A great place to socialize with others is the most contentious eligibility criteria of the three. Some have taken it to broadly mean any place where two or more people could possibly meet (ex. lamppost, dog poop station, public compost pile, benches, etc.) while others, like myself, believe that the criteria is limited to spaces created with the purpose of allowing people to socialize. Which of there contrasting views does Niantic agree with?
The map within Pokemon Go shows many landmark and structures that are not shown in the map that is used when submitting to Wayfarer. This makes it difficult to ensure that we place the wayspots in the correct location. Are there plans to use the same maps that are used in game for Wayfarer?
What is the abuse team doing to combat the rampant abuse that plagues Wayfarer and what is being done to prevent recidivism among repeat offenders like the St. Cloud community?
Please note, providing the new abuse reporting form is not an acceptable answer to this question. I am specifically referring to much needed policy and practice changes regarding how abuse cases are handled, punishing abusers, as well as much needed tweaks to the system to help automate abuse prevention.
Some examples of needed changes are:
Effective punishments for abusers. Warnings have proven ineffective.
Oftentimes people who abusively submit things only have their reviewing privileges taken away (or vice versa), which doesn't work to prevent them from continuing to submit abusive wayspots.
In-game suspensions need to be utilized more widely, especially among repeat offenders. People abuse Wayfarer because they care about playing the game. Take that away from them for a couple weeks and watch their abuse rates plummet.
The abuse team needs to account for portal density/pokestop stacking when moving/fixing abusive POIs to avoid places like this which just continues to award abusers.
Changes to disincentive Pokestop stacking, such as automatic, periodic rerolls of double-occupied L17 S2 cells for Pokemon Go.
Changes to prevent local group collusion and abuse of rural review prioritization.
Common sense fixes like reducing the 2 mile limit that reviewers can move a POI during review.
Automatic scanning of images for 3rd party photos, Pokemon Go screenshots, etc.
Now the main focus is all about Exploration, Exercise, socialise isn’t it about time the reviewing section historical or cultural significance is changed to reflect this? This could also mean the removal of the visually unique section.
Can we get more avatar options for the forum? I would love to have a cool queer one like yours.
On that note, can we change the default avatar for the forum so it's not a grey face? The ingress forum has the Ingress Prime logo, and I feel like it really improves the style.
Way back in November 2019 right around the time Wayfarer launched, Casey said the following:
Unfortunately Military Bases aren't as straightforward as the other two questions: not considering wayspots on bases is a legacy decision that was recently revised. We haven't been reactively removing wayspots that are on bases unless requested to do so by a commanding officer of the base but no new wayspots should be approved if they're on a military base. As Andrew mentioned in the AMA, any wayspot on a military base should automatically receive a 1* review, surpassing any other potentially eligibility notes.
and then followed up with:
I'm working to get this clarified on the help content as I can see how this is confusing based on how the emergency services note is worded. The intention there is for wayspots located near a base that would otherwise interfere with their regular activity (e.g. a statue at the front gate that blocks access to the base).
Back in June we had yet another long discussion about it, again with no clarification from anyone at Niantic
So my questions are: Should any and every nomination within a military base be rejected? If not, how are reviewers to tell what's ok and what isn't? When can we expect clarification of this rule on the Wayfarer websites?
What is being done to reduce ridiculous nomination turnaround times in some areas, and why is it ok for one area to take months or years for nomination turnaround when in many places you can drive 5 minutes away and get a nomination back in less than a week?
I understand that, to a small degree, prioritizing reviews for rural areas is important, as it will better enable people in less dense areas to be able to play more. However, the actual outcome of the current rural prioritization (and urban deprioritization) is not effective, and causes massive, very unfair disparities in review times. It often makes "rural" areas so fast that rural players have zero incentive to review, while "rural" players can flood the system with nominations. This then forces "urban" players to have to do the work for them, while reaping very little of the benefits, generally allowing us to earn an upgrade that will often just get our nomination reviewed by uninterested non-locals. This cascades into much further problems such as the rural prioritization not even being a good at detecting if an area is truly worthy of prioritization, as it is not nearly granular enough. Because urban vs rural is clearly decided by the boundaries of large S2 cells, how your city or area lines up with arbitrary S2 cell lines is generally the biggest factor of your review times, rather than whether or not your local play area is truly wayspot dense or not.
While ideally, nominators and reviewers would look at wayfarer criteria to figure out what to nominate, most nominators look to existing wayspots. Things like non-notable gravesites, not very socially centered chains/franchises, etc, that don't meet existing criteria, but also wayspots that Niantic opts not to remove even if they are approved today.
How is Niantic trying to find a way for existing nominators and reviewers (who no longer have to stay updated with criteria if they do not choose to) to actually look at and follow criteria instead of these popular but now ineligible wayspots? And also make sure wayfinders don't convince themselves that these ineligible things do actually meet criteria in order to make sense of the system.
(I know the wayfarer site mentions that not all wayspots may not meet current criteria standards, but very few players know this before I mention it to them)
Many people still have a misconception of "private property" from the rejection criteria. Can we get a clearer distinction between POIs within locations with limited/restricted access (especially inside industrial zone), and POIs just on the outer wall of someone's house?
For "Location Inappropriate" and "Location Sensitive", can the team at least change the sentence (or description) to make them less-ambiguous to the reviewers? Especially many will think that "inappropriate" means that the POI is just generic or should not be accepted?
And for the next Wayfarer challenge, can I request the Middle East to be the next location (after Brazil of course)?
It was recently stated that any trail marker is acceptable along hiking trails because players will utilize more of the trail if there are wayspots along the way. It’s also been clarified that footbridges along hiking trails are eligible, presumably for the same reasoning. Should we also apply that reasoning to accept all identifiable wooden stairs, benches, lookout platforms, and other permanent man-made objects along hiking trails?
In the most recent AMA, Niantic updated its stance on natural feature, stating "It’s true that these are now up for consideration as eligible Wayspots. Famous waterfalls and lagoons, or popular cenotes and lakes are great places to explore. When considering these, think about whether there’s a specific location you can direct people to: a sign, an informational board, etc. Additionally, think about whether this natural feature is “just a random rock/tree” (which would be a poor nomination) or whether it’s a named feature with a famous backstory and/or a history (a great nomination!)."
Despite this update, "natural feature" is still a rejection criteria, and many reviewers remain unware of this change. Can this rejection criteria be removed? What is Niantic doing to ensure that rejection criteria when reviewing match the rejection criteria described in the Rejection Criteria section of the help page?
Can an official specific criteria page be made on the Wayfarer website for the many clarifications/directives that come up on random threads in this forum?
A common example of a criteria clarification that comes up are Blessing Boxes (aka, Little Free Pantrys). On multiple different occasions, different Niantic employees have indicated that despite their extreme similarity to Little Free Libraries, that Blessing Boxes are not eligible submissions. This is a nuance that most people who do not frequent this forum will not understand, and Blessing Boxes still frequently get approved. Another common clarification is that memorial benches should be dedicated to someone of importance, and not just be a paid plaque in memory of a family's loved one. Trail Markers, have also been a really hot topic lately. I am sure this AMA will likely even create some new ones.
Currently the Wayfarer criteria consists of 4 pages: Eligibility Criteria, Acceptance Criteria, Rejection Criteria, and Content Guidelines.
I would like to propose a 5th page, titled something like "Criteria Clarifications" or "Wayspot Directives" that can be a FAQ of sorts that houses these types of all too common but highly talked about nuances from the Wayfarer Team, in a place they can be seen by all, especially those who are learning and those who do not frequent this forum.
Recent clarification from Niantic is telling players that Niantic is after more and more portals regardless on how good a waypoint is, for example stickers on lamp posts to indicate a route from a to b or even dog **** bins if they have social or history behind them.
Most of the time Niantic Niantic will say yes regardless of how generic or the local knowledge for the area involved.
Question is will Niantic use local knowledge to allow certain things accepted in one country but not in others? and how wil Niantic do this?
Why is "reporting" or "editing" wayspots not taken into account and rewarded in Wayfarer (or in the Games)?
Reporting invalid, outdated, not existing, non safe wayspots helps maintain a nice Gameboard for all games, and battles many of the "exploits" and "abuses" that other wayfarers have been constantly reporting....
Lets face it: The wayfarer community its not doing a "quality" job, and a lot of wayspots that shouldnt be approved, get approved. Niantic is not taking the time and effort to "double check" what the people submit, and what is being approved by reviewers. But a lot of us SPEND TIME REPORTING and making QA job. Im not saying that every report should give you credit... but if after NIA OPS review, the report succeeds, it would be nice to get something in return, and probably that would encourage others to report what shouldnt have been there in the first place.
One of my biggest bugaboos in Wayfarer is the disconnect between the "approval" criteria, and the "removal" criteria. Some wayspots manage to get approved despite not actually meeting any of the criteria -- and then this error cannot be rectified, because the new wayspot doesn't meet any of the REMOVAL criteria.
ie. it's not on K-12/military/PRP, does not obstruct emergency services, etc.
Sometimes the new wayspot was approved because of fraud/abuse (ie. the submitter faked photos), sometimes it's literally generic public infrastructure (ie. an unremarkable light pole).
I'm not talking about old pre-OPR things that are essentially long-grandfathered in. I'm talking about NEW submissions, that are supposed to follow CURRENT rules.
Can we get the removal criteria more in line with the acceptance criteria?
@NianticTintino If you can PM me, I have a very specific example that I just found today. But for privacy reasons and the fact I've been personally harassed by local players, I am loathe to post information like this in any public forum like this one.
When major changes are made to a point of interest, can you please clarify when it is appropriate to request edits to the existing wayspot, and when it is necessary to request removal of the existing wayspot and potentially submit a new wayspot? Specifically, I am hoping for guidance that covers the following types of changes:
- A place of worship changes its name while retaining the same congregation.
- A place of worship changes its name because the old congregation moved out and a new congregation moved in.
- All the equipment at a playground is removed and replaced with new equipment. The new playground occupies the same physical area as the old playground.
- All the equipment at a playground is removed and replaced with new equipment nearby, but not in quite the same location (say, 40 meters away).
- A mural is painted over with an entirely unrelated mural.
- A sculpture is replaced with an unrelated sculpture in the same location.
- A restaurant is replaced by a different, unrelated restaurant
- A retail store is replaced by a different, unrelated retail store
in past weeks the crash of pogo making a nomination in the part of selecting or taking a photo in android 11 was fixed but still up in android 6-9, we can get a fix?
My oldest sub is now 831 days old (9th June 2019).
I live in London, UK.
Whatever you did earlier in the year to try and remedy this didn't work.
Please can you finally just admit that you broke the Wayfarer system for agents like me or that you have no idea how to actually fix it? This abuse vector rubbish is getting ridiculous.
My issue cannot be resolved by simply earning upgrades. It's the equivalent of putting a bandaid on a broken leg.
Gonna note to new AMAers that disagrees weren't counted as "downvotes" in the past. Dunno if that trend will continue with this AMA but just a heads up for those who haven't been around for previous ones.
Also why the heck disagree react to Tintino? I do not understand that.
Comments
What's happening to nomination ? a lot don't get to ingress nor intell.
But are on pokemon and harry potter.
Accepted in july still not in ingress. Will we have to open every game now to see if a POI exist ?
A great place to socialize with others is the most contentious eligibility criteria of the three. Some have taken it to broadly mean any place where two or more people could possibly meet (ex. lamppost, dog poop station, public compost pile, benches, etc.) while others, like myself, believe that the criteria is limited to spaces created with the purpose of allowing people to socialize. Which of there contrasting views does Niantic agree with?
Edited for spelling and grammar.
Will Niantic close submissions so we can reduce the backlogs so turnaround times aren't absolutely insane (without upgrades)?
Hahah this is funny. We need some type of LOL reaction
When will all games that you can submit in have Wayfarer neutral language? They’re not stops, they’re points of interest or Waypoints.
Would stop some of the “please accept this as a PokéStop” begs.
The map within Pokemon Go shows many landmark and structures that are not shown in the map that is used when submitting to Wayfarer. This makes it difficult to ensure that we place the wayspots in the correct location. Are there plans to use the same maps that are used in game for Wayfarer?
What is the abuse team doing to combat the rampant abuse that plagues Wayfarer and what is being done to prevent recidivism among repeat offenders like the St. Cloud community?
Please note, providing the new abuse reporting form is not an acceptable answer to this question. I am specifically referring to much needed policy and practice changes regarding how abuse cases are handled, punishing abusers, as well as much needed tweaks to the system to help automate abuse prevention.
Some examples of needed changes are:
Last comment on the first page, nice!
Now the main focus is all about Exploration, Exercise, socialise isn’t it about time the reviewing section historical or cultural significance is changed to reflect this? This could also mean the removal of the visually unique section.
Can we get more avatar options for the forum? I would love to have a cool queer one like yours.
On that note, can we change the default avatar for the forum so it's not a grey face? The ingress forum has the Ingress Prime logo, and I feel like it really improves the style.
There has been significant confusion and disagreement about nominations within the residential/non-secure areas of military bases for a long time now.
In May 2020, I posted requesting clarification about this topic.
https://community.wayfarer.nianticlabs.com/discussion/2398/clarification-request-for-candidates-within-military-bases
Way back in November 2019 right around the time Wayfarer launched, Casey said the following:
Unfortunately Military Bases aren't as straightforward as the other two questions: not considering wayspots on bases is a legacy decision that was recently revised. We haven't been reactively removing wayspots that are on bases unless requested to do so by a commanding officer of the base but no new wayspots should be approved if they're on a military base. As Andrew mentioned in the AMA, any wayspot on a military base should automatically receive a 1* review, surpassing any other potentially eligibility notes.
and then followed up with:
I'm working to get this clarified on the help content as I can see how this is confusing based on how the emergency services note is worded. The intention there is for wayspots located near a base that would otherwise interfere with their regular activity (e.g. a statue at the front gate that blocks access to the base).
Back in June we had yet another long discussion about it, again with no clarification from anyone at Niantic
https://community.wayfarer.nianticlabs.com/discussion/18153/active-submitter-or-multiple-on-a-military-base
So my questions are: Should any and every nomination within a military base be rejected? If not, how are reviewers to tell what's ok and what isn't? When can we expect clarification of this rule on the Wayfarer websites?
Can we have the old icons back too? I miss mine.
What will happen to the Wayfarer Advocates idea? There haven't been updates to this topic for a long time.
What is being done to reduce ridiculous nomination turnaround times in some areas, and why is it ok for one area to take months or years for nomination turnaround when in many places you can drive 5 minutes away and get a nomination back in less than a week?
I understand that, to a small degree, prioritizing reviews for rural areas is important, as it will better enable people in less dense areas to be able to play more. However, the actual outcome of the current rural prioritization (and urban deprioritization) is not effective, and causes massive, very unfair disparities in review times. It often makes "rural" areas so fast that rural players have zero incentive to review, while "rural" players can flood the system with nominations. This then forces "urban" players to have to do the work for them, while reaping very little of the benefits, generally allowing us to earn an upgrade that will often just get our nomination reviewed by uninterested non-locals. This cascades into much further problems such as the rural prioritization not even being a good at detecting if an area is truly worthy of prioritization, as it is not nearly granular enough. Because urban vs rural is clearly decided by the boundaries of large S2 cells, how your city or area lines up with arbitrary S2 cell lines is generally the biggest factor of your review times, rather than whether or not your local play area is truly wayspot dense or not.
While ideally, nominators and reviewers would look at wayfarer criteria to figure out what to nominate, most nominators look to existing wayspots. Things like non-notable gravesites, not very socially centered chains/franchises, etc, that don't meet existing criteria, but also wayspots that Niantic opts not to remove even if they are approved today.
How is Niantic trying to find a way for existing nominators and reviewers (who no longer have to stay updated with criteria if they do not choose to) to actually look at and follow criteria instead of these popular but now ineligible wayspots? And also make sure wayfinders don't convince themselves that these ineligible things do actually meet criteria in order to make sense of the system.
(I know the wayfarer site mentions that not all wayspots may not meet current criteria standards, but very few players know this before I mention it to them)
Many people still have a misconception of "private property" from the rejection criteria. Can we get a clearer distinction between POIs within locations with limited/restricted access (especially inside industrial zone), and POIs just on the outer wall of someone's house?
For "Location Inappropriate" and "Location Sensitive", can the team at least change the sentence (or description) to make them less-ambiguous to the reviewers? Especially many will think that "inappropriate" means that the POI is just generic or should not be accepted?
And for the next Wayfarer challenge, can I request the Middle East to be the next location (after Brazil of course)?
It was recently stated that any trail marker is acceptable along hiking trails because players will utilize more of the trail if there are wayspots along the way. It’s also been clarified that footbridges along hiking trails are eligible, presumably for the same reasoning. Should we also apply that reasoning to accept all identifiable wooden stairs, benches, lookout platforms, and other permanent man-made objects along hiking trails?
Well yeah, you had heart eyes. I didn't get to have cool shades OR be a furry.
In the most recent AMA, Niantic updated its stance on natural feature, stating "It’s true that these are now up for consideration as eligible Wayspots. Famous waterfalls and lagoons, or popular cenotes and lakes are great places to explore. When considering these, think about whether there’s a specific location you can direct people to: a sign, an informational board, etc. Additionally, think about whether this natural feature is “just a random rock/tree” (which would be a poor nomination) or whether it’s a named feature with a famous backstory and/or a history (a great nomination!)."
Despite this update, "natural feature" is still a rejection criteria, and many reviewers remain unware of this change. Can this rejection criteria be removed? What is Niantic doing to ensure that rejection criteria when reviewing match the rejection criteria described in the Rejection Criteria section of the help page?
Can an official specific criteria page be made on the Wayfarer website for the many clarifications/directives that come up on random threads in this forum?
A common example of a criteria clarification that comes up are Blessing Boxes (aka, Little Free Pantrys). On multiple different occasions, different Niantic employees have indicated that despite their extreme similarity to Little Free Libraries, that Blessing Boxes are not eligible submissions. This is a nuance that most people who do not frequent this forum will not understand, and Blessing Boxes still frequently get approved. Another common clarification is that memorial benches should be dedicated to someone of importance, and not just be a paid plaque in memory of a family's loved one. Trail Markers, have also been a really hot topic lately. I am sure this AMA will likely even create some new ones.
Currently the Wayfarer criteria consists of 4 pages: Eligibility Criteria, Acceptance Criteria, Rejection Criteria, and Content Guidelines.
I would like to propose a 5th page, titled something like "Criteria Clarifications" or "Wayspot Directives" that can be a FAQ of sorts that houses these types of all too common but highly talked about nuances from the Wayfarer Team, in a place they can be seen by all, especially those who are learning and those who do not frequent this forum.
Recent clarification from Niantic is telling players that Niantic is after more and more portals regardless on how good a waypoint is, for example stickers on lamp posts to indicate a route from a to b or even dog **** bins if they have social or history behind them.
Most of the time Niantic Niantic will say yes regardless of how generic or the local knowledge for the area involved.
Question is will Niantic use local knowledge to allow certain things accepted in one country but not in others? and how wil Niantic do this?
Will there be more advertisements for Wayfarer in the future? Social media activity is a big part of modern advertisement.
Hello @NianticTintino !
Why is "reporting" or "editing" wayspots not taken into account and rewarded in Wayfarer (or in the Games)?
Reporting invalid, outdated, not existing, non safe wayspots helps maintain a nice Gameboard for all games, and battles many of the "exploits" and "abuses" that other wayfarers have been constantly reporting....
Lets face it: The wayfarer community its not doing a "quality" job, and a lot of wayspots that shouldnt be approved, get approved. Niantic is not taking the time and effort to "double check" what the people submit, and what is being approved by reviewers. But a lot of us SPEND TIME REPORTING and making QA job. Im not saying that every report should give you credit... but if after NIA OPS review, the report succeeds, it would be nice to get something in return, and probably that would encourage others to report what shouldnt have been there in the first place.
One of my biggest bugaboos in Wayfarer is the disconnect between the "approval" criteria, and the "removal" criteria. Some wayspots manage to get approved despite not actually meeting any of the criteria -- and then this error cannot be rectified, because the new wayspot doesn't meet any of the REMOVAL criteria.
ie. it's not on K-12/military/PRP, does not obstruct emergency services, etc.
Sometimes the new wayspot was approved because of fraud/abuse (ie. the submitter faked photos), sometimes it's literally generic public infrastructure (ie. an unremarkable light pole).
I'm not talking about old pre-OPR things that are essentially long-grandfathered in. I'm talking about NEW submissions, that are supposed to follow CURRENT rules.
Can we get the removal criteria more in line with the acceptance criteria?
@NianticTintino If you can PM me, I have a very specific example that I just found today. But for privacy reasons and the fact I've been personally harassed by local players, I am loathe to post information like this in any public forum like this one.
When major changes are made to a point of interest, can you please clarify when it is appropriate to request edits to the existing wayspot, and when it is necessary to request removal of the existing wayspot and potentially submit a new wayspot? Specifically, I am hoping for guidance that covers the following types of changes:
- A place of worship changes its name while retaining the same congregation.
- A place of worship changes its name because the old congregation moved out and a new congregation moved in.
- All the equipment at a playground is removed and replaced with new equipment. The new playground occupies the same physical area as the old playground.
- All the equipment at a playground is removed and replaced with new equipment nearby, but not in quite the same location (say, 40 meters away).
- A mural is painted over with an entirely unrelated mural.
- A sculpture is replaced with an unrelated sculpture in the same location.
- A restaurant is replaced by a different, unrelated restaurant
- A retail store is replaced by a different, unrelated retail store
in past weeks the crash of pogo making a nomination in the part of selecting or taking a photo in android 11 was fixed but still up in android 6-9, we can get a fix?
Hi again Niantic.
My oldest sub is now 831 days old (9th June 2019).
I live in London, UK.
Whatever you did earlier in the year to try and remedy this didn't work.
Please can you finally just admit that you broke the Wayfarer system for agents like me or that you have no idea how to actually fix it? This abuse vector rubbish is getting ridiculous.
My issue cannot be resolved by simply earning upgrades. It's the equivalent of putting a bandaid on a broken leg.
Love from the thorn in your backside,
Qwizical
Hey @Dehvoy-PGO Is there a reason you're hitting disagree on every single comment?
Looks like the account was made today...
Are you planning to do anything to celebrate Wayfarer’s anniversary/birthday?
Additionally, is there a roadmap for when other Niantic titles will be able to have Wayfarer access?
Gonna note to new AMAers that disagrees weren't counted as "downvotes" in the past. Dunno if that trend will continue with this AMA but just a heads up for those who haven't been around for previous ones.
Also why the heck disagree react to Tintino? I do not understand that.