go away" strategy. The only way we can get (or at least try to get) attention is to get it trending via socials.
@tp235-ING take a better look what she has wrote, because you're clearly lost.
Yes, it is strange that Niantic went to the trouble to create Routes from scratch - and the ongoing maintenance / oversight required - when missions are already in place and working.
Yes, a mission is sometimes a pain to get one approved. My last rejection was 07/07/2021, and I've had 42 approved since then. You learn to play the game, just you learn to submit Wayspots.
But once approved, 99.9% work fine and smoothly. Occasionally a mission has an unreachable portal, either gated or under construction - which could happen on routes too.
With missions, it doesn't matter HOW you get from A to B. If you drive past B and have to turn around, that's fine. If you're walking and have to go around parked cars or construction, or decide to cut thru a courtyard, that's also fine.
Once you're at a mission portal, your task is usually to hack (like spin). But the mission maker can select from other actions, like capture, or even a passcode that makes you read the wayspot plaque or something.
Missions require 6 Wayspots (or Field Trips, not seen in any other game). Routes could require fewer, but 2 seems boring.
Threats, Warnings and so on is words. Bans, suspension and so on is actions. If my actions amounts to abuse and I am unsuccessful in my defense of legitimate actions. Then Niantic looses me, so be it. Niantic might not have figured all that they need to, they might have to put more effort in that.
Where is the credible defense of banned, suspended and so on people. That Niantic stand by? All the Abusive behavior that was cried about looked like abusive behavior. Please more need to judge Niantic on actions not words.
The world is not going to crash and burn. It probably will continue to spin just like yesterday.
I like that idea that a route must have at least X number of way points
I don't play Missions so it is well interesting to hear about how they work! Thank you
I know this thread is a bit off topic, but as someone who usually gives Niantic the benefit of the doubt, I am also worried about this. I've created several routes that my community uses and I'm worried about getting hit with a warning about my routes for no reason. I've already canceled my pending ones, and wish I could remove the ones I've had approved.
I think you'll be fine for the ones you've made. Although stopping making anymore is better if you don't want to take the chance.
This is going waaaay off Wayfarer relevance though now.
Dunno why this got 4 disagrees (at time of comment), it is fairly true, especially with routes just now
That doesn't really work if you're in a low density area
The key difference between ingress missions and routes is that missions require a string of portals to interact with, so they only work in portal-rich (urban) areas. Pokemon GO routes only require one Pokestop, so they are potentially accessible to much more isolated areas.
I agree it's interesting hear about them but disagree they should require multiple as many rural walks are difficult enough finding 2 different ones to make a nice circular route 🤣
'Break points' would be nice though.. Add 1-2 stops along the way where people could use the route as a half route to reduce the distance or even if the 'break point' was more convenient than the original start point. Then finish it at any 'break point' if they wish since you have to manually end a route anyway now. How it would work with rewards/badges is another question but I do think it's an interesting point to have more stops on a route you could pick it up and drop it off at would be cool.
Maybe move it to the relevant thread for people who could care less about?
Sorry @Gazzas89-PGO and @yapscallion-ING I used my city lens. I still like the idea though. I live in a suburby place. So it is not hard to create routes with more than two pokestops. you just have to walk 200m more.
So I see a few routes created round me where I am and I am like huh...... But like me someone tested the system and it worked. Would I create a route that went the way I go to the park, school, work or shopping. Yes . So hey fair play
I think it is neat to hear about Missions as it is clearly different. So nice to see how that works. Whether it better or not is neither here nor there as in this case I am keen to hear about differences. :-)
It's because I got myself a personal naysayer and apparently they're not "alone". 😆🙄 Just wait a bit and let the Downvote-Disagrees roll in on this comment too. It doesn't even have to make sense. It doesn't even have to be something you can even agree or disagree on.
This is how "great" this forum also is. No option to actually block someone.
Again, this is not even an opionion. Only facts. And yet, here we go...
You can Ignore.
Just used your profile as an example which minimises their posts/comments and makes them kind of semi-transparent so you don’t see them when scrolling through unless you tap to expand.
I know. But you can't block someone for real. They will still be able to respond to posts etc. In a forum with very little moderation, that's is problematic.
I got the same warning on Halloween, the message lasts for two days and not shown today. Does this mean the warning days are two days?
It's too far to punish the route creators, they don't earn any rewards for the route creating! Why not simply disable or remove the "create routes" button so they won't make the mistake in the future?
This is why I’ll never create a route.
At least we need an option to delete existing routes we created, because playing this game isn't safe anymore.