New Onboarding & Review Flow - Discussion
NianticTintino-ING
Posts: 1,065Niantic › admin
Hello Explorers,
We’re excited to announce a new and improved Wayfarer Onboarding and Wayspot Review experience tailored to your feedback gathered in this forum, in surveys, at in-person events, our Wayfarer Ambassadors, and other locations over the last few years. Our enhancements are aimed at simplifying the review process, particularly for our new Explorers. Here’s a breakdown of the updates:
- Transitioning to a straightforward “Yes / No / I Don’t Know” option, moving away from the 5-Star Rating System.
- Reframing the “Should this be a Wayspot?" question and others to be more direct and intuitive.
- Eliminating the Quiz, addressing a major hurdle and source of drop-off for new Explorers.
- Launching a new onboarding experience to guide newcomers through the new review flow.
- All Explorers will have the opportunity to go through this regardless of you being new to Wayfarer or not.
- Incorporating new tooltips within the review process to educate, guide, and inform Explorers more effectively.
- Introducing a Report button for simpler reporting of abuse and cheating.
The guidance in our new onboarding experience and the new tooltips should be deeply familiar to all Explorers, as there are no changes to the Wayspot criteria with these updates.
Even with these changes, reviewing requires your good judgment. There is no single set of rules or person who can tell a community what places are important where others are not. That's why there will always be some 'gray area' in our collective goal to map the most interesting local places.
Thank you all for your continued support. We're excited to hear your thoughts and feedback. Where possible, please post in the most appropriate thread as this will help the Wayfarer Team respond to and address these matters. All feedback is welcome and useful, but please keep it factual and respectful.
Safe Exploring!
Comments
Is this why all my nominations have gone from in voting to back in queue?
Why do I need to set a home location? I can’t edit any of my nominations any longer because I don’t have a home set.
In my location there's absolutely no sidewalks throughout the town. There's no definite safe areas for individuals especially children. I understand we don't reserve the right to say if a way point is acceptable or safe but there has to be leniency for proper definition of a good way point in rural areas such as mine. The new dashboard sounds promising but instead of 10 questions add a few more so that you could get a better understanding of an individuals possible promising assistance in this exploration. Just my thoughts.....
The way the "Accurate and High Quality" question is phrased has me wondering how I should respond to it. In the past, the philosophy was generally not to put too much emphasis on grammar and spelling. But my first review on the new site had a very low-effort title and description (no capitalization, managed to misspell "painting" in the title, had an incredibly vague description about it being a painting by "a local artist" despite the artist's name being clearly readable in the photo). This is clearly not a high-quality title and description. Am I supposed to answer honestly with a thumbs-down? Or am I to apply the old logic and give it an "I don't know" or even a thumbs-up as long as it's somewhat legible and not offensive?
In addition, the location pin was off, and I needed to move it. I assume that, once I move the pin, I shouldn't mark it down for location. But that isn't stated anywhere on the new page as far as I can tell.
I am liking much of the new system so far. The thumbs up/down is much better than stars. However, I think the review should end when you mark thumbs down to explore, exercise, and socialize. Otherwise, we're spending too much time on bad nominations.
Once again I'm asking to add Bahasa Indonesia language support into Wayfarer.
(Edit) decided to post this in another discussion
Why did everything go back to queue? Will it be reintroduced to the voting faster or will it all start over from square one?
From what I can tell, it looks like nominations for cafes, restaurants, etc., are now more likely to get approved, even if they are generic establishments. Am I understanding this correctly?
And there are now separate questions for socializing and exercising. Under the old review system, a museum would have got approved with no issues. But you obviously can't exercise in a museum. So going forward, are waypoints that were pretty much guaranteed to get approved now potentially less likely going to get approved because of the exercise criteria?
Cafes etc why it needs the 5 stars impressions meter
Idk & so so should have options with yes & no cauz. While i kno, i feels its more in the so so. Big difference in meanings
I don’t think you need to meet all 3 criteria to be approved. One should be sufficient. They also actually added the generic business rejection BACK in “is this appropriate” question.
I am in tears trying to navigate this change. I don't know how to say this just doesn't meet criteria when reviewing. And a year's worth of nominations of mine just went back to "in queue" from in voting.
The problem is when they meet none of the 3.
Then it'll be rejected? That's why Other Rejection Criteria reason removed.
I got a fake nomination for review - a mural from one city placed in another city. There is not a way to reject for wrong location anymore, I had to report this nomination. There is no "fake location" option when reporting a nomination. I chose "Fake Nomination", even though the description of this option does not include "fake location".
An obviously fake nomination due to a combination of abusive behaviors such as doctored photos, copied photos, or screenshotted photos with generic or falsified titles and descriptionsMoreover I could not provide supporting information when reporting this nomination - the Note field is gone. This nomination was not "obviously" fake. I had to google search the image to figure it out. In the past I would have provided a link to the search result that shows that this mural is in another city.
Finally - minor bug. There is not a drop down to "Sumbit and finish reviewing". If you report a nomination you have to see the next one.
Giving a thumbs down on either the appropriate, safe, Accurate and High Quality or Permanent and Distinct is the same as a 1* I think.
With appropriate and Accurate and High Quality giving you the option to choose a reason. The other two it looks like you just submit after choosing a 👎
To reject for an Inaccurate location:
https://youtu.be/JObAg7OsNgU
Just out of interest, if I thumbs down one or 2 of these ones
Will it lead to a rejection of the nomination? I'm wondering g because very often they meet only 1 or 2 of these criteria, rather than all 3.
I absolutely love the text difference option added to edits. It'll also be able to show what is the intended new change. For example, a wayspot of mine belongs to an apartment and they recently changed the name and now the text difference will show what the new name is.
My only issue so far is with reporting an unsafe location, such as a school, something on private property, or an adult business. I've clicked No for Safe, not knowing that to report one of these, it's actually in Appropriate. I guess I don't think of the location being appropriate for someplace unsafe, such as a school, so that threw me off a bit.
I do appreciate the generic business in Appropriate though! That's a big help!
It doesn't specifically highlight the new one. It just highlights the differences between the two. It might list the new one at the top and then show the old one below, and highlight what's different on the old one.
Don't k ow if this is new or not, but I'm not a fan of the wording for these for different reasons
So popular restaurant, how can that possibly be proven? I live in the suburbs and have 1 single restaurant within a 10 minute drive from me, but that doesn't mean its popular. Imo, a restaurant alone should be acceptable if it's been there for a few years because most people will go to it and will take family or go as a group of friends/family.
As for favorite coffee shop, my favorite coffee shop might not be anyone else's, in which case it would be rejected even though it technically meets that criteria, or or might be a chain
And i would also question why a cafe isn't there cafes aren't restaurants or coffee shops, they are their own thing and at times are going to be frequented more than either of the other 2 as, at least in the UK, they will be frequented by locals, by workers, by visitors, looking for a roll (bap, whatever local dialogue people use) and egg/meat filling, tea, drink, crisps, chat etc.
The revival of the generic business was not mentioned in the key changes. Everyone should have been surprised by this revival, though.
Why were all my In-Voting nominations reverted to In-Queue?
Stats- What happens to the nominations we have reviewed but did not get resolved. I don't think my stats count got reverted
When you put a thumbs down on low quality you get a new window where you pick Location, title or description, and you can add a reason.
EDIT: When you select thumbs down on APPROPRIATE you get a similar window where you can select the reason why the location is not appropriate like school ,generic buisness, emergency operations ect
For me this new review system is terrible. It looks like everything that is not clearly a fake or on school area is acceptable.
For example ordinary mailbox or bench in a park are ok according to 4 out of 7 questions. So what should we do in such situation?
Thanks to this new review system we will get much more trash into the lightship database.
I don't really have a hometown. I mean I do... where I was born (overseas), but I've been moving cities quite regularly over the last seven years I don't really have much of a hometown anymore. I mean, maybe it's the city that I've stayed in for the most of my life (Sydney), I'd rather not set a hometown.
@cyndiepooh-ING
your reaction is the same as mine. I did not find it a pleasant experience
In addition to this, if you mark all three down, it should allow you to leave an optional comment to explain why you are rejecting the submission based on not meeting the criteria.