Is reporting abuse/correcting abusively misplaced POIs really useful?

LukeAllStars-INGLukeAllStars-ING Posts: 4,625 Ambassador

TL;DR Cell optimization is still enabling massive POI clusters



I was currently thinking about this when I noticed something:

I have edited a few misplaced locations. While I did this, some s2 cells lvl 17 got changed. What happened with a PokeStop that switched the cell into an occupied one? Here is what happened:


First of all: Every cell had one PokeStop like intended

no picture


When moving one of those POIs into an occupied one the following happened:

The stop disappeared, a new POI appeared in the same cell


One day later:

The PokeStop that disappeared now appeared again, even though the cell was occupied


Now, let's pretend the same happens when you report an abusive cell optimization as I did here:

https://intel.ingress.com/intel?ll=50.944361,7.100439&z=17&pll=50.944361,7.100439

Old path/53 occupied lvl 17 s2 cells:


The new path, 72 location edits:


I have turned on the "POI in a cell counter" for this picture to show how many POIs are in such a small area.


Now, let's pretend every of this gigantic educational trail with 100+ signs (around 75 are POIs) is now a PokeStop. Like this, abusive clusters are still possible. We saw a lot of location edit abuse in the past, but this trail is put there by Niantic. And every sign is located correctly.


Now think about abusers also submitting the other signs on the wrong locations so they will also get corrected by Niantic later on. Like this, a new way of abuse is born. Exactly this is what's also happening in one of the fake hotspots I have already removed/edited over 120 POIs.

Slowly, a growing cluster is building up. I sadly never saw the educational trail or this example live:

https://intel.ingress.com/intel?ll=54.164902,9.862787&z=17&pll=54.164902,9.862787

The marked POI is for sure not there. It will probably be somewhere inside the cell with the 5 POIs.

This tactic is making use of people like me trying to correct mislocated/cell-optimized POIs.


Here is my review map from this area:

Since they are "likely to exist somewhere there", you need to actually vote positive for them or get f****d by the system with rating drops.


Here is a typical supplemental picture of those nominations:


Here the Intel with the old marked locations of the POIs before the location edit


Like you can see, the next two POIs are in the "submission cells" waiting for a player to edit them into the blue cells where they actually are and the cluster grows.


All of this leads to a boost because of abuse.


There was/is also a possibility to get back PokeStops that disappeared earlier because of cell switches. But I WILL NEVER TALK ABOUT THIS HERE!!!!

With this, having multiple PokeStops in one cell was easy.


In total, we need another change to the system. I was thinking a lot about this. How to create a system that treats correct edits well but doesn't support abuse? Because losing PokeStops would not help to create an excellent portal network. This exercise had Niantic a few times before. In the end, the abuse is still possible and the players actually improving the network are suffering from it. Now, it's time to inspire Niantic a bit. And for this, I am hoping for a constructive discussion here.


Thanks for reading, please share your opinion in the comments!

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