Many Wayfarers find that communication with Niantic is lacking. In-game support teams aren't prepared to answer Wayfarer specific questions. Concerns raised in posts on this forum are largely ignored. Even in cases where posts or Report a Bug issues get an initial response like "Investigating" or "we'll check into it", months go by with no updates or signs of action.
Do you have any plans to improve communication with Wayfarers?
Yeah, something that break precedent like that would best be clarified at the begining of the AMA. Otherwise many people who reated to posts who think they have already voted may not come around to vote again once voting is actually open.
Hopefully there's some form of announcement thread when voting opens so people don't miss out.
People should come after the initial phase has been closed to read all the questions and vote for the ones that they like even if they weren't asked in the very first hours.
Is there a reason you host Wayfarer Challenges without giving good incentives for people to participate?
I thought the Russian Challenge was almost perfect (since I didn't have trouble receiving the rewards). It resulted in a lot of new POI for the area of focus and it gave me and my locals enough upgrades to make a real impact on our area that normally takes 1 year to get a POI approved. As GO players, we added probably 7 Gyms as a result of that Russia Challenge. It also got at least 1 of my local Trainers really interested in Wayfarer and he has stuck with it, making a difference in the POI around where he lives.
That seems like a win/win/win to me. But the Brazil Challenge seems designed to keep us from participating. I don't understand how it is then considered a "challenge" if there's no excitement or reason to take part.
Can you explain why you thought the Russia Challenge was bad since you are not designing another one like it?
If they want to sort all the questions (and remove the non questions), remove duplicates and so on, it's a much better procedure that will lead to a far better result. They never mentioned that we should start liking the questions here anyway.
Sorting the questions is actually not that much work. They spend much more unnecessary time reviewing every post with pictures or managing appeals in a forum instead of using a ticket system.
But I agree that choosing a limited number of questions is very bad. After removing duplicates, they could just answer all of them.
Each crossing on this map will represent a node. There are signs for the nodes, and on each and every crossing there are signs pointing to the next node, guiding in both directions
Green means normal roads.
And next to that we have a similar walking node network
Zoomed a bit more, don't miss out on the scale. Again with directional markers between nodes in both directions
And next to that we also have touristical cycling and walking routes with standardised signs
I'm not joking, when I drive the kids to school I come across more so called "trail" markers than streetname signs
@RobWaudby-ING keen on your idea about these 😉 FYI: if you don't plan your journey in advance with these node networks you will not know where you're heading, nor how to get back to where you came from
Not sure if it’s been mentioned already but there’s been some discrepancies in google maps various views and location markers can be in random places : these 4 images are all the same review and I’ve not moved the location at all for clarity.
top left : initial view, how it loaded up in wayfarer. clearly wrong as it was a war memorial not a cafe
top right: click to go sat view - location corrected itself - marker is on the subbed landmark
bottom left : back in street after sat view and it’s still in the correct location
bottom right: that the same cafe from the initial view.
Know AMA aren’t probably the place to bring this up but thought I’d say something regardless.
Thank you all for your input and context. Vanilla has a feature that allows for voting which I'm planning on using (it will be activated to allow voting in this discussion thread). From my initial post for the Sept AMA, the question-proposing period ends in two days (9/22/21) so for now, it should only be questions being asked. After the question proposing period ends, the voting period begins. While folks may have reacted to questions, I did state that voting would take place starting Sept 22nd. While I can see how some assumption could be made from me not specifying how voting will take place, I'm not tied to either. However, I would like to try this method could potentially allow the community to get all questions asked and presented before any voting takes place.
Yea, go through and answer them all instead of limiting to an arbitrary 15 😅 especially since this is our first one of the year and so much has happened. I'm sure it won't take much longer than curating through the questions, anyways.
It sounds like a better way to do it than the old method. Though to clear up any confusion for people who aren't as active on the forum, it may help to make another annoucnement for this specific AMA that voting has begun when it starts. Fingers crossed it works out well.
Do you have any comments about how you'll handle multiple of the same or similar questions making it into the top 15 that might eke out other questions?
I think having voting take place after all questions have been submitted is a better system, as it reduces some of the “first posts bias” that others pointed out earlier in this thread.
If I had all the answers to them all, I probably would haha but being so new, not knowing all the in's and out's, I'd probably answer them wrong haha let's start at 15 for now 😊
Yes, exactly! I was planning on making a post to announce the beginning of the voting period. Keeping my fingers crossed!
As for the multiples of the same questions, my hopes were that folks would read the questions before theirs and see if it was already posted. I'm sure this won't be a safe-proof method so if separate but same questions get asked I'll just look into them and add the votes.
This is a Tintino only AMA, i was at the very least hoping @NianticDanbocat was involved if not the whole team...
With all due respect, last time @NianticCasey-ING did a Casey only AMA, despite them being super excited and feeling accomplished... the community felt very underwhelmed with the AMA and demanded the team be involved...which they were in following AMA's
@NianticTintino Sorry for the typo above, but if I try and correct it i run the chance of the post disappearing for mod approval for an indefinite amount of time.
Great question. So the process will be to collect the top 15 questions, I'll take the first jab at them then escalate them to the team. At this point, the team will have the opportunity to answer any remaining and add context to others (and yes, Danbocat will be involved (maybe even add something about their dogs haha)). From what I've gathered this is how it was done times prior. The 15 question limit was what I came into but as I start looking at other community engagement strategies/ideas it may change.... we'll see!
There are already a few topics that have multiple questions. For example, turn around times, access to the lightship database, and future Wayfarer Challenges.
I can appreciate you casting a “vote” for each additional question but I do also hope you can compile all of the questions regarding a topic as someone might have asked a different question regarding the same topic that could lead to additional information being shared.
Thanks for the clarification. You're our community specialist, so that makes sense.
I really do want to iterate that we've had a past of "we'll look at this" answers or other half replies that make it feel like a wasted question and like we aren't being taken seriously, and some that were verified later as incorrect. I sincerely hope this AMA sets the ground with some serious and honest discussion with us.
Comments
If voting won’t work on Likes & Insightfuls like last time, it would be handy to know how it is working.
Many Wayfarers find that communication with Niantic is lacking. In-game support teams aren't prepared to answer Wayfarer specific questions. Concerns raised in posts on this forum are largely ignored. Even in cases where posts or Report a Bug issues get an initial response like "Investigating" or "we'll check into it", months go by with no updates or signs of action.
Do you have any plans to improve communication with Wayfarers?
Just poking around it seems like there’s a couple of Voting add-ons for Vanilla Forums. I guess that’s what’ll be used.
Yeah, something that break precedent like that would best be clarified at the begining of the AMA. Otherwise many people who reated to posts who think they have already voted may not come around to vote again once voting is actually open.
Hopefully there's some form of announcement thread when voting opens so people don't miss out.
Edit: Never mind. @ArabellaArdelia-PGO helped me
Edit - this was a response to @SeaprincessHNB-PGO and not an AMA question. NIA staff has my blessing to delete this post if y'all want to.
People should come after the initial phase has been closed to read all the questions and vote for the ones that they like even if they weren't asked in the very first hours.
Is there a reason you host Wayfarer Challenges without giving good incentives for people to participate?
I thought the Russian Challenge was almost perfect (since I didn't have trouble receiving the rewards). It resulted in a lot of new POI for the area of focus and it gave me and my locals enough upgrades to make a real impact on our area that normally takes 1 year to get a POI approved. As GO players, we added probably 7 Gyms as a result of that Russia Challenge. It also got at least 1 of my local Trainers really interested in Wayfarer and he has stuck with it, making a difference in the POI around where he lives.
That seems like a win/win/win to me. But the Brazil Challenge seems designed to keep us from participating. I don't understand how it is then considered a "challenge" if there's no excitement or reason to take part.
Can you explain why you thought the Russia Challenge was bad since you are not designing another one like it?
Question
Does the AMA take the form of a vote, or is it an arbitrary choice?
(There is nothing wrong with arbitrary selection, and it can be done, so either is fine.)
If they want to sort all the questions (and remove the non questions), remove duplicates and so on, it's a much better procedure that will lead to a far better result. They never mentioned that we should start liking the questions here anyway.
Sorting the questions is actually not that much work. They spend much more unnecessary time reviewing every post with pictures or managing appeals in a forum instead of using a ticket system.
But I agree that choosing a limited number of questions is very bad. After removing duplicates, they could just answer all of them.
@Jimbobwai-ING check out the map in Flanders, Belgium
Feel free to zoom in anywhere
Each crossing on this map will represent a node. There are signs for the nodes, and on each and every crossing there are signs pointing to the next node, guiding in both directions
Green means normal roads.
And next to that we have a similar walking node network
Zoomed a bit more, don't miss out on the scale. Again with directional markers between nodes in both directions
And next to that we also have touristical cycling and walking routes with standardised signs
I'm not joking, when I drive the kids to school I come across more so called "trail" markers than streetname signs
@RobWaudby-ING keen on your idea about these 😉 FYI: if you don't plan your journey in advance with these node networks you will not know where you're heading, nor how to get back to where you came from
Not sure if it’s been mentioned already but there’s been some discrepancies in google maps various views and location markers can be in random places : these 4 images are all the same review and I’ve not moved the location at all for clarity.
top left : initial view, how it loaded up in wayfarer. clearly wrong as it was a war memorial not a cafe
top right: click to go sat view - location corrected itself - marker is on the subbed landmark
bottom left : back in street after sat view and it’s still in the correct location
bottom right: that the same cafe from the initial view.
Know AMA aren’t probably the place to bring this up but thought I’d say something regardless.
Hello Folks,
Thank you all for your input and context. Vanilla has a feature that allows for voting which I'm planning on using (it will be activated to allow voting in this discussion thread). From my initial post for the Sept AMA, the question-proposing period ends in two days (9/22/21) so for now, it should only be questions being asked. After the question proposing period ends, the voting period begins. While folks may have reacted to questions, I did state that voting would take place starting Sept 22nd. While I can see how some assumption could be made from me not specifying how voting will take place, I'm not tied to either. However, I would like to try this method could potentially allow the community to get all questions asked and presented before any voting takes place.
Thoughts?
Yea, go through and answer them all instead of limiting to an arbitrary 15 😅 especially since this is our first one of the year and so much has happened. I'm sure it won't take much longer than curating through the questions, anyways.
It sounds like a better way to do it than the old method. Though to clear up any confusion for people who aren't as active on the forum, it may help to make another annoucnement for this specific AMA that voting has begun when it starts. Fingers crossed it works out well.
Do you have any comments about how you'll handle multiple of the same or similar questions making it into the top 15 that might eke out other questions?
It probably would been better to make it clear you were going to use this voting feature upfront.
Happy to see if it works, then we can be ready for the January 2022 AMA.
I think having voting take place after all questions have been submitted is a better system, as it reduces some of the “first posts bias” that others pointed out earlier in this thread.
If I had all the answers to them all, I probably would haha but being so new, not knowing all the in's and out's, I'd probably answer them wrong haha let's start at 15 for now 😊
Yes, exactly! I was planning on making a post to announce the beginning of the voting period. Keeping my fingers crossed!
As for the multiples of the same questions, my hopes were that folks would read the questions before theirs and see if it was already posted. I'm sure this won't be a safe-proof method so if separate but same questions get asked I'll just look into them and add the votes.
That's fair! To be clear, will these answers be coming from "you" or will they all go through / be vetted by the whole Niantic Ops?
Thank you and agree. Learning along the way and I appreciate the feedback. Keeping my fingers crossed it works and if not, it'll be a good learning.
From the initial AMA post:
Once voting is done, 15 questions will be selected and sent to our team for responses.
So sounds like it'll be the whole team and not just Tintino
This is a Tintino only AMA, i was at the very least hoping @NianticDanbocat was involved if not the whole team...
With all due respect, last time @NianticCasey-ING did a Casey only AMA, despite them being super excited and feeling accomplished... the community felt very underwhelmed with the AMA and demanded the team be involved...which they were in following AMA's
How many voted will we get? Can we just upvote any? If dupes will be added, does that mean I get to vote for both instances of the dupe question?
@NianticTintino Sorry for the typo above, but if I try and correct it i run the chance of the post disappearing for mod approval for an indefinite amount of time.
Great question. So the process will be to collect the top 15 questions, I'll take the first jab at them then escalate them to the team. At this point, the team will have the opportunity to answer any remaining and add context to others (and yes, Danbocat will be involved (maybe even add something about their dogs haha)). From what I've gathered this is how it was done times prior. The 15 question limit was what I came into but as I start looking at other community engagement strategies/ideas it may change.... we'll see!
There are already a few topics that have multiple questions. For example, turn around times, access to the lightship database, and future Wayfarer Challenges.
I can appreciate you casting a “vote” for each additional question but I do also hope you can compile all of the questions regarding a topic as someone might have asked a different question regarding the same topic that could lead to additional information being shared.
@NianticTintino maybe on top of the top 15, you can add 5 of your choosing, maybe some you think are important, or are easily answerable.
Thanks for the clarification. You're our community specialist, so that makes sense.
I really do want to iterate that we've had a past of "we'll look at this" answers or other half replies that make it feel like a wasted question and like we aren't being taken seriously, and some that were verified later as incorrect. I sincerely hope this AMA sets the ground with some serious and honest discussion with us.
Man you can really tell from these responses that this is the first AMA in a year, and people really want it to go well.
Hopefully it starts to mellow a bit with future AMAs when they're more frequent and scheduled.