A Strict 'Do Not Submit' List and the Wayfarer Test

HaramDingo-INGHaramDingo-ING Posts: 1,725 ✭✭✭✭✭

There should be a very specific subset of certain things that people are nominating or doing that involves Wayfarer that should result in not just a bland, impactless rejection email but actually cause the nominator to be warned that they submitting clearly ineligible things and give them warnings that further restrictions may happen on their account.

What should go into this 'Do Not Submit' List?

Some examples of things that should belong in this strict 'Do Not Submit' list are as pretty much a curated selection of rejection criteria, as follows:

Wayspot nominations:

  • Schools and childcare centres (this is probably one of the most common nominations that I see)
  • Body parts (please, just don't), faces and live animals (where they are the clear focus of the primary photo)
  • Things that are obviously explicit,
  • Completely unintelligible nominations or have zero focus whatsoever (such as a pure black screen or just pure non-effort nominations)
  • House/couch attempts
  • Literal begging
  • Nominations with game-specific references which are completely irrelevant ot the nomination, and
  • Obvious abuse attempts (i.e. submitting a playground right on top of their home) or actual ridiculement

Photo submissions:

  • Screenshots or photos of computer screens
  • Pokemon within AR photos (super common)
  • Photos that do not reflect the object whatsoever, or
  • People in general

Now it's not just enough to just reject something like a school for example. For example, some places may be incorrectly rejected for being a school/daycare like a vocational college for example. Or it might be a former school hall or something historical. But if they nominate the actual school, describe it exactly as a school, and it there is zero ambiguation whatsoever that it is no doubt a school (with nothing like a historical plaque to go with it or something), then that should be a direct disregard of the nomination criteria and should be quelled.

In the last Wayfarer Roadmap Community Update, Anson the Wise stated that they would be rewiring the onboarding flow, that is:

Newly eligible Explorers will soon be required to learn the Wayfarer criteria before being allowed to submit contributions as well as review them.

But then what? Hosette mentioned in the Army of: need pokestops post:

...I honestly don't think that a submitter's test is going to solve the problem. People will take it once and then forget what they briefly crammed into their brains, or they'll cheat to pass the test.

So at the end of the day, people can go take this Wayfarer criteria test, either pass it with flying colours by thinking like a conscientious objector, cheat their way through, or get their friend to do the test, and what next...oh, THEN submit the local daycare or school? Still clamour and beg for Pokestops in the description? Try to submit their house or their lounge room right after? Yes, this will slightly curb the amount of atrocious garbage nominations that are heavily rampant in everyone's neverending queues but passing the test is not rocket science.

I have seen Summer Hill Public School (the actual school, not just a sign, mural or a LFL near its entrance) be nominated several times in the past couple of months and it just seems like it's the same person attempting it over and over again with no remorse after they get a rejection. So I don't think they even read their emails; they just wait until the nominations status in the Wayfarer management screen turns red.

Offboarding

Once the onboarding process is complete and Wayfinders have passed the test, it is in that particular Wayfinders's best interests to maintain and uphold that privilege. If for any reason after passing the test that they happen to submit anything in the 'Do Not Submit' list such as Summer Hill Public School attempt number 6, then their nominating behaviours need to be addressed.

  1. At first it should start off with one of those generic warning emails, i.e. "We have confirmed you have been submitting nominations that do not meet criteria/are on the 'Do not submit' list etc etc". Warn them not to submit anything on the 'Do Not Submit' list and remind them to review Wayfarer criteria before submitting additional things, or risk things such as an account or Wayfarer privilege suspensions. Then if they have similar nominations such as six other different daycares and/or schools, Niantic can just go through their nominations and also any pending edits/photo submissions if necessary and auto-reject them if necessary while dishing out the penalty.
  2. Then if after their first warning and a subsequent nomination, i.e. nominated after the date the warning email was said, not if they had submitted seven different daycares and/or schools in a row and only one of them just got rejected then and there and they're just feeling the compounded brunt of the warning, considering suspending their Wayfarer nomination privileges and access. Maybe for 30 days since that's the time you're allowed to take if you fail the test the first time around. But after those 30 days, force these Wayfinders to take an even harder test (centralised mainly on what they have submitted on the 'Do Not Submit' list) for onboarding again if they want to nominate things.
  3. Aaand should they just submit something ludicrous once again, permanent expulsion from Wayfarer, and maybe impacts on their other Niantic game accounts (optional).

Right now, rejection emails are a slap on the wrist, or even for some, a non-existent poke. I have seen nominations for certain things over and over and over again and no matter how many times I reject them, the submitter's rebuttal is just a supporting information of rebuking all the nominators re all the reject reasons and should just give them a Pokestop anyway.

Yeah. Maybe it's hard work for your "pretty small team within Niantic" but right now, marking something for abuse does nothing. At the bottom of the Wayfarer Criteria - Content Guidelines page it says:

Nominations submitted by accounts with a history of spamming inappropriate nominations

If we believe you are spamming nominations inappropriately, you will receive a warning and may lose nomination privileges for repeat offenses.

But this does not happen. Hinchinbrook spammer who submits photos of their computer screen has been nominating things with a computer screen again. All the additional comments that I add when rejecting something for abuse falls on deaf ears when the nomination I rejected is resubmitted again with a vengeance. Photos submitted to Wayspots of their Mewtwo or stupid shiny Eevee are rampant and no matter what happens or if they are flagged, are still in the system and feel as if they are never removed from the queue. Unless... they are posted here in the forums for public eyes, then something may happen every now and then, but for the meantime this abuse is just too much to handle, both on the Wayfinders' side and Niantic.

If 55% of Wayfinders found that the system as a whole needs to be fixed, it's not really a good feeling. But there are numerous people here who would really strive to be great community advocates who would help fight against abuse and help. Why just stay being a small fry and hiring x amount of people (where x is no more than a zeptogram) when you could be using the prowess, passion and diligence of Wayfinders who are here on these forums, who have doing the heavy-lifting of reviewing and do what they can in their communities to curb abuse and trash nominations, instead of just posting them all in a designated coal channel to be a laughing stock and an ongoing disappointment to the community? "WHAT?! It's still In Voting for all these months?!" For massive community-fronted projects such as Wayfarer, we are the forefront and driving force of the expansion of the Wayfarer network. It's time that we got some credit for that.

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tl;dr, no more excuse to submit trash or things completely against criteria once compulsory onboarding test is passed, if someone submits something in 'do not submit' list, punish them up to three times with increasing intensity, let them take a harder test if they submit coal/universal trash in a specific list forbidden to submit, permanent suspension if they are punished the third time, flagging stuff for abuse is useless right now, we are the power, yadda yadda yadda purple aipom dishwasher.

Comments

  • sogNinjaman-INGsogNinjaman-ING Posts: 3,313 ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited August 2021

    There is already a list of things not to submit. The problem is, without any sort of "Nomination introduction / Nomination Test", you can just go straight ahead and Nominate the minute you level up to L10 Ingress or L38 PoGo. Nobody knows about submission criteria bar what they hear in some Discord or FB group.

    Honestly, with the number of obvious, named "would make a great gym lots of children go here" K-12 schools and the like I've seen submitted, people who submit these should lose their nomination abilities for 3 months for a first offence. Niantic say "spamming nominations can result in sanctions", can we please have a "rejected because of spam" category for all those front doors / roadsigns / bedrooms / back garden ornaments we see on a daily basis.

  • PkmnTrainerJ-INGPkmnTrainerJ-ING Posts: 5,129 Ambassador

    It seems that Niantic do take some action as per Giffard’s comment here;

    I understand that they can’t tell us exactly what they’ve done as they don’t want to share that.

    You’ve mentioned a Coal channel. Whilst it’s not a solution, it’s certainly helpful whilst you’re in the brunt of it, to share what you’re having to see with others. Maybe we should have a Coal thread here and that would help show Niantic more about what we have to deal with as well? Again, maybe not the solution but a suggestion.

  • sophielab-INGsophielab-ING Posts: 266 ✭✭✭✭

    Since the last coal thread was closed. Opening a new one isn't a good idea.

  • PkmnTrainerJ-INGPkmnTrainerJ-ING Posts: 5,129 Ambassador

    Yeah, the last one was closed as it went off it’s original purpose of “Waypoints at Home” but maybe a general one may be okay? I’m not sure. Maybe not. I wouldn’t create it in any case, had my fun with that one. If someone else wants to do it, go ahead.

  • Rodensteiner-PGORodensteiner-PGO Posts: 1,705 ✭✭✭✭✭

    funnily, the most useless shtuff i get :

    • photos taken from the closed window to submit something outside 1 km away
    • submissin of useless removable Gartenzwerge in private-1-family homes
    • submission of the garden-pump in private-1-family-homes
    • submissions of Sparkasse, Volksbank and Apotheke
    • trying to fake a Stolperstein at a private-new-build-1-family home (guys, you can google the real place easily)
    • Kindergarten/Schul-Spielplätze (guys, you can see that the school is 20 m next to it!)

    The biggest problem is still private-1-family homes and ALL the problems that come with it.

  • tp235-INGtp235-ING Posts: 1,383 ✭✭✭✭✭

    In addition to introducing the test to nominators, the reviewers The level of questions on the Wayfarer test should be higher.

    I think the level should be raised again, at least to the level of the Operation Portal Recon test.

    Right now, if you can use Google Translate to understand the meaning of the words, it is unthinkable to fail the test.

  • I see there's a lot of mention of 1-family homes. But, in my personal situation, we took this property over ( yes there's a home here) but, we turned the property into a botanical garden, hiking trail, community garden/food forest, with koi pond etc. in order to help educate people about the importance of bees and feeding them. ( There's two bee farms right nearby, perfect opportunity to teach and they can watch the local bees come eat on our flowers etc) What things to plant to help them, we're also adding a "little free library" to fill with books about gardening, food forests, bees, etc and coloring pages for the little ones ( all themed accordingly, such as bees, butterflies, birds, flowers, plants, etc)

    However, google earth's imaging of the area not only does not have street view in front of the property, but, the imaging is literally from 2008. Which really sucks because people are likely to automatic reject thanks to google earth and their laziness with not accurately updating their maps.

  • TrevorAlan-PGOTrevorAlan-PGO Posts: 998 ✭✭✭✭✭

    I really think that the test requirement needs to apply to ALL who have NOT TAKEN it yet. Not just new folks who become lv38 in PoGo or 10 in Ingress AFTER the test requirement change is put into effect. Otherwise the already existing problem will not change.

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