Ok, since you mentioned a while ago that rejection apeals would come soon(ish), i've got a couple of questions.
More or less, how do you plan to execute this?
Would we be required to nominate a wayspot a minimal amount of times before be elegible to an apeal? and if so, how many times would be rerquired?
Over the years i've realized that when you encounter a hidden gem that meets the criteria, but for whatever reason it keeps getting rejected, the only option of getting it approved is to keep nominating, even if the nomination info has improved to as good as it can get, but yet we are still at the mercy of pure luck of getting paired with reviewers that actually are educated on the Wayfarer criteria and it's updates. For instance this nomination took me 6 tries over the course of seven months, before it finally got accepted, even though thanks to the advice and recomendations of this wonderful comunity, it should had only taken me three times tops.
I only bring this up again because i'm having another similar issue with a nomiantion that meets the criteria, but "doesen't look" the part, and i'm seriosly giving it up, it's not worth the trouble 😆. It's a christian church with public and pedestrian access that was founded in the mid 2000's on what used to be an industrial factory, and it still looks very industrial from the outside, and because of that it has gotten rejected twice, even with the link to the website of the church that validates it's authenticity, location and accesibility. I keep getting rejection reasons such as fake, doesen't meet the criteria and unaccesible to pedestrians.
In the UK thread, @NianticGiffard says that "a signboard for a bike lane (along with say a highway or road) [is] not as interesting/unique as compared to a signboard for a bike trail that takes players through a new route." But then also explicitly says that the road sign pictured here is an acceptable POI - https://goo.gl/maps/yJ5p5NWbipynv3hn6
I do not think that Giffard sufficiently understood as to what extent cycling infrastructure are just roads. Bikes just travel on roads, without any segregation from traffic. The UK's National Cycle Network map shows the majority of these "trail signs" are just road signs - https://explore.osmaps.com/ncn A lot of the cycle network is just about getting people from A to B.
Here's an example of cycle network sign in my local area - https://goo.gl/maps/8Eg7KUDrJpYEmPL16 It is a road sign for road users (who happen to be cyclists) There is no segregation for bikes. There is a sign saying no stopping, there are double yellow lines, a traffic island in the middle, and a bus lane/tram track opposite. This is not a suitable POI for exploration. No one is going into town and city centres for bike "trails", they're just roads.
Quite happy for segregated cycle infrastructure and actual trails to be POIs.
Is an opt-in method within Wayfarer being developed to allow people to participate in Wayfarer Challenges globally? Without affecting their home/bonus location.
Have you thought about tiering Wayfarer into its own levels (i.e. to gamify Wayfarer), and then scaling privileges as Wayfinders reach certain levels?
For example, for as much as we are Wayfinders for Niantic, there is another program that parallels to the cause except primarily for businesses and restaurants and that's the Local Guides Program by Google. Contributors are given points for the amount of photos they contribute, the reviews they make, all the edits, questions and other things they do as well, and you can see the distribution of Local Guides based on their Level, from the measly Level 1 to the almighty Level 10 Local Guide. Seeing an end-goal and a "last-level" so to speak for Niantic Wayfarer would encourage people to get to higher levels and possibly enjoy better privileges.
i.e. Someone who has only gotten to Level 38/Level 10 in Pokemon Go/Ingress just passed the Wayfarer test, hasn't had anything approved and reviewed a couple of nominations has the same importance and impact as a dedicated/veteran Wayfinder with over 50,000 agreements, 1,000 wayspots approved and contributes heavily in these forums, and yet they are both in this system, the same. They have the the same number of nominations a fortnight, the same parameters for nominating things, and a similar priority level nonetheless.
Subquestions that arise from this:
Have you thought about putting a number of Edits and Photos contributed somewhere on the Wayfarer profile page? The amount of nominations approved and reviewed is only one part of the story that a Wayfinder does, the most diligent ones also contribute photos and maintain the high quality of wayspots through better titles and descriptions, eliminating typos.
At the same as above, would you maybe consider gatekeeping title and description edits and photo submissions behind the Wayfarer test as well? I have seen way too many people add random Pokemon Go-related description edits and add Pokemon AR photos and even random screenshots as well, so maybe actual Wayfinders who want to make their local wayspots better are actually well-placed to do so after taking the test and gaining access to nomination managements, and you can dish out actual punishments to Wayfinders who have passed the test and yet choose to abuse their privileges.
With all this above in mind, have you maybe considered scaling the number of nomination slots, title/description edits, location edits, and photo submissions, as well as scaling the distance limits of such (i.e. nomination distance limits, the distance limits of suggesting edits and adding photos, and the allowable distance of location edits) by such tiered levels? Someone who has the adequate level to do such edits has contributed to Wayfarer long enough, and is highly unlikely to abuse these privileges because they would have much more to lose than some random alt account that was speed-levelled to abuse and spam everything else instead.
Have you thought about supplementing the Wayfarer team in terms of moderation and perhaps some of the Wayfarer functions with the proposed Community Advocates program, similar to how the Ingress Community Forums have XM Ambassadors and Vanguards?
It just feels weird that NianticCasey sent out feelers to gauge the general sentiment of the community who have written quite lengthy and meaningful responses but nothing went into fruition.
I don't mean using the Upgrade Next, but being able to have much more control of using (or not using) upgrades to upgrade nominations only if they are selected to be upgraded. i.e. not automatically upgrading things when the meter reaches 100. Sometimes users will put Upgrade next of a nomination, only for that nomination to be swiped by Niantic staff to be manually reviewed and then the upgrade applies itself on something they didn't even want upgraded, and thus it gets rejected...
NianticCasey had advised these this change was baked into larger changes coming in the second half of 2021, but we're just about to head into the second half of the second half of 2021. Much of the community don't mind having upgrades, but many are vehemently against as with many fellow wayfinders with questions asked about "upgrades are more likely to be rejected" and would rather have nothing to do with upgrades.
For Danbocat, can you show us a picture of your dogs?
(Yes, I am pushing the limits of ask me anything, similar to how Andrew Krug, former Ingress Community Manager would answer random questions like whether they prefer black or white chocolate or the endless random AMA answers about lasagna and in-jokes)
Andrew Krug had a secret family lasagna recipe. Do you have a secret family recipe that you will refuse to share with anyone? And will you share it with us? :P
Have you explored the option of allowing Wayfarer reviewing to be done via keyboard?
Please consider allowing the Wayfarer app to natively support this. Reviewing for hours of end with only moving and clicking the mouse will cause RSI (but so does repetitive typing!) and it would be beneficial to allow a hybrid or preferred approach towards reviewing. Numerous Wayfinders especially on desktop can help share their experiences and the utility of such a function if you need ideas. It should not be taboo because the functionality was previously supplied by a third-party, it is a real quality of life improvement.
Can there be an example page/layout of each section/tab on the Wayfarer menu describing each section in the help? Can there be a page of a typical review layout describing each section? How about making going through each tap/page on the Wayfarer website part of the training?
I find that this would be a good thing to include in a help section or as part of training as many reviewers don't know about the forum even though the community tab on the left side of the Wayfarer page takes you to this forum. There is even a section on it in the help, but many still don't know. Another reason is because I have had local reviewers not know about new criteria even though it is on the tab on the main page above review. One long time reviewer was surprised in June that the "generic business" rejection reason was gone. When I explained about it being gone for months and was part of the new criteria, he said he didn't even know there was a criteria update. Lastly, lately I see more of people using the what is it? from the review as criteria. That means if it is defined on the What is it? category, they think it meets criteria and put this in the supporting text of their nomination. An example would be "meets criteria of Education>Elementary School" or "Eligible under Health and Medical>Hospital". Both of the examples are on the rejection page under criteria and not eligible though.
This may seem unnecessary, but after having a long conversation with a new reviewer I realize it might be needed. The new reviewer was asking a group of us "why a high school was not eligible?". Many of us stated "because it is K-12 and on the rejection criteria". He said "but it's high school". Finally, we understood that he was stuck on the "K-12" part as he thought that meant any place that has Kindergarten to high school students and not just any school/daycare for kids. Since he was not joking, my take away was that even as a new reviewer (less than a month), he had never look at or read criteria before.
Hopefully having a layout of the website on the help section or making it part of training helps out new reviewers find where things are as well as lets older reviewers have a refresher.
People who want to "increase the number" and those who think "we don't need low-quality products" have conflicting thoughts, and it's easy to end up on the same side of the argument.
It has been announced that an appeals feature for rejected candidates will be released soon, which is likely to be advantageous for the "we want to increase the number" camp.
To make it fair, I've thought of a special feature for the "no low quality" group as well.
Special deletion or editing function using "local images", "description", and "supplementary information", just like when making nominations.
In the case of deletion, I think it would be better to have the community not only vote on the deletion, but also to have Nia manually review it before making a final decision, so that we can curb the abuse of unnecessary deletions due to personal grudges.
How about making it a point system, where each action (priority, appeal, special deletion, special edit) would cost upgrade points?
The points spent could be different for each action. (e.g. priority 50, appeals 30, special deletions 50, special editors 20)
I'm not one who added a disagree but I considered it. The tone, and the assumption that these nominations should be eligible didn't sit well with me. As @flatmatt-PGO pointed out, I asked a similar question and it's getting a lot of votes so hopefully one way or another we get a more conclusive answer. It's frustrating that this has been an open question for 2 years now despite the initial messaging from Niantic being so clear.
Could you please consider giving wayfarer a login bonus as well?
For example.
Random appropriateness criteria quiz (1 question per day), 1 point per review.
The maximum number of points could be set to 5 per day, and the grade of the reviewer could be determined by the results of the Appropriateness Criteria quiz for several days.
This would be effective in educating newcomers as well as informing old reviewers about the revamped criteria, and I think it would reduce the number of candidates that accumulate by having a certain number of reviews each day.
The Wayfarer regularly makes new rulings in the forums and changes eligibility, but the average submitter and reviewer doesn't use the forums or reddit and continues to submit/review based off of the original test, or what's currently accessible (submission via their game of choice, or reviewing from the website). This creates a negative experience for everyone involved. Does Wayfarer have a plan of getting updates more easily accessible to everyone?
Understood. I'm not going to edit the post or anything because then it'll seem out of place. I guess I was attempting to echo the frustration of my previous thread when I kept getting disagrees on saying that military bases in the US are safe and just gated communities. And without feedback from the people "reading between the lines" it was a bunch of people who have never been on or lived on a US military base.
So hopefully you or someones question about military bases get addressed I just find it so frustrating that the current ruling basically singles out and bans any players of Niantic games who happen to be in/have parents in the military.
Sometime around the India challenge and then again very recently, Niantic added a large number of new Wayspots to the Lightship database. While most of us Explorers are happy to see new Wayspots added, many of us became upset when it was revealed that these new Wayspots didn't appear to go through any form of quality assurance. A large mass of these didn't meet the Wayfarer Eligibility Criteria and most weren't even in accurate locations. What measures is Niantic going to take to ensure that any future data dumps to Lightship is accurate and remains consistent with the Wayfarer's Criteria?
In the examination, the case where only the root of the signpost remained was rejected three times due to the natural terrain. Japan has many trails built in the 1800s and is historically valuable. Improve the screening system, which is judged only by photographs. If you are denied, I would like you to be able to appeal.
Many “upgraded” contributions that meet the criteria, are rejected by wayfinders, which leads me to ask ¿should wayfarer/niantic decide at last whether or not a contribution is eligible? I think so.
YES! I just suggested a couple of location edits recently and was surprised that there was no opportunity to submit a supporting photo. They would have clearly shown that one was placed way closer to the street than it really is (guessing for drive by play) and one is placed on the wrong side of cross street. However, I think the first will be obscured by tree cover on map and be one of those "how do I know if it's this tree clump or that tree clump" location edit reviews.
1) When will edit and photo reviews count on the Ingress RECON MEDAL? That's like a quarter of reviews I get. PokemonGo has gotten edit credit on their badge since it was created, and Niantic has promised to add edits to Recon "soon" this whole time.
2) Please explain wayspots and hospitals. If a hospital cafeteria has a nice statue, with surgery rooms and ICU directly above that cafeteria, is the statue is a good wayspot? Are we ONLY supposed to avoid wayspots outside emergency room doors?
3) The community believes we're supposed to ignore any guidance from before November 2020 (including the September 2020 AMA about hospitals). Is that true?
Probably too late for a question (honestly I find this voting on best question not working too well as it's usually rhe earlier questions that will get the most votes) but my question is
We all know there are less and less reviewers, have niantic considered easing the amount of reviews required to pass/fail a submission to ease the waiting times? Or to start putting time limits on ones that have been in voting after a significant amount of time?
Reading the various questions relating to the "emergency services" location disqualification, it seems like the question is: Is this really about impeding emergency vehicles, or is it about keeping people away from sensitive infrastructure/secure locations? It seems to be applied as a blanket rule for everywhere on a military base, at a police station, fire station, etc. If it's the former (vehicle access), then more education is needed for reviewers. If the latter, then the wording on the rejection reason should be revised.
I feel like right now it's stated as impeding emergency services only, but in actual fact is applied as a blanket rejection.
When can we have a map based on Lightship that shows all the accepted Wayspots similar to what Ingress Intel used to be?
We don't want to use our upgrade on a nomination that is already existing but didn't show up in any games because it's 'too close to an existing wayspot' simply to get it duplicated.
Since photo reviews show in different orders for everyone, how should we be handling duplicate photos? Should we select all of the photos that are the same, or all except one?
When will the text filter when submitting a nomination be improved to help prevent ineligible nominations from being submitted?
An effective text filter should be consistently rejecting nominations that contain ineligivle state-specific terminology, as well as preventing people from submitting sponsored locations like Starbucks.
While the words "Pokestop" and "Pokestops" will cause the system to reject a nomination's text, those are the only two terms that I could find that actually do trigger the system. Notably, the technically correct spelling of "Pokéstop" (with the accented é) does not trigger the system, nor do extremely common misspellings such as "Poke stop", "Pokeystop", or "Pokastop". Phrases such as "Pokemon Go" do not trigger the system, nor does any other item in the game (potions, revives, lures, etc), any team name (Team Rocket, Team Mystic, etc), any Pokemon name, or any game mechanic name (EX Raid, Go Battle League, etc).
While I understand that even the word "Pokemon" might rightfully belong in a submission if something like a legitimate mural of a Pikachu is being submitted, when additional terms like "catching", "spinning", or "Pokeballs" get mentioned, a red flag should really be thrown on these nominations.
To test the system, I utilized my cats as test subjects while attempting to submit horrible nomination text, just to test how much the system lets submitters get away with. The results will likely make you laugh but also reveals just how severe this problem is:
The text within the nominations above CLEARLY demonstrates something that the system should detect, but doesn't. Basically every word in those nominations should trigger a red flag, yet the system finds such behavior to be acceptable. This needs to be addressed.
Note for readers: these were not actually fully submitted, I just tested to see if the text would be rejected. The system will reject invalid text and give an error message prior to letting you move on to your supplemental text if invalid title/description text is detected.
Who determines what a "low quality Wayspot" is? A lot of the time, we'd require people with local knowledge (not necessarily of the area, but the country as a whole). Niantic has shown time and again that their guidelines for Wayspots are very "USA centric", and fail to take into consideration other customs and cultures around the world. Such a system, as you propose, is going to disinfranchise a lot of players if implemented poorly, and frankly I do not trust Niantic with such a system.
Will it be possible to add a "notification bell" on our wayfarer account informing of the putting into vote of one of our proposals or even of their acceptances/refusals ? When we have a lot of proposals it's sometimes tedious to go through everything and remind us of what has changed since our last connection (moreover, this could allow us to get rid of "notifications" by e-mail which do not work all the time).
Now, there are many wayspots around the world, but there are also some areas that don't have enough wayspots mainly in Africa.
Some may say that there are no players there, so they don't have to worry about it. But it's wrong. There are also players there (of course not many), most of them have no choice but to quit the game due to lack of wayspots.
In fact, about 20 African countries have less than 100 wayspots in the whole country.
What can we do for them now?
・Bonus location change:This is a really good way, but once we change somewhere, we cannot change for a year. As is often the case with dry wayspots areas, they don't have a lot of nominations. So at first, reviewers can get nominations from there and feel joy, but soon they will not receive nominations because they've reviewed all nominations around there. I think 1 year is too long.
・Global Wayfarer Challenge
This is a very interesting event in Wayfarer. Global reviewers can help countries that don't have enough wayspots. But this event is not held frequently and destinations are always countries that have enough nominations. And in the next Brazil Challenge, Niantic is going to shut out many reviewers around the world. So I think only this event couldn't help countries or areas that really need help.
I hope Niantic suggests a good system that can help dry wayspots areas and players all over the world can enjoy Niantic games. I think there are many ways if Niantic trys. I've come up with these ideas
・More flexible(flequent) Bonus Location Change
・The expansion of reviewing areas (Of course it sometimes causes the problem of languages of foreign countries, so it is needed that reviewers can decide whether they use filter of nominations by language)
Will you Niantic already do something for dry wayspots (dry reviewers) areas?
Comments
Ok, since you mentioned a while ago that rejection apeals would come soon(ish), i've got a couple of questions.
Over the years i've realized that when you encounter a hidden gem that meets the criteria, but for whatever reason it keeps getting rejected, the only option of getting it approved is to keep nominating, even if the nomination info has improved to as good as it can get, but yet we are still at the mercy of pure luck of getting paired with reviewers that actually are educated on the Wayfarer criteria and it's updates. For instance this nomination took me 6 tries over the course of seven months, before it finally got accepted, even though thanks to the advice and recomendations of this wonderful comunity, it should had only taken me three times tops.
I only bring this up again because i'm having another similar issue with a nomiantion that meets the criteria, but "doesen't look" the part, and i'm seriosly giving it up, it's not worth the trouble 😆. It's a christian church with public and pedestrian access that was founded in the mid 2000's on what used to be an industrial factory, and it still looks very industrial from the outside, and because of that it has gotten rejected twice, even with the link to the website of the church that validates it's authenticity, location and accesibility. I keep getting rejection reasons such as fake, doesen't meet the criteria and unaccesible to pedestrians.
Clearly there needs to be more clarification on the Cycle Routes criteria as discussed in these threads -
In the UK thread, @NianticGiffard says that "a signboard for a bike lane (along with say a highway or road) [is] not as interesting/unique as compared to a signboard for a bike trail that takes players through a new route." But then also explicitly says that the road sign pictured here is an acceptable POI - https://goo.gl/maps/yJ5p5NWbipynv3hn6
I just want explicit guidelines on cycle route signs, only where they are also just road signs such as - https://goo.gl/maps/LcU7U7ZNeq2w2xQt9
I do not think that Giffard sufficiently understood as to what extent cycling infrastructure are just roads. Bikes just travel on roads, without any segregation from traffic. The UK's National Cycle Network map shows the majority of these "trail signs" are just road signs - https://explore.osmaps.com/ncn A lot of the cycle network is just about getting people from A to B.
Here's an example of cycle network sign in my local area - https://goo.gl/maps/8Eg7KUDrJpYEmPL16 It is a road sign for road users (who happen to be cyclists) There is no segregation for bikes. There is a sign saying no stopping, there are double yellow lines, a traffic island in the middle, and a bus lane/tram track opposite. This is not a suitable POI for exploration. No one is going into town and city centres for bike "trails", they're just roads.
Quite happy for segregated cycle infrastructure and actual trails to be POIs.
Is an opt-in method within Wayfarer being developed to allow people to participate in Wayfarer Challenges globally? Without affecting their home/bonus location.
Have you thought about tiering Wayfarer into its own levels (i.e. to gamify Wayfarer), and then scaling privileges as Wayfinders reach certain levels?
For example, for as much as we are Wayfinders for Niantic, there is another program that parallels to the cause except primarily for businesses and restaurants and that's the Local Guides Program by Google. Contributors are given points for the amount of photos they contribute, the reviews they make, all the edits, questions and other things they do as well, and you can see the distribution of Local Guides based on their Level, from the measly Level 1 to the almighty Level 10 Local Guide. Seeing an end-goal and a "last-level" so to speak for Niantic Wayfarer would encourage people to get to higher levels and possibly enjoy better privileges.
i.e. Someone who has only gotten to Level 38/Level 10 in Pokemon Go/Ingress just passed the Wayfarer test, hasn't had anything approved and reviewed a couple of nominations has the same importance and impact as a dedicated/veteran Wayfinder with over 50,000 agreements, 1,000 wayspots approved and contributes heavily in these forums, and yet they are both in this system, the same. They have the the same number of nominations a fortnight, the same parameters for nominating things, and a similar priority level nonetheless.
Subquestions that arise from this:
Have you thought about supplementing the Wayfarer team in terms of moderation and perhaps some of the Wayfarer functions with the proposed Community Advocates program, similar to how the Ingress Community Forums have XM Ambassadors and Vanguards?
It just feels weird that NianticCasey sent out feelers to gauge the general sentiment of the community who have written quite lengthy and meaningful responses but nothing went into fruition.
Will the system let us decide what to upgrade soon?
I don't mean using the Upgrade Next, but being able to have much more control of using (or not using) upgrades to upgrade nominations only if they are selected to be upgraded. i.e. not automatically upgrading things when the meter reaches 100. Sometimes users will put Upgrade next of a nomination, only for that nomination to be swiped by Niantic staff to be manually reviewed and then the upgrade applies itself on something they didn't even want upgraded, and thus it gets rejected...
NianticCasey had advised these this change was baked into larger changes coming in the second half of 2021, but we're just about to head into the second half of the second half of 2021. Much of the community don't mind having upgrades, but many are vehemently against as with many fellow wayfinders with questions asked about "upgrades are more likely to be rejected" and would rather have nothing to do with upgrades.
For Danbocat, can you show us a picture of your dogs?
(Yes, I am pushing the limits of ask me anything, similar to how Andrew Krug, former Ingress Community Manager would answer random questions like whether they prefer black or white chocolate or the endless random AMA answers about lasagna and in-jokes)
Andrew Krug had a secret family lasagna recipe. Do you have a secret family recipe that you will refuse to share with anyone? And will you share it with us? :P
Have you explored the option of allowing Wayfarer reviewing to be done via keyboard?
Please consider allowing the Wayfarer app to natively support this. Reviewing for hours of end with only moving and clicking the mouse will cause RSI (but so does repetitive typing!) and it would be beneficial to allow a hybrid or preferred approach towards reviewing. Numerous Wayfinders especially on desktop can help share their experiences and the utility of such a function if you need ideas. It should not be taboo because the functionality was previously supplied by a third-party, it is a real quality of life improvement.
Can there be an example page/layout of each section/tab on the Wayfarer menu describing each section in the help? Can there be a page of a typical review layout describing each section? How about making going through each tap/page on the Wayfarer website part of the training?
I find that this would be a good thing to include in a help section or as part of training as many reviewers don't know about the forum even though the community tab on the left side of the Wayfarer page takes you to this forum. There is even a section on it in the help, but many still don't know. Another reason is because I have had local reviewers not know about new criteria even though it is on the tab on the main page above review. One long time reviewer was surprised in June that the "generic business" rejection reason was gone. When I explained about it being gone for months and was part of the new criteria, he said he didn't even know there was a criteria update. Lastly, lately I see more of people using the what is it? from the review as criteria. That means if it is defined on the What is it? category, they think it meets criteria and put this in the supporting text of their nomination. An example would be "meets criteria of Education>Elementary School" or "Eligible under Health and Medical>Hospital". Both of the examples are on the rejection page under criteria and not eligible though.
This may seem unnecessary, but after having a long conversation with a new reviewer I realize it might be needed. The new reviewer was asking a group of us "why a high school was not eligible?". Many of us stated "because it is K-12 and on the rejection criteria". He said "but it's high school". Finally, we understood that he was stuck on the "K-12" part as he thought that meant any place that has Kindergarten to high school students and not just any school/daycare for kids. Since he was not joking, my take away was that even as a new reviewer (less than a month), he had never look at or read criteria before.
Hopefully having a layout of the website on the help section or making it part of training helps out new reviewers find where things are as well as lets older reviewers have a refresher.
People who want to "increase the number" and those who think "we don't need low-quality products" have conflicting thoughts, and it's easy to end up on the same side of the argument.
It has been announced that an appeals feature for rejected candidates will be released soon, which is likely to be advantageous for the "we want to increase the number" camp.
To make it fair, I've thought of a special feature for the "no low quality" group as well.
Special deletion or editing function using "local images", "description", and "supplementary information", just like when making nominations.
In the case of deletion, I think it would be better to have the community not only vote on the deletion, but also to have Nia manually review it before making a final decision, so that we can curb the abuse of unnecessary deletions due to personal grudges.
How about making it a point system, where each action (priority, appeal, special deletion, special edit) would cost upgrade points?
The points spent could be different for each action. (e.g. priority 50, appeals 30, special deletions 50, special editors 20)
Are you planning to release such a feature?
I actually would like some discussion of this issue. Fortunately, it seems like @tehstone-ING 's question is getting a lot of votes.
I'm not one who added a disagree but I considered it. The tone, and the assumption that these nominations should be eligible didn't sit well with me. As @flatmatt-PGO pointed out, I asked a similar question and it's getting a lot of votes so hopefully one way or another we get a more conclusive answer. It's frustrating that this has been an open question for 2 years now despite the initial messaging from Niantic being so clear.
Could you please consider giving wayfarer a login bonus as well?
For example.
Random appropriateness criteria quiz (1 question per day), 1 point per review.
The maximum number of points could be set to 5 per day, and the grade of the reviewer could be determined by the results of the Appropriateness Criteria quiz for several days.
This would be effective in educating newcomers as well as informing old reviewers about the revamped criteria, and I think it would reduce the number of candidates that accumulate by having a certain number of reviews each day.
The Wayfarer regularly makes new rulings in the forums and changes eligibility, but the average submitter and reviewer doesn't use the forums or reddit and continues to submit/review based off of the original test, or what's currently accessible (submission via their game of choice, or reviewing from the website). This creates a negative experience for everyone involved. Does Wayfarer have a plan of getting updates more easily accessible to everyone?
Understood. I'm not going to edit the post or anything because then it'll seem out of place. I guess I was attempting to echo the frustration of my previous thread when I kept getting disagrees on saying that military bases in the US are safe and just gated communities. And without feedback from the people "reading between the lines" it was a bunch of people who have never been on or lived on a US military base.
So hopefully you or someones question about military bases get addressed I just find it so frustrating that the current ruling basically singles out and bans any players of Niantic games who happen to be in/have parents in the military.
Sometime around the India challenge and then again very recently, Niantic added a large number of new Wayspots to the Lightship database. While most of us Explorers are happy to see new Wayspots added, many of us became upset when it was revealed that these new Wayspots didn't appear to go through any form of quality assurance. A large mass of these didn't meet the Wayfarer Eligibility Criteria and most weren't even in accurate locations. What measures is Niantic going to take to ensure that any future data dumps to Lightship is accurate and remains consistent with the Wayfarer's Criteria?
In the examination, the case where only the root of the signpost remained was rejected three times due to the natural terrain. Japan has many trails built in the 1800s and is historically valuable. Improve the screening system, which is judged only by photographs. If you are denied, I would like you to be able to appeal.
Many “upgraded” contributions that meet the criteria, are rejected by wayfinders, which leads me to ask ¿should wayfarer/niantic decide at last whether or not a contribution is eligible? I think so.
How is the progress of updating the review interface, which was mentioned in The Path to 2021?
YES! I just suggested a couple of location edits recently and was surprised that there was no opportunity to submit a supporting photo. They would have clearly shown that one was placed way closer to the street than it really is (guessing for drive by play) and one is placed on the wrong side of cross street. However, I think the first will be obscured by tree cover on map and be one of those "how do I know if it's this tree clump or that tree clump" location edit reviews.
1) When will edit and photo reviews count on the Ingress RECON MEDAL? That's like a quarter of reviews I get. PokemonGo has gotten edit credit on their badge since it was created, and Niantic has promised to add edits to Recon "soon" this whole time.
2) Please explain wayspots and hospitals. If a hospital cafeteria has a nice statue, with surgery rooms and ICU directly above that cafeteria, is the statue is a good wayspot? Are we ONLY supposed to avoid wayspots outside emergency room doors?
The hospital answer in the September 2020 AMA is opposite NianticGiffard's answer here https://community.wayfarer.nianticlabs.com/discussion/22302/hospitals-in-general/p2
3) The community believes we're supposed to ignore any guidance from before November 2020 (including the September 2020 AMA about hospitals). Is that true?
Thank you!
Probably too late for a question (honestly I find this voting on best question not working too well as it's usually rhe earlier questions that will get the most votes) but my question is
We all know there are less and less reviewers, have niantic considered easing the amount of reviews required to pass/fail a submission to ease the waiting times? Or to start putting time limits on ones that have been in voting after a significant amount of time?
Reading the various questions relating to the "emergency services" location disqualification, it seems like the question is: Is this really about impeding emergency vehicles, or is it about keeping people away from sensitive infrastructure/secure locations? It seems to be applied as a blanket rule for everywhere on a military base, at a police station, fire station, etc. If it's the former (vehicle access), then more education is needed for reviewers. If the latter, then the wording on the rejection reason should be revised.
I feel like right now it's stated as impeding emergency services only, but in actual fact is applied as a blanket rejection.
When can we have a map based on Lightship that shows all the accepted Wayspots similar to what Ingress Intel used to be?
We don't want to use our upgrade on a nomination that is already existing but didn't show up in any games because it's 'too close to an existing wayspot' simply to get it duplicated.
Since photo reviews show in different orders for everyone, how should we be handling duplicate photos? Should we select all of the photos that are the same, or all except one?
When will the text filter when submitting a nomination be improved to help prevent ineligible nominations from being submitted?
An effective text filter should be consistently rejecting nominations that contain ineligivle state-specific terminology, as well as preventing people from submitting sponsored locations like Starbucks.
While the words "Pokestop" and "Pokestops" will cause the system to reject a nomination's text, those are the only two terms that I could find that actually do trigger the system. Notably, the technically correct spelling of "Pokéstop" (with the accented é) does not trigger the system, nor do extremely common misspellings such as "Poke stop", "Pokeystop", or "Pokastop". Phrases such as "Pokemon Go" do not trigger the system, nor does any other item in the game (potions, revives, lures, etc), any team name (Team Rocket, Team Mystic, etc), any Pokemon name, or any game mechanic name (EX Raid, Go Battle League, etc).
While I understand that even the word "Pokemon" might rightfully belong in a submission if something like a legitimate mural of a Pikachu is being submitted, when additional terms like "catching", "spinning", or "Pokeballs" get mentioned, a red flag should really be thrown on these nominations.
To test the system, I utilized my cats as test subjects while attempting to submit horrible nomination text, just to test how much the system lets submitters get away with. The results will likely make you laugh but also reveals just how severe this problem is:
The text within the nominations above CLEARLY demonstrates something that the system should detect, but doesn't. Basically every word in those nominations should trigger a red flag, yet the system finds such behavior to be acceptable. This needs to be addressed.
Note for readers: these were not actually fully submitted, I just tested to see if the text would be rejected. The system will reject invalid text and give an error message prior to letting you move on to your supplemental text if invalid title/description text is detected.
Who determines what a "low quality Wayspot" is? A lot of the time, we'd require people with local knowledge (not necessarily of the area, but the country as a whole). Niantic has shown time and again that their guidelines for Wayspots are very "USA centric", and fail to take into consideration other customs and cultures around the world. Such a system, as you propose, is going to disinfranchise a lot of players if implemented poorly, and frankly I do not trust Niantic with such a system.
Will it be possible to add a "notification bell" on our wayfarer account informing of the putting into vote of one of our proposals or even of their acceptances/refusals ? When we have a lot of proposals it's sometimes tedious to go through everything and remind us of what has changed since our last connection (moreover, this could allow us to get rid of "notifications" by e-mail which do not work all the time).
Q:Will you do something for dry wayspots area?
Now, there are many wayspots around the world, but there are also some areas that don't have enough wayspots mainly in Africa.
Some may say that there are no players there, so they don't have to worry about it. But it's wrong. There are also players there (of course not many), most of them have no choice but to quit the game due to lack of wayspots.
In fact, about 20 African countries have less than 100 wayspots in the whole country.
What can we do for them now?
・Bonus location change:This is a really good way, but once we change somewhere, we cannot change for a year. As is often the case with dry wayspots areas, they don't have a lot of nominations. So at first, reviewers can get nominations from there and feel joy, but soon they will not receive nominations because they've reviewed all nominations around there. I think 1 year is too long.
・Global Wayfarer Challenge
This is a very interesting event in Wayfarer. Global reviewers can help countries that don't have enough wayspots. But this event is not held frequently and destinations are always countries that have enough nominations. And in the next Brazil Challenge, Niantic is going to shut out many reviewers around the world. So I think only this event couldn't help countries or areas that really need help.
I hope Niantic suggests a good system that can help dry wayspots areas and players all over the world can enjoy Niantic games. I think there are many ways if Niantic trys. I've come up with these ideas
・More flexible(flequent) Bonus Location Change
・The expansion of reviewing areas (Of course it sometimes causes the problem of languages of foreign countries, so it is needed that reviewers can decide whether they use filter of nominations by language)
Will you Niantic already do something for dry wayspots (dry reviewers) areas?