The AMAs are one form of communication it’s useful to have them back after a year 🙄 but …….
Good communication would help enormously with a lot of issues that are in the points raised here, and more generally in the community forums. Talking is what makes a community, but it always seems as though the “community” means just the players - the introductions by Danbocat and Tintino gave hope for more integration.
What actions are planned to improve interaction with all elements of the community?
It is obvious that come the weekend any input from moderators disappears. This can mean that unpleasant interactions can run rife. This makes this place an unpleasant place to visit and is off putting.
Niantic is not short of money, too much seems to rest on the shoulders of too few.
Are there any plans to increase moderation to provide 24/7 coverage to a global community?
There is a distinct lack of regular updates eg details of releases beforehand, progress reports on announced changes.
Are there any plans to have a monthly “newsletter” (preferably available either via email or the wayfarer site) to keep everyone informed on what’s happening?
When problems/issues/bugs start to emerge there is often slow recognition of what is happening and not enough acknowledgment of the impact on the player. From the players point of view the lack of apology, silence or ignoring of the issue comes across very negatively. I don’t think it’s intended, as it must feel at times that staff have to put their head above the parapet. But shorter honest responses are much better than crafted management speak that avoid the issue or silence. This has a negative impact on the community. As community members we don’t even know what to expect, but our wider life experience means we expect more than we appear to have.
What actions are planned to improve the communication flow specifically around issues/bugs?
Have you considered creating and publishing a protocol of actions to be taken when a problem emerges so everyone knows what to expect?
I, too, would personally like to carry out a review of Uganda, however have been unable to make the change to Uganda due to the constraints of the current inflexible bonus location change period.
I have noticed a trend among reviewers to accept popular restaurants in our area that serve only American or Mexican food. I cannot get one of a kind a restaurants not part of a chain that serve Asian food accepted. Maybe you can resolve this, does the type of food matter?
Can we please stop with acceptance of trail markers in wayfarer? Nodes or junctions are ok but the markers are just rubbish and they are not special in any way and are placed like every 100 meters. Also.. They mess up a lot of people's rating on wayfarer because the majority of people learnt on wayfarer training that they aren't valid portals and also they don't see them as valid portals from a personal view.
Proposals to eliminate contradictions regarding mass production
Mass production of Rejection Criteria should be limited to “A great place for exploration” of Eligibility Criteria.
For example, it is ridiculous that soccer goals and trail markers for “A great place for exercise” and playsets for “A great place to be social with others” are rejected as mass-produced products.
Rewriting the help will eliminate the contradiction.
When will the Wayfarer or Lightship team start SNS?
Many reviewers (especially non-English speaking countries) do not participate in community forums, and no one will read any Niantic official clarifications posted in their replies.
Please make an announcement more positively. Please update the help frequently.
Please. (Don't forget to update pages other than English!)
Are you planning to provide us Wayspot Map like Ingress Intel Map?
There are some missing wayspots for each game (e.g. existing in Pokémon GO but not in Ingress,) that makes us hard to know if making a nomination is not duplicate.
Would it be possible to get something like a temporary Bonus Location that we can change once a month?
You could make it possible to change the existing Bonus Location more often instead.
Many Wayfarers are interested in helping out in areas with a huge backlog or low waystop density. However, being able to change the bonus location only once a year, limits their opportunity to do so. The possibility to regularly change the bonus location could motivate other Wayfarers to review submissions in different areas and be used during Wayfarer challenges.
Many Wayfarers are super excited about the upcoming appeal function. Can you already share further information on how this will work without encouraging people to appeal every single rejection?
Would it be a good idea that Wayfarers need to use an Upgrade for a an appeal? I think this way you would make sure that only those who support the community by reviewing nominations get to appeal rejections. Furthermore, people would think twice wether or not to use an upgrade for the appeal and appeals will likely only be used on submissions that are truly good.
What a surprise that certain user clicked Disagree on my post.
I'm shocked, that's totally unexpected!!! The master of abuse reports doesn't like when other people talk about him and his bad behaviors (which have broken the Community Guidelines)
I guess that I can expect soon a stream of posts about things that he doesn't like in my town.
For example, I would like to provide at least one event, such as the person who has been approved for the most wayspots or the person who has reviewed the most.
Recon counts more than accept + reject + duplicate.
I've been tracking my progress since more than a month, and the increase of accept, reject, duplicate is about 80 percent of my increase on the recon medal
Banimento no Wayfarer, tendo em vista da medalha no Pokemon GO, revisitar o Banimento no Wayfarer para ter a possibilidade de refazer a prova e se habilitar para obter a medalha.
Um that would mean i have to logout which i never do - wayfarer is always open on my computer and i sit down and review 5 or 10 every time i have a few minutes
Why are you banned on Wayfarer for 60 days when you want to edit the location in the game and write in the description where the location should go. The reviewers often do not know which location to choose. Here is a link to see what I mean
Why are you banned on Wayfarer for 60 days when you want to edit the location in the game and write in the description where the location should go. The reviewers often do not know which location to choose.
Because that's abuse of the edit description/title field. It's only for editing an actual description or title of a Wayspot.
You're looking for "supporting info" which we don't have for edits, so a better question is: Can we have supporting info fields/pictures for edits to existing wayspots?
@Thor3381-ING Recon badge total is accept + reject + duplicate + extra from Recon double credit events.
Niantic has promised several times that they would give Recon credit for edits, but haven't yet.
My Recon badge is at 19920. I stopped reviewing because I want double-onyx from what I already reviewed. My back-credit for edits will put me way over. I look forward to resuming reviewing.
....in particular, Pioneer Cemeteries. In rural communities these may be one of the few potential waypoints in a given area. These small cemeteries have a lot of historical value for genealogists and researchers, and tell a true story of an area's past. Can there be a set limit on what makes a cemetery a "sensitive" location - i.e. no burials in 50 years? 100 years? The risk of interrupting active grieving or personal visitation is quite low.
Pioneer Cemeteries on private lands would of course be rejected for Location.
As I understand the Wayfarer project, its goal is to produce a database of interesting locations for Niantic to use in all of its AR projects. I don't think I'm out of line by asserting that the vast majority of Wayfarers are participating because they want to improve the game that they primarily play. More pokestops for PoGo trainers, more portals for Ingress agents, everything placed in locations that optimises the game board for the respective games.
As a result, potential waypoints that are, for example, within 20m of an existing waypoint are just not likely to be submitted, which means that the Wayfarer database is effectively incomplete. Does Niantic have any ideas on how to incentivise Wayfarers to also submit waypoints that would not be eligible to appear in any of the games?
Thank you for sharing with us the opportunity to leave this comment. I am very happy to be here.
I'm so excited, I have so much to tell you, but I haven't yet managed to put it all together in a coherent way or narrow down my questions.
(That's probably why I'm posting sporadic questions to you...)
I have seen many scanners in my hand and in many countries on Intel Map that mere trees such as hawthorn, elm and cedar have already been turned into Wayspots. It's really a pity.
Will there be a clean-up of these plants?
I still see numerous private gardens and street trees being applied for on a daily basis by Wayfarer!
Because of the bad examples that are already online.
I'm also wondering if that "clean-up" will happen.
and I would like to see the option to reject Wayspot candidates changed from "Live animals" to "Live animals and Plants".
Or does the rejection option "Live animals" already include "All plants, including trees and grasses"?
Would it be a pipe dream to have the ability to selectively display, in layers, those cases that have been rejected in the past on the map at the time of review?
(I think it is technically possible.
This would make us aware of attempts to arbitrarily create Wayspots in places that would not otherwise qualify as POIs.
That is, assuming that there are no judges who, with malicious intent, are willing to create Wayspots in those rejected locations.
I may send you another message if I come up with something else before the submission deadline.
There is too many rejection for trail markers: many people argue they are mass producted and/or not intersssant.
Can you give us a clear explaination on what kind of trail marker is eligible?
Some examples:
Is these kind of directionnal sign used to indicate directions of trails are eligibles?
Is markers of famous places on a trail like this one are eligible?
Is sign that present a whole trail are eligible?
Is simple sign that indicate the good path for the trail are eligible? (even if there is one sign like that every 200m)
And directionnal but simple sign like theses one?
And sign that give the name of the path? It's usefull to know what path are trail path and these kind of sign indicate it. But it's not clear if it's ok to be a POI or not...
That's only example, but it's a good sample of trail marker. We need to know what is eligible for you Niantic.
And same problem for Bike tracks (that's also accessible for pedestrian).
How many agreements does the average reviewer get within a year of passing the reviewers test? Could dedicated reviewers change their bonus location after that (yearly average) number? For example, if the average new reviewer gets 2000 agreements in a year, couldn't dedicated reviewers change their bonus after 2000 agreements - even if they got them in three months? This would encourage and reward reviewing by those who care.
Please don't make us use upgrades to buy appeals for nomination rejections! Only people in areas with quick turnarounds would want such a thing.
However, it would make sense to allow one appeal for every ten accepted (ever). Show that you know how to nominate good things. Appeals could be banked and restricted to one at a time (like upgrades), so they don't clog up the system.
This is why I mentioned the possibility of community votes for my similar question. Example: a generic bench/plaque that was "grandfathered in" and a sculpture near each other where only 1 would normally appear using proximity rules. If enough people upvoted the sculpture, that would become the wayspot featured in game instead of the plaque. I'm not sure how this would work to incentivize people actually favoring the best wayspot and not just wanting to maintain status quo for the game ("I'm already gold at this gym", etc) but I'm still curious to know if such a system would be considered.
Have you considered implementing the AR scanning feature into nominating wayspots?
That way, reviewers could get a 360 degrees photo of the POI and its surroundings and the correct location. This could prove especially useful where there isn't any street view or the POI is hidden under a tree/s.
- In the current criteria you can find the photo guidelines here
"Prohibited Photo
Photo contains emojis, tags or personal information such as usernames, real names, initials or addresses; copyrighted or watermarked material such as screenshots of third-party photos; The photo is obviously edited; Photo with people, body parts or animals in focus, photo is blurry, underexposed or overexposed, was taken from a vehicle, or is not correctly oriented"
- In the old AMA from January 2019, camera stamps and date displays are also mentioned.
- At some point in 2020 it was said that the old AMAs are no longer valid !!!
• My question, is the statement from the "AMA January 2019" still valid? And if so, can these examples also be included in the criteria? Because there are still reviewers who say that this is not a watermark!
Comments
Communication
The AMAs are one form of communication it’s useful to have them back after a year 🙄 but …….
Good communication would help enormously with a lot of issues that are in the points raised here, and more generally in the community forums. Talking is what makes a community, but it always seems as though the “community” means just the players - the introductions by Danbocat and Tintino gave hope for more integration.
What actions are planned to improve interaction with all elements of the community?
It is obvious that come the weekend any input from moderators disappears. This can mean that unpleasant interactions can run rife. This makes this place an unpleasant place to visit and is off putting.
Niantic is not short of money, too much seems to rest on the shoulders of too few.
Are there any plans to increase moderation to provide 24/7 coverage to a global community?
There is a distinct lack of regular updates eg details of releases beforehand, progress reports on announced changes.
Are there any plans to have a monthly “newsletter” (preferably available either via email or the wayfarer site) to keep everyone informed on what’s happening?
When problems/issues/bugs start to emerge there is often slow recognition of what is happening and not enough acknowledgment of the impact on the player. From the players point of view the lack of apology, silence or ignoring of the issue comes across very negatively. I don’t think it’s intended, as it must feel at times that staff have to put their head above the parapet. But shorter honest responses are much better than crafted management speak that avoid the issue or silence. This has a negative impact on the community. As community members we don’t even know what to expect, but our wider life experience means we expect more than we appear to have.
What actions are planned to improve the communication flow specifically around issues/bugs?
Have you considered creating and publishing a protocol of actions to be taken when a problem emerges so everyone knows what to expect?
You have great suggestions!
I, too, would personally like to carry out a review of Uganda, however have been unable to make the change to Uganda due to the constraints of the current inflexible bonus location change period.
I have noticed a trend among reviewers to accept popular restaurants in our area that serve only American or Mexican food. I cannot get one of a kind a restaurants not part of a chain that serve Asian food accepted. Maybe you can resolve this, does the type of food matter?
Can we please stop with acceptance of trail markers in wayfarer? Nodes or junctions are ok but the markers are just rubbish and they are not special in any way and are placed like every 100 meters. Also.. They mess up a lot of people's rating on wayfarer because the majority of people learnt on wayfarer training that they aren't valid portals and also they don't see them as valid portals from a personal view.
Proposals to eliminate contradictions regarding mass production
Mass production of Rejection Criteria should be limited to “A great place for exploration” of Eligibility Criteria.
For example, it is ridiculous that soccer goals and trail markers for “A great place for exercise” and playsets for “A great place to be social with others” are rejected as mass-produced products.
Rewriting the help will eliminate the contradiction.
When will the Wayfarer or Lightship team start SNS?
Many reviewers (especially non-English speaking countries) do not participate in community forums, and no one will read any Niantic official clarifications posted in their replies.
Please make an announcement more positively. Please update the help frequently.
Please. (Don't forget to update pages other than English!)
Are you planning to provide us Wayspot Map like Ingress Intel Map?
There are some missing wayspots for each game (e.g. existing in Pokémon GO but not in Ingress,) that makes us hard to know if making a nomination is not duplicate.
Why are Wayspot eligibility and removal criteria different?
There are many wayspots with apparently low quality, but not meeting removal reasons. How should we deal with them?
Would it be possible to get something like a temporary Bonus Location that we can change once a month?
You could make it possible to change the existing Bonus Location more often instead.
Many Wayfarers are interested in helping out in areas with a huge backlog or low waystop density. However, being able to change the bonus location only once a year, limits their opportunity to do so. The possibility to regularly change the bonus location could motivate other Wayfarers to review submissions in different areas and be used during Wayfarer challenges.
Many Wayfarers are super excited about the upcoming appeal function. Can you already share further information on how this will work without encouraging people to appeal every single rejection?
Would it be a good idea that Wayfarers need to use an Upgrade for a an appeal? I think this way you would make sure that only those who support the community by reviewing nominations get to appeal rejections. Furthermore, people would think twice wether or not to use an upgrade for the appeal and appeals will likely only be used on submissions that are truly good.
What a surprise that certain user clicked Disagree on my post.
I'm shocked, that's totally unexpected!!! The master of abuse reports doesn't like when other people talk about him and his bad behaviors (which have broken the Community Guidelines)
I guess that I can expect soon a stream of posts about things that he doesn't like in my town.
Do you have any intention of providing rankings?
For example, I would like to provide at least one event, such as the person who has been approved for the most wayspots or the person who has reviewed the most.
Recon counts more than accept + reject + duplicate.
I've been tracking my progress since more than a month, and the increase of accept, reject, duplicate is about 80 percent of my increase on the recon medal
Banimento no Wayfarer, tendo em vista da medalha no Pokemon GO, revisitar o Banimento no Wayfarer para ter a possibilidade de refazer a prova e se habilitar para obter a medalha.
Um that would mean i have to logout which i never do - wayfarer is always open on my computer and i sit down and review 5 or 10 every time i have a few minutes
Why are you banned on Wayfarer for 60 days when you want to edit the location in the game and write in the description where the location should go. The reviewers often do not know which location to choose. Here is a link to see what I mean
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b35cG98FYw0
Why are you banned on Wayfarer for 60 days when you want to edit the location in the game and write in the description where the location should go. The reviewers often do not know which location to choose.
Because that's abuse of the edit description/title field. It's only for editing an actual description or title of a Wayspot.
You're looking for "supporting info" which we don't have for edits, so a better question is: Can we have supporting info fields/pictures for edits to existing wayspots?
@Thor3381-ING Recon badge total is accept + reject + duplicate + extra from Recon double credit events.
Niantic has promised several times that they would give Recon credit for edits, but haven't yet.
My Recon badge is at 19920. I stopped reviewing because I want double-onyx from what I already reviewed. My back-credit for edits will put me way over. I look forward to resuming reviewing.
Criteria Clarification: Cemeteries
....in particular, Pioneer Cemeteries. In rural communities these may be one of the few potential waypoints in a given area. These small cemeteries have a lot of historical value for genealogists and researchers, and tell a true story of an area's past. Can there be a set limit on what makes a cemetery a "sensitive" location - i.e. no burials in 50 years? 100 years? The risk of interrupting active grieving or personal visitation is quite low.
Pioneer Cemeteries on private lands would of course be rejected for Location.
As I understand the Wayfarer project, its goal is to produce a database of interesting locations for Niantic to use in all of its AR projects. I don't think I'm out of line by asserting that the vast majority of Wayfarers are participating because they want to improve the game that they primarily play. More pokestops for PoGo trainers, more portals for Ingress agents, everything placed in locations that optimises the game board for the respective games.
As a result, potential waypoints that are, for example, within 20m of an existing waypoint are just not likely to be submitted, which means that the Wayfarer database is effectively incomplete. Does Niantic have any ideas on how to incentivise Wayfarers to also submit waypoints that would not be eligible to appear in any of the games?
Hi,@NianticTintino .
Thank you for sharing with us the opportunity to leave this comment. I am very happy to be here.
I'm so excited, I have so much to tell you, but I haven't yet managed to put it all together in a coherent way or narrow down my questions.
(That's probably why I'm posting sporadic questions to you...)
I have seen many scanners in my hand and in many countries on Intel Map that mere trees such as hawthorn, elm and cedar have already been turned into Wayspots. It's really a pity.
Will there be a clean-up of these plants?
I still see numerous private gardens and street trees being applied for on a daily basis by Wayfarer!
Because of the bad examples that are already online.
I'm also wondering if that "clean-up" will happen.
and I would like to see the option to reject Wayspot candidates changed from "Live animals" to "Live animals and Plants".
Or does the rejection option "Live animals" already include "All plants, including trees and grasses"?
Would it be a pipe dream to have the ability to selectively display, in layers, those cases that have been rejected in the past on the map at the time of review?
(I think it is technically possible.
This would make us aware of attempts to arbitrarily create Wayspots in places that would not otherwise qualify as POIs.
That is, assuming that there are no judges who, with malicious intent, are willing to create Wayspots in those rejected locations.
I may send you another message if I come up with something else before the submission deadline.
Thank you for giving us this opportunity.
There is too many rejection for trail markers: many people argue they are mass producted and/or not intersssant.
Can you give us a clear explaination on what kind of trail marker is eligible?
Some examples:
Is these kind of directionnal sign used to indicate directions of trails are eligibles?
Is markers of famous places on a trail like this one are eligible?
Is sign that present a whole trail are eligible?
Is simple sign that indicate the good path for the trail are eligible? (even if there is one sign like that every 200m)
And directionnal but simple sign like theses one?
And sign that give the name of the path? It's usefull to know what path are trail path and these kind of sign indicate it. But it's not clear if it's ok to be a POI or not...
That's only example, but it's a good sample of trail marker. We need to know what is eligible for you Niantic.
And same problem for Bike tracks (that's also accessible for pedestrian).
Can you clarify you position on trail markers?
TOPIC: IN-GAME REWARDS
How many agreements does the average reviewer get within a year of passing the reviewers test? Could dedicated reviewers change their bonus location after that (yearly average) number? For example, if the average new reviewer gets 2000 agreements in a year, couldn't dedicated reviewers change their bonus after 2000 agreements - even if they got them in three months? This would encourage and reward reviewing by those who care.
Please don't make us use upgrades to buy appeals for nomination rejections! Only people in areas with quick turnarounds would want such a thing.
However, it would make sense to allow one appeal for every ten accepted (ever). Show that you know how to nominate good things. Appeals could be banked and restricted to one at a time (like upgrades), so they don't clog up the system.
This is why I mentioned the possibility of community votes for my similar question. Example: a generic bench/plaque that was "grandfathered in" and a sculpture near each other where only 1 would normally appear using proximity rules. If enough people upvoted the sculpture, that would become the wayspot featured in game instead of the plaque. I'm not sure how this would work to incentivize people actually favoring the best wayspot and not just wanting to maintain status quo for the game ("I'm already gold at this gym", etc) but I'm still curious to know if such a system would be considered.
Have you considered implementing the AR scanning feature into nominating wayspots?
That way, reviewers could get a 360 degrees photo of the POI and its surroundings and the correct location. This could prove especially useful where there isn't any street view or the POI is hidden under a tree/s.
Regarding trail markers, can you define trail?
Is a trail off road hiking or cycling trail, or is it also any stretch of asphalt or concrete road on which they happened to put up a sign?
Just asking the question because I pass more so-called "trail" signs than streetname signs when driving the kids to school (and I don't go off road)
You want me to add/submit poi's while:
- it takes them forever to be excepted without an upgrade.
- 2 out of 3 get rejected for pitchblack pictures
- you tell me all trailmarkers are good poi. (Not in my country, they are everywhere)
the case:
We have a trail with trailmarkers in this region. Every trailmarker has a cube with the worldnews, local news items of that year.
www.wereldtijdpad.nl
statistics:
-9 pokomon go and ingress agents (enl. and Res.)
working on getting them accepted as portals.
-186 now online
-147 still in review
-many to go
one third gets turned down: reason pitch black foto etc.
1 agent now has 4x recon black
1 agent now has 2x recon black (and both still counting)
2 !! years ago we started this feat because we think this trail is worth adding with the educational and the exploring combined.
• Watermark
- In the current criteria you can find the photo guidelines here
"Prohibited Photo
Photo contains emojis, tags or personal information such as usernames, real names, initials or addresses; copyrighted or watermarked material such as screenshots of third-party photos; The photo is obviously edited; Photo with people, body parts or animals in focus, photo is blurry, underexposed or overexposed, was taken from a vehicle, or is not correctly oriented"
- In the old AMA from January 2019, camera stamps and date displays are also mentioned.
- At some point in 2020 it was said that the old AMAs are no longer valid !!!
• My question, is the statement from the "AMA January 2019" still valid? And if so, can these examples also be included in the criteria? Because there are still reviewers who say that this is not a watermark!
Why would you want us to continue with submitting and reviewing?
the case:
We have a trail with trailmarkers in this region. Every trailmarker has a cube with the worldnews, local news items of that year.
www.wereldtijdpad.nl
statistics:
-9 ingress agents enl. and Res and pokomon go players. Working on getting them accepted as portals.
-186 now online
-147 still in review
-many to go
one third gets turned down: reason pitch black foto etc.
1 agent now has 4x recon black
1 agent now has 2x recon black (and both still counting)
2 !!! years ago we started this feat.
And now you want us to nominate other trailsigns as well? We can not get these excepted and these are sometimes pieces of art.