The new location edit rule is helping abusers.
SiIverLyra-PGO
Posts: 928 ✭✭✭✭✭
It's a well known fact that there are certain people, all over the world, who would do anything to add more pokestops to Pokemon Go, even if they go against Niantic's guidelines to achieve that.
In cases where the L17 cells in a specific area are already occupied, people would often submit nominations in a deliberately false location. But then, in some cases, you could still use the location edit tool to move them to the correct location. Previously, the wayspots in the cell would retain their pokestop status, and no loss would be made.
But now we've learned that moving an existing pokestop into a "taken" S17 cell would result in its disappearance from Pokemon Go.
Thus, abusers now have substantial "justification" to keep submitting wayspots in deliberately wrong locations, and to keep them in those wrong locations, in order to get the ultimate goal of just having more pokestops.
If anyone speaking against abuse of the system before was antagonized as "ruining the game for everyone", they will certainly be accused of it now if they try moving pokestops to their correct locations. I certainly won't be doing so if it still means the pokestop will be "lost".
I think Niantic made a very big mistake in making this change to location edits.
Comments
I don't see how this helps abusers.
If it's in the wrong location if should be reported as invalid or moved to the correct location, if both of those actions end up as removing the pokestop then abusers don't get anything out of their actions.
Abusers now have a good reason to convince others to let pokestops remain in their incorrect locations, because any other action would lead to their removal.
The main goal of both abusers and most PoGo players isn't to submit waypoints in their correct location. It's to have as many pokestops as possible, no matter their eligibility. It's very easy for abusers to convince the general population of players in the righteousness of this. In this they form a definite majority against those who want to see wayspots in their accurate locations.
While it's obvious that the recent change in location edits will cause a lot of Waypoints to remain in their incorrect location (since there will be no incentive to edit them), I disagree with your classification of people who make the most use out of L17 cells as "abusers". They wouldn't have existed had the L17 cell "rule", which has caused more than enough problems on its own, was not in place.
I really think that previously it was easier for abusers to add extra waypoints. They could create at the wrong location as you state and then quickly move it to the correct one where they would remain forever overriding both distance limit rules.
Now those waypoints must stay in a wrong location, so it's very easy to report them as non-existing or wrong location and so those misplaced waypoints will be removed and so abusers won't have an easy time from now on to add and keep bad waypoints.
It doesn't matter what they tell to the community, if anyone reports those misplaced waypoints they might be removed at any time without any participation from the community.
Except that pois in wrong locations that get reported more often than not stay in the system. There was a major construction where I live and the poi that existed before was now in the middle of a canal. Streetview updates, satellite reflecting the canal. Reported...nothing gets removed
That's not related to helping abusers as described in the OP.
If a waypoint is in the wrong location due to abuse then you can use the report invalid location from the game of use the new location edit form, in both cases they are handled by Niantic and the community doesn't have a say.
If you decide not to try to edit a waypoint that is in the wrong location because you fear that it will be lost, you're the one helping the abusers. Don't blame anyone else.
The outcome of the report is not related to the new change, or do you mean that previously you were OK if someone created a PoI in the wrong location and then it was moved to the correct one creating a cluster of PoI that shouldn't have existed and it was an abuse of the system?
Pretty much this.
Sadly, the attitude of a lot players (regardless of game) is that ot should stay because "we need all the wayspots".
Personally, I'm not fussed if I lose a wayspot from whatever NIA game I'm playing since despite being essentially rural, we have a lot of wayspots in my town and in the neighbouring villages.
I can see that argument if someone is submitting a large building or something else that possibly covers more than one L17 cell. Picking the left corner instead of the right corner of a church isn't really abuse. Same if there are two eligible candidates too close to each other to get both in and you pick which one to submit based on L17 cells.
What is abuse on the other hand, is to knowingly submit or move a waypoint in a location where the object does not exist. For whatever reason.
I move every incorrectly placed marker when I review to the correct location. If I cannot, I give a no.
I know people that enjoy Pokemon GO and Ingress like me. Sadly, I know areas that have Wayspots in the wrong spots. I actually used the official map and had the location corrected for one during the night. That required more than just the Pokemon GO app to do.
I know people that try to add as many Wayspots as possible by moving correctly placed ones to make others have room. I review in the US, Canada, and Mexico. If I see somebody attempting to move away from the correct location in an Edit, I give a no.
Sadly, I do believe the rule should be at the location or no. You would likely believe how many times I give a no just by looking at where the marker is placed before anything else. I get many nominations with the marker placed in a parking lot. Oh, I forgot to post.
Abusers are not those who try to maximize the number of waypoints in an area. Abusers are those who deliberately submit location edits in order to get gyms demoted to stops, and waypoints removed from PoGO. This is insane, this new location edit rule is total BS and it's now leaving way more room to abuse in comparison to what it's meant to fix. Also, it descourages PoGO players from submitting legit and bad faith location edits, because they may now lose a stop or even worse a gym, who knows what will happen. It's just insane. I have a L14 cell with 3 waypoints and 2 of them are stops but there's not a single gym because it should have been the third waypoint, which disappeared. So disappointing.
There is nothing wrong with trying to maximize the number of waystops in an area, as long as you aren't subverting the rules to do it. Add every eligible waystop everywhere. The ones that should be in game will be.
Likewise, there is nothing wrong with submitting location edits, even if that means losing stops, or gyms, or portals, if the location edit is made to more accurately represent the real world location of the waystop.
If correcting a misplaced waystop's location causes that waystop to disappear, that waystop shouldn't have been in the game to start with.
We call abuse what is actually a poor game layout. PoGo is intended to make people walk and exercise. Great idea. However it rewards the opposite.
The game does have a component that rewards walking a distance. It is the egg hatching. But compared to the reward you get for spinning stops, egg hatching is minor. You can play the game eithout hatching snd you do not lose a lot. You cannot play the game without pokestops. The result is, players try to make it a static game with x stops per L17 cell because this is what the game rewards.
When someone want to edit location of Pokestops, they can only move in a limited area (may be Level 17 cell). I did check and the Pokestops cannot move out of the cell.
This maybe a problem for someone who want to edit pokestop to correct location due to other people have move it to wrong location before.
I hope there is someway to deal with this issue
Due to abuse with location edits, players can only request location edits that are less than 10m away from the current location.
Depending on where it is in the cell, it may be able to move out of that cell from those 10m.
For edits of more than 10m, there’s a form to use.
Unfortunately this sort of thing happens with other games as well. There is an ingress player (I know him) who wanted to move the poi from a church near his house, so that he could get the portal without leaving his house. so I selected the origin poi, so there would be no change.