Why do I keep getting "No consensus" as a Rejection Criteria?
JesusSaldias-PGO
Posts: 1 ✭
I've been trying to get some pokestops for my area but I keep getting No Consensus as a reason for rejection, the places I've been trying to get as pokestops are 1 church, 1 Public Library and 1 public plaza
Answers
If the comprehensive evaluation falls short along the three criteria below, it is anticipated to be in that state.
You may have to post your nominations if you don't mind.
There's plenty people who can help improve and are knowledgeable about how to frame, word your submissions to push them through.
Right now, no one knows what triggers this specific rejection reason. If you post your full nominations on the church and library, it may give us more insight. Generally, a church or library are acceptable unless they meet a specific rejection criteria.
I don't know, but I can speculate. I'm going to oversimplify a bit, and any numbers that I use in my explanation are made up examples only... like everyone else I have no idea how many reviewers see each submission.
TL;dr: My guess is that Niantic gives up earlier on submissions where reviewers are strongly split rather than showing the submission to more reviewers until they get a consensus. When they give up they reject the submission with "No consensus" as the reason. The pile of words below explains this in much more detail.
It's long been suspected that a submission that's either a super easy yes or a super easy no will resolve more quickly than one where reviewers had mixed emotions, and that makes sense... if 20 people review something and 19 say yes then Niantic has a really solid consensus and they can just go with that. If the same 20 people split like 11-9 or 12-8 then the answer isn't clear and they would show it to more reviewers until they get to a consensus, or maybe until they reach some arbitrary threshold like 100 reviewers. (Again, numbers are made up and I'm only guessing at how the system works.)
I speculate that one change Niantic made recently is that they give up earlier on submissions where the vote is split rather than fishing around for more reviewers until they get a consensus, and when they give up they reject it with the reason "No consensus". Why I think my hypothesis fits the fact pattern:
One of my simplifications that we know that different reviewers contribute different amounts to the outcome, i.e. a good or great reviewer's vote carries more weight than a fair or poor one. Thus, just counting reviewers wouldn't describe the system behavior, and N reviewers is actually a proxy for something like "enough reviewers to get a statistically significant outcome." The principle is the same but the details are more complex than my example.
Another simplification is that I'm assuming each review ends with a yes/no/duplicate answer, but the underlying math might be more complicated. Duplicate is clearly yes/no because that ends the review, and some rejections are similarly review-ending. We have no idea if other reviews end with 100% yes or 100% no, or if each reviewer produces a result like 78% yes, 28% no. As in the previous paragraph the underlying principle of setting a stopping point and terminating with either yes/no/no consensus rather than continuing if there's no consensus is the same.
Why you shouldn't take my answer seriously: I'm just guessing.
Why you might take my answer seriously: It's an educated guess based on a long career as a software engineer, and it's based on spending lots of time trying to figure out what's going on inside of systems and understanding their nuances.
That is a great theory @Hosette-ING I don't doubt that it's the process. It would be a better process (for nominators) if split votes went to Niantic review instead of rejection. But rejecting is easier for Niantic, so would be their choice, if this is how it works.
@JesusSaldias-PGO If you'll share your nomination, we'll try to figure out why reviewers couldn't reach consensus. Maybe satellite hasn't covered that area? Maybe your pictures are too zoomed back?
@MargariteDVille-ING I understand where you're coming from. The flip side is that punting to Niantic review puts more burden on them to do in-house reviews, and those cost them money. Niantic (quite rationally) has a strong preference for technical solutions over human ones because technical solutions scale far more efficiently.
I've had a few like this and it also gives other rejection reasons so how is it that they don't reach a consensus but I'm still told it's temporary seasonal display or generic business?? I thought they hadn't reached a consensus?? It's probably too many skips and "durr I don't knows"
@PeteC303-ING Again, only guessing, but perhaps they return all of the hard rejections that were selected by reviewers as well as No consensus?
"It's long been suspected that a submission that's either a super easy yes or a super easy no will resolve more quickly than one where reviewers had mixed emotions, and that makes sense."
It's hard to believe that this *isn't* the case, and yet, I currently have a submission of a decorative fountain in the common area of a large apartment complex which should be a no-brainer easy acceptance, that's been in voting for close to a year. Baffling.