so you think a bug is causing rejection reasons like "doesn't have cultural value" which aren't represented anywhere in the rejection dialog list to appear out of thin air?
I find it very strange for Niantic to include "Not historically/Culturally significant" and "Not visually unique" as rejection reasons in emails if they didn't intend for these to be reasons for nominations to be rejected. I wish we could get an answer about it since Tintino and Danbocat are here so often, but it feels like we may not get the chance until the Dec 2021 AMA, and only if we're lucky enough for people to vote for it enough.
I am also very interested to learn why "Not historically/culturally relevant" is a rejection reason if 1* this category doesn't matter for the final decision because I keep getting athletic fields and playgrounds rejected for this reason.
@tehstone-ING I actually think it's more of a design issue, that whoever created the algorithm for generating email wasn't quite in sync with the actual mechanics of how an outcome is calculated. Maybe accuracy was less important to them than filling in three reasons? My guess is that some group said, "What do we do if we don't have three rejection reasons from the list of rejection reasons? Can we find anything else to fill out the email? Hey, let's look for the categories where it got the lowest star ratings and list those." So the end result is that the email is some combination of hard rejection reasons plus things reviewers just didn't like.
@NianticTintino can you explain this rejection reason? How did it come to be? Why is it alone? How can the nomination be rejected if no one 1*'d it enough to generate a 1* rejection reason?
And for reviewer's how is American Football not cultural? How is art not cultural? How are museums not cultural?
@Roli112-PGO In the picture I can clearly read: "Future home of the Museum of Sport" - so it's not yet a museum ;-)
as for the mural: will it remain there or will the building get a complete overhaul inside and outside ?
In normal circumstanced I'd give it a go, but since they are going to work on this building it makes me hesitate. I can't tell if this mural is something that was already on the building, or if it's newly added because it's going to be a museum of sports (info that could be mentioned in the supportive info, which we don't have here)
If it's not urgent, wait for the museum to open or at least the banner to be removed
off-topic for the Historic / cultural significance, but just my view on the nomination
-"When it comes to the 1 year lock, we have this in place to ensure folks aren’t reviewing in areas they are not familiar with, eliminating the community relevance of a location which would make it interesting to them but not others"
-I can only say that it is very uncommon these days for me to actually get to review something I am familiar with at all, even when it comes to areas within my own country. All the well known objects has been in the game since long. Rather, you get, like, playgrounds and trail markers you have no chance of knowing anything about before you try to check them on satellite view, maps or try to google them. So the "familiar" reasoning behind keeping the 1 yr lock is just irrelevant. It might have been relevant in the very first year of old OPR or so, but not anymore.
The lock on "Home" location is even more strange. Even if I set it to the place where I was born, I havn't been there for 10 yrs, and things have changed since then.
Sadly, those locks just hinder people who want to help out low density areas as it is now.
That said, I'm really interested what in a "top tier" reviewer is considered to be? What makes such a reviewer?
You will have an additional option to improve the search for a Wayspot under review (Like adding a 15 second video showing the location and pointing out the references to detect the Wayspot or doing an AR scan and Wayfinders can view the scan and accept the scanning together with Wayspot)?
• No.8: You say here that 1 ☆ & 2 ☆ ratings have no influence on the voting. Sorry but I don't think so! Other players such as @cyndiepooh-ING bring the appropriate evidence here.
How can it have no influence in a movement system that deals with average values if a proposal is rated below average !? Especially with the points whether something is culturally valuable or visually unique (the points that you advertise as important), shouldn't it be decisive if these are not below average? I don't believe this for them or the community. The same applies to secure access. It is inconceivable that a proposal will not be rejected if the location is rated as unsafe (1 ☆ or 2 ☆).
> February 2019
"Q42: There still is a lot of confusion about the star ratings in OPR, hypothetically, if every reviewer rates every section 2*, would that portal be accepted or rejected?
A42: I was told that, “If all reviewers rated all items 2* it would be rejected. Not all answers are considered equally so just the low safety rating would be a good reason for a rejection.”
🤷🏻♂️ How can you explain that something else was said in 2019?
• No.9: talks about the processing time for different regions in (e.g.) one country. I just want to remind you that Niantic, shortly after the introduction of Nominations in PokéMon Go, made a change in 2019, where small places should preferably be rated quickly and that is noticeable. We don't need an option in which players help in places that are small. My place is not small, so would it be justified for a nomination to take 18 months + to be rated without an upgrade? I don't see it that way. It has to be standardized so that the algorithm shows no matter what nomination, no matter where, at the same intervals, so that a result does not only come to a result after more than a year.
• No.1: You will be asked whether you can add one or more points for rejection. And here, too, they evade. Let's take an example. A proposal is rejected because of a bad photo. The rejection email then says, "The photo is of poor quality (e.g. dark / blurry photos or photos that were taken from a vehicle)." This is by no means helpful. Actually, it HAS to be the case that if I, as a reviewer, select the item bad photo, then I should select the exact point why the photo is bad. A selection of many possible reasons CANNOT help the submitter!
• No.10: How should Events & Challenges help when people don't even know that Wayfarer even exists? A lot more clarification needs to come from Niantic! This applies to Wayfarer in general and also to the criteria. And I don't even want to talk about the Brazilian Wayfarer Challenge, in a country where out of 10 nominations, 11 are fakes or duplicates. And then to call it "Global Challenge" and then it becomes just a local story. So you don't make new friends and even less new wayfarers!
• No.2: think you didn't quite understand question # 2. The question or the statement behind it relates to observations by the community that if a nomination has an upgrade and thus the radius is increased, it is more likely to be rejected, BECAUSE reviewers from further away consider them to be not important for the game , which then refers again to question 8, that nominations are rejected because you only choose 1 ☆ to 2 ☆ for Culturally valuable or Visually unique. And I would agree with this statement too, as this has happened more than once in the past.
• No.15: In the middle of the year there was a ban wave, which resulted from the fact that players wanted to use the description to explain to the reviewers why a location should be moved and which location is the right one. From Niantic's point of view, this is seen as abuse, which, to be honest, is really incomprehensible and outrageous. Using the example of my region in which I said that a normal nomination without an upgrade takes 18 months +, an Edit location takes 9 months +. Niantic wants us players to keep the interface clean and improve it. I also have no problem waiting 3-4 weeks ... 6-8, but I think almost 1 year is too long. Then I would consider improving or correcting anything at all. And if there is only a 50% chance that the location I have chosen is selected without an explanation option, I consider that a total Qutasch, especially since with the option of the location reviewer, there is no possibility of examination. That would be like adding NO additional photo to a normal nomination in order to verify the proposal, so adding additional information to an edit IS more than necessary!
▪︎All in all, I think the resumption of the AMA is really great. But I have to say that the design and presentation is definitely expandable. > https://ingressama.com/search?q=watermark < ! I don't see any correct answers either, and think that people talk about it more than help the players. Especially when you think of earlier statements where it is said, "There is no right or wrong!"
Well that REALLY makes sense as to why some of my upgrades get rejected so quickly that a **** wouldn't clear a room. Like within the hour rejected.
I'm in ultra rural Japan and having people from big cities reviewing certain types of rural wayspots... instant rejection. They can't even tell a dam from a waterfall and everything has to be new and shiny to be interesting. It's crazy since if I were reviewing Tokyo nominations I could reject so many for "safe" pedestrian access the way mine on rural roads have been. Tokyo (any Japanese city) has pretty well no sidewalks outside of along major roads and yet Pokestop heaven. (Rant over)
But... Catch-22... if I don't upgrade I wait forever for nominations to be voted on. My first ever nomination is STILL In voting after 11 months. I'm waiting to see how long it takes.
I understand your reasoning to wait till the museum opens up (I dont know all the details about the nomination: location etc.), but dont you think that the mural itself stands to be reviewed for what it is now and not what it will be in the future? Yes it is saying that that it will be a "Future home...." but the mural itself is artistic and has cultural value. Why would you hesitate to accept it for what it is now, if it abides to the eligibility criteria?
Why are we even discussing if this portal should have been approved or not, when the point is the message in the email clearly contradicts the AMA answer.
Sorry for being offtopic with it. Hence I only directed it to the person in concern. Either ways the AMA surely contradicts the rejection reasons given to us!
Just to add to this point, this point is even more troublesome and reflective in Europe. If upgraded wayspots have increased range for reviewing, then it is very likely that it goes to a reviewer in a different country, speaking a different language and having a different understanding of what is locally important, what are the rules of safe pedestrian access etc. This always increases the chances of an upgraded wayspot to be reviewed differently (and therefore leading to a high chance of rejection) due to such a discrepancy.
Your comments would only make sense (still don't agree with them though) if there was an actual rejection reason meaning people voted 1*. There isn't meaning people voted to accept it but for some reason voted low in the cultural category. Causing it's rejection. Opposite of what @NianticTintino claims.
People started complaining about getting "weird" rejection reasons around the time that Niantic switched to trying to always send three different rejection reasons in email. We know that there are other bugs with the way rejection email is sent so one more wouldn't be that surprising.
In my recollection, from day 1 of replies having included rejection reasons, the emails have contained up to three reasons. Just glancing through my old rejection emails, I see one from 10/1/19 with two reasons and another from 10/9/19 with three. And I have recently in the past week or two received at least two rejection emails with a single reasons (DMC).
This is very plausible. If a certain submission doesn't get any 1* votes, say, but enough 2* votes to tank it, they need to put something in the rejection email since reviewers haven't provided any of the standard options. So it looks for any sort of 1* rating and puts that into the email.
Question: Do we have any examples of rejection emails that include reasons of cultural/historic significance or visual uniqueness AND at least one standard reason? I can't think of any, and if this doesn't in fact happen, it is strong evidence for the above hypothesis.
ok but we have an example in this thread and more not shared here where one of these individual rating based rejections is the only reason in the email. there's no explaining that away.
@NianticTintino 's answer is wrong, plain and simple. clearly whoever told him this answer doesn't understand the system. and that's no surprise. think of the pile of times we've been told something is working a certain way or working as intended only to then hear months later that "oops you were right there's a bug"
it would be hilarious if it weren't so frustrating.
What's hilarious is that this conversation started with @Hosette-ING proposing that maybe it's a thing that happens when the system only has 2 reject reasons and needs a third. So a screenshot was shared of an example of this as a single reject reason and then you ask this.
ok but we have an example in this thread and more not shared here where one of these individual rating based rejections is the only reason in the email. there's no explaining that away.
Have you seen rejection emails, that include both historical/cultural and/or visual uniqueness AND standard rejection reasons (I haven't personally)? If not, I gave what I thought is a plausible possible explanation in the post above yours.
Thanks for the selecting and the melding together of questions and providing responses.
The whole AMA system is cumbersome, but there is a limit to what you can answer.
I was wondering if in going through the long sequence you had noted other issues that have made you stop and think including some that were quite specific in nature that you might follow up on I some way? You don’t have to say what they are but I am curious if you got more from the who,e process than the providing these answers.
I thought this sheds light on the evaluation algorithm a little.
My understanding from this is that the first question might have a significant weighting overall.
But also this is the question that might determine if you are going to get an agreement or not. So if you 1* reject then if the result is reject noun get the tick. But if you 2* accept and score low it might be that this is an accept from you and if it gets rejected no tick.
The same with the culture/history question you might think other things are ok (not brilliant perhaps) but perhaps it scores low 1* in This category. If overall it’s rejected you don’t get an agreement but perhaps if a significant number of those accepting also give a low rating in This category, it triggers the production of the phrase in the email that effectively even those that thought it ok, thought it was weak in this area.
No idea if this is correct just my interpretation 🤪
@NianticTintino and @NianticDanbocat This question and the myriad of interpretations and past assumptions shows how damaging it is to try and achieve consistent reviewing when the details of the effects of reviewing are obfuscated. Yes I can see the old pigeon of it could lead to misuse and manipulation- but hey the cheaters are already doing that and will continue to do so. The only people this doesn’t help are the vast majority who need to understand the implications of what they are doing in voting.
Thanks! If those were posted earlier, I probably didn't click on everything and missed them (sorry!). (All the ones I've seen/gotten had the single reason.) With these in hand, and since I have tons of examples of rejections with only one or two reasons given, I agree that the AMA answer doesn't make a lot of sense.
It's unbelieveble that we review without clearly knowing the consequences of our choices.
So 2* is not a rejection? If I 2* a nomination I get an agreement only if it's approved?
Also, if we go back to last year AMAs and read them again, it seems almost nothing at all has changed.
July 2020 AMA
Do you plan to implement some sort of feedback to help educate reviewers on the reasons the rating dropped? Since reviewers have no idea where they are disagreeing with Niantic's assessments, will you provide feedback on what categories reviewers are in most disagreeing with Niantic?
Thanks for your feedback, we hear you on the frustration you feel around reviewer ratings. We have some changes in store that will help you to better understand your rating as well as the areas which contributed to changes in your rating. We are currently reviewing the manner in which the Niantic selected nominations are processed in the backend to leverage this system to better provide information to Wayfarers not only on where they diverged from our reviews but also to better educate you on what to do next time. Additionally, we’ve rebalanced the ding against your rating for disagreeing with the Niantic review in order to make it less impactful on your overall rating and are continuing to make adjustments to this formula so it doesn’t feel impossible to improve your rating.
The changes never left the store.
Has the wayfarer team ever considered a "submitter's test" or other ways to help educate new submitters?
We are always working on initiatives to monitor submitter quality and take proactive action on low quality nominations. The quality of the Wayspots are one of our top concerns at all times. We are currently working on a backend system to improve how submitter quality is assessed and possibly even add benefits to Wayfarers who consistently submit high quality nominations, and punishments to those who don’t. For now, the best option to address low quality nominations is to use the one-star option to reject and report low quality nominations. For reporting bad edits, use the form available in the Help Center to report these cases. Reported nominations are reviewed by the Wayfarer team and the submitters may receive a warning or a suspension based on the severity of the offense.
And pretty much nothing changed since.
There have been some ongoing issues with reviewers not selecting the most appropriate rejection reasons behind their decisions, believing that a rejection is a rejection and the specific reason doesn't matter. Is there anything that Niantic can do to address this so nominators get specific feedback on their rejected nominations?
We do take action on bad reviewers as well as submitters. Depending on the severity of the issue, they can get a warning, suspension, or get their Wayfarer account terminated. If you do have a nomination get rejected for a generic reason, consider resubmitting along with more context in the description or the supporting statement. Additionally, to address this issue, we are changing the required comment on the criteria option in hopes that that will reduce the amount of random reason selection. This will be included in the next Wayfarer update, currently scheduled for next week.
And nothing changed, and I've never seen any action being taking against a reviewer for random rejection reasons. Submitters still get random reasons such as live animal or body part (and when they complain the only answer is that there is no appeals), or even get a "." instead.
How can dead zone / dry voting / black spots be addressed? These are areas with very few reviewers where review times are very long and the system feels unbalanced when compared to higher density areas that also are more likely to have higher populations of Wayspots.
We are always monitoring where there are an excess and a lack of reviewers and will fast track nominations in those areas so that the Wayspots in question don’t sit waiting forever for a review. We are also currently discussing ways to address all nominations that have sat pending review for an extended period of time, not just ones from areas with limited reviewers. Options we’ve considered have been bumping them into areas with more reviewers to increase the likelihood that they are processed and creating an internal alert to ensure that nominations that sit for extended period of time get reviewed by the Niantic team. We proactively look into areas where there is a disparity between the nominations available for review compared to the number of available Reviewers and are manually fast tracking nominations that are stuck in the review process due to this reason.
They stopped being proactive long ago, I guess. Niantic reviews nowadays seem to go to new nominations instead of the old ones.
With regard to “featured Wayspots,” could a new system be investigated that shows nomination tips, actual Niantic curated nominations, or other relevant information to turn this into an educational opportunity for reviewers?
Yes! Thanks for your feedback, based on the input from the community, the Wayspot Showcase is being redesigned with these goals in mind and you should see an updated version in the next few months.
I don't know if anything changed, but if they updated it they failed on the goals.
Would it be possible to change the frequency with which we can change our bonus location? There are some small remote island communities that don't have a lot of submissions, but if we could change our bonus more often it would make us more likely to go there and give them the reviews they need for more wayspots.
Nominations are displayed to reviewers based on three location information inputs: recently played location from the app you use to log into Wayfarer, home location, and bonus location. Updating your bonus location is limited because we don't want people jumping to places they're less familiar with and reviewing Wayspots as with limited local insight, potentially taking incorrect action compared to a local reviewer.
Is it possible to consider having “Supporting Information” for Edits as well?
Thanks for your feedback. We are discussing this internally and will share more information about this as we move forward.
Same questions, and similar answers, although they at least made it clear this time that supporting information is not a priority.
Comments
so you think a bug is causing rejection reasons like "doesn't have cultural value" which aren't represented anywhere in the rejection dialog list to appear out of thin air?
I find it very strange for Niantic to include "Not historically/Culturally significant" and "Not visually unique" as rejection reasons in emails if they didn't intend for these to be reasons for nominations to be rejected. I wish we could get an answer about it since Tintino and Danbocat are here so often, but it feels like we may not get the chance until the Dec 2021 AMA, and only if we're lucky enough for people to vote for it enough.
I am also very interested to learn why "Not historically/culturally relevant" is a rejection reason if 1* this category doesn't matter for the final decision because I keep getting athletic fields and playgrounds rejected for this reason.
@tehstone-ING I actually think it's more of a design issue, that whoever created the algorithm for generating email wasn't quite in sync with the actual mechanics of how an outcome is calculated. Maybe accuracy was less important to them than filling in three reasons? My guess is that some group said, "What do we do if we don't have three rejection reasons from the list of rejection reasons? Can we find anything else to fill out the email? Hey, let's look for the categories where it got the lowest star ratings and list those." So the end result is that the email is some combination of hard rejection reasons plus things reviewers just didn't like.
@NianticTintino can you explain this rejection reason? How did it come to be? Why is it alone? How can the nomination be rejected if no one 1*'d it enough to generate a 1* rejection reason?
And for reviewer's how is American Football not cultural? How is art not cultural? How are museums not cultural?
@Roli112-PGO In the picture I can clearly read: "Future home of the Museum of Sport" - so it's not yet a museum ;-)
as for the mural: will it remain there or will the building get a complete overhaul inside and outside ?
In normal circumstanced I'd give it a go, but since they are going to work on this building it makes me hesitate. I can't tell if this mural is something that was already on the building, or if it's newly added because it's going to be a museum of sports (info that could be mentioned in the supportive info, which we don't have here)
If it's not urgent, wait for the museum to open or at least the banner to be removed
off-topic for the Historic / cultural significance, but just my view on the nomination
This. I had a deja vu and soon realised this was very similar to Casey's first AMA. Lots of pr-talk, little actual and/or concrete answers.
To their credit Casey did provide an improved version after feedback.
As for the answer on #9 and 11
-"When it comes to the 1 year lock, we have this in place to ensure folks aren’t reviewing in areas they are not familiar with, eliminating the community relevance of a location which would make it interesting to them but not others"
-I can only say that it is very uncommon these days for me to actually get to review something I am familiar with at all, even when it comes to areas within my own country. All the well known objects has been in the game since long. Rather, you get, like, playgrounds and trail markers you have no chance of knowing anything about before you try to check them on satellite view, maps or try to google them. So the "familiar" reasoning behind keeping the 1 yr lock is just irrelevant. It might have been relevant in the very first year of old OPR or so, but not anymore.
The lock on "Home" location is even more strange. Even if I set it to the place where I was born, I havn't been there for 10 yrs, and things have changed since then.
Sadly, those locks just hinder people who want to help out low density areas as it is now.
That said, I'm really interested what in a "top tier" reviewer is considered to be? What makes such a reviewer?
Lolz why this comment?
1) Many legit portals rejected. You must know this.
Just had this one comeback today
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/cjirmAnb4iYVxTjU477giM8VaRA79I4V5kkCULHtRH3lmGJ0Lf8n4d2GbLB3L5ny4wZgFZJF-TFwUkNMnksmUN8i4N44Lvll7Bv_lxNv=s0
It's apparently not cultural or historical enough
2). Neurodiversity has powered Niantic's database for years ...
3) Some folks need accommodations to participate in wayfarer. It's not a problem for most people to understand diversity advocacy.
Will there be a way to appeal a nomination that was turned down but meets the acceptance criteria and has not been approved?
You will have an additional option to improve the search for a Wayspot under review (Like adding a 15 second video showing the location and pointing out the references to detect the Wayspot or doing an AR scan and Wayfinders can view the scan and accept the scanning together with Wayspot)?
Wow, I have to say that these AMAs are more than sobering. Only number 8, number 9 & number 10 are interesting.
@NianticTintino
• No.8: You say here that 1 ☆ & 2 ☆ ratings have no influence on the voting. Sorry but I don't think so! Other players such as @cyndiepooh-ING bring the appropriate evidence here.
How can it have no influence in a movement system that deals with average values if a proposal is rated below average !? Especially with the points whether something is culturally valuable or visually unique (the points that you advertise as important), shouldn't it be decisive if these are not below average? I don't believe this for them or the community. The same applies to secure access. It is inconceivable that a proposal will not be rejected if the location is rated as unsafe (1 ☆ or 2 ☆).
> February 2019
"Q42: There still is a lot of confusion about the star ratings in OPR, hypothetically, if every reviewer rates every section 2*, would that portal be accepted or rejected?
A42: I was told that, “If all reviewers rated all items 2* it would be rejected. Not all answers are considered equally so just the low safety rating would be a good reason for a rejection.”
🤷🏻♂️ How can you explain that something else was said in 2019?
• No.9: talks about the processing time for different regions in (e.g.) one country. I just want to remind you that Niantic, shortly after the introduction of Nominations in PokéMon Go, made a change in 2019, where small places should preferably be rated quickly and that is noticeable. We don't need an option in which players help in places that are small. My place is not small, so would it be justified for a nomination to take 18 months + to be rated without an upgrade? I don't see it that way. It has to be standardized so that the algorithm shows no matter what nomination, no matter where, at the same intervals, so that a result does not only come to a result after more than a year.
• No.1: You will be asked whether you can add one or more points for rejection. And here, too, they evade. Let's take an example. A proposal is rejected because of a bad photo. The rejection email then says, "The photo is of poor quality (e.g. dark / blurry photos or photos that were taken from a vehicle)." This is by no means helpful. Actually, it HAS to be the case that if I, as a reviewer, select the item bad photo, then I should select the exact point why the photo is bad. A selection of many possible reasons CANNOT help the submitter!
• No.10: How should Events & Challenges help when people don't even know that Wayfarer even exists? A lot more clarification needs to come from Niantic! This applies to Wayfarer in general and also to the criteria. And I don't even want to talk about the Brazilian Wayfarer Challenge, in a country where out of 10 nominations, 11 are fakes or duplicates. And then to call it "Global Challenge" and then it becomes just a local story. So you don't make new friends and even less new wayfarers!
• No.2: think you didn't quite understand question # 2. The question or the statement behind it relates to observations by the community that if a nomination has an upgrade and thus the radius is increased, it is more likely to be rejected, BECAUSE reviewers from further away consider them to be not important for the game , which then refers again to question 8, that nominations are rejected because you only choose 1 ☆ to 2 ☆ for Culturally valuable or Visually unique. And I would agree with this statement too, as this has happened more than once in the past.
• No.15: In the middle of the year there was a ban wave, which resulted from the fact that players wanted to use the description to explain to the reviewers why a location should be moved and which location is the right one. From Niantic's point of view, this is seen as abuse, which, to be honest, is really incomprehensible and outrageous. Using the example of my region in which I said that a normal nomination without an upgrade takes 18 months +, an Edit location takes 9 months +. Niantic wants us players to keep the interface clean and improve it. I also have no problem waiting 3-4 weeks ... 6-8, but I think almost 1 year is too long. Then I would consider improving or correcting anything at all. And if there is only a 50% chance that the location I have chosen is selected without an explanation option, I consider that a total Qutasch, especially since with the option of the location reviewer, there is no possibility of examination. That would be like adding NO additional photo to a normal nomination in order to verify the proposal, so adding additional information to an edit IS more than necessary!
▪︎All in all, I think the resumption of the AMA is really great. But I have to say that the design and presentation is definitely expandable. > https://ingressama.com/search?q=watermark < ! I don't see any correct answers either, and think that people talk about it more than help the players. Especially when you think of earlier statements where it is said, "There is no right or wrong!"
My rejection I posted about was just like that - the SINGLE reason given in the rejections email. For a CROSS. On a CHURCH.
Well that REALLY makes sense as to why some of my upgrades get rejected so quickly that a **** wouldn't clear a room. Like within the hour rejected.
I'm in ultra rural Japan and having people from big cities reviewing certain types of rural wayspots... instant rejection. They can't even tell a dam from a waterfall and everything has to be new and shiny to be interesting. It's crazy since if I were reviewing Tokyo nominations I could reject so many for "safe" pedestrian access the way mine on rural roads have been. Tokyo (any Japanese city) has pretty well no sidewalks outside of along major roads and yet Pokestop heaven. (Rant over)
But... Catch-22... if I don't upgrade I wait forever for nominations to be voted on. My first ever nomination is STILL In voting after 11 months. I'm waiting to see how long it takes.
I understand your reasoning to wait till the museum opens up (I dont know all the details about the nomination: location etc.), but dont you think that the mural itself stands to be reviewed for what it is now and not what it will be in the future? Yes it is saying that that it will be a "Future home...." but the mural itself is artistic and has cultural value. Why would you hesitate to accept it for what it is now, if it abides to the eligibility criteria?
Why are we even discussing if this portal should have been approved or not, when the point is the message in the email clearly contradicts the AMA answer.
Sorry for being offtopic with it. Hence I only directed it to the person in concern. Either ways the AMA surely contradicts the rejection reasons given to us!
Just to add to this point, this point is even more troublesome and reflective in Europe. If upgraded wayspots have increased range for reviewing, then it is very likely that it goes to a reviewer in a different country, speaking a different language and having a different understanding of what is locally important, what are the rules of safe pedestrian access etc. This always increases the chances of an upgraded wayspot to be reviewed differently (and therefore leading to a high chance of rejection) due to such a discrepancy.
Your comments would only make sense (still don't agree with them though) if there was an actual rejection reason meaning people voted 1*. There isn't meaning people voted to accept it but for some reason voted low in the cultural category. Causing it's rejection. Opposite of what @NianticTintino claims.
People started complaining about getting "weird" rejection reasons around the time that Niantic switched to trying to always send three different rejection reasons in email. We know that there are other bugs with the way rejection email is sent so one more wouldn't be that surprising.
In my recollection, from day 1 of replies having included rejection reasons, the emails have contained up to three reasons. Just glancing through my old rejection emails, I see one from 10/1/19 with two reasons and another from 10/9/19 with three. And I have recently in the past week or two received at least two rejection emails with a single reasons (DMC).
This is very plausible. If a certain submission doesn't get any 1* votes, say, but enough 2* votes to tank it, they need to put something in the rejection email since reviewers haven't provided any of the standard options. So it looks for any sort of 1* rating and puts that into the email.
Question: Do we have any examples of rejection emails that include reasons of cultural/historic significance or visual uniqueness AND at least one standard reason? I can't think of any, and if this doesn't in fact happen, it is strong evidence for the above hypothesis.
ok but we have an example in this thread and more not shared here where one of these individual rating based rejections is the only reason in the email. there's no explaining that away.
@NianticTintino 's answer is wrong, plain and simple. clearly whoever told him this answer doesn't understand the system. and that's no surprise. think of the pile of times we've been told something is working a certain way or working as intended only to then hear months later that "oops you were right there's a bug"
it would be hilarious if it weren't so frustrating.
Yes, that's the more common scenario in fact.
What's hilarious is that this conversation started with @Hosette-ING proposing that maybe it's a thing that happens when the system only has 2 reject reasons and needs a third. So a screenshot was shared of an example of this as a single reject reason and then you ask this.
ok but we have an example in this thread and more not shared here where one of these individual rating based rejections is the only reason in the email. there's no explaining that away.
Have you seen rejection emails, that include both historical/cultural and/or visual uniqueness AND standard rejection reasons (I haven't personally)? If not, I gave what I thought is a plausible possible explanation in the post above yours.
.... yes. Look at the attachments in the very next comment.
@NianticTintino
Thanks for the selecting and the melding together of questions and providing responses.
The whole AMA system is cumbersome, but there is a limit to what you can answer.
I was wondering if in going through the long sequence you had noted other issues that have made you stop and think including some that were quite specific in nature that you might follow up on I some way? You don’t have to say what they are but I am curious if you got more from the who,e process than the providing these answers.
Regarding the answer to Q 8
I thought this sheds light on the evaluation algorithm a little.
My understanding from this is that the first question might have a significant weighting overall.
But also this is the question that might determine if you are going to get an agreement or not. So if you 1* reject then if the result is reject noun get the tick. But if you 2* accept and score low it might be that this is an accept from you and if it gets rejected no tick.
The same with the culture/history question you might think other things are ok (not brilliant perhaps) but perhaps it scores low 1* in This category. If overall it’s rejected you don’t get an agreement but perhaps if a significant number of those accepting also give a low rating in This category, it triggers the production of the phrase in the email that effectively even those that thought it ok, thought it was weak in this area.
No idea if this is correct just my interpretation 🤪
@NianticTintino and @NianticDanbocat This question and the myriad of interpretations and past assumptions shows how damaging it is to try and achieve consistent reviewing when the details of the effects of reviewing are obfuscated. Yes I can see the old pigeon of it could lead to misuse and manipulation- but hey the cheaters are already doing that and will continue to do so. The only people this doesn’t help are the vast majority who need to understand the implications of what they are doing in voting.
Thanks! If those were posted earlier, I probably didn't click on everything and missed them (sorry!). (All the ones I've seen/gotten had the single reason.) With these in hand, and since I have tons of examples of rejections with only one or two reasons given, I agree that the AMA answer doesn't make a lot of sense.
It's unbelieveble that we review without clearly knowing the consequences of our choices.
So 2* is not a rejection? If I 2* a nomination I get an agreement only if it's approved?
Also, if we go back to last year AMAs and read them again, it seems almost nothing at all has changed.
July 2020 AMA
Do you plan to implement some sort of feedback to help educate reviewers on the reasons the rating dropped? Since reviewers have no idea where they are disagreeing with Niantic's assessments, will you provide feedback on what categories reviewers are in most disagreeing with Niantic?
Thanks for your feedback, we hear you on the frustration you feel around reviewer ratings. We have some changes in store that will help you to better understand your rating as well as the areas which contributed to changes in your rating. We are currently reviewing the manner in which the Niantic selected nominations are processed in the backend to leverage this system to better provide information to Wayfarers not only on where they diverged from our reviews but also to better educate you on what to do next time. Additionally, we’ve rebalanced the ding against your rating for disagreeing with the Niantic review in order to make it less impactful on your overall rating and are continuing to make adjustments to this formula so it doesn’t feel impossible to improve your rating.
The changes never left the store.
Has the wayfarer team ever considered a "submitter's test" or other ways to help educate new submitters?
We are always working on initiatives to monitor submitter quality and take proactive action on low quality nominations. The quality of the Wayspots are one of our top concerns at all times. We are currently working on a backend system to improve how submitter quality is assessed and possibly even add benefits to Wayfarers who consistently submit high quality nominations, and punishments to those who don’t. For now, the best option to address low quality nominations is to use the one-star option to reject and report low quality nominations. For reporting bad edits, use the form available in the Help Center to report these cases. Reported nominations are reviewed by the Wayfarer team and the submitters may receive a warning or a suspension based on the severity of the offense.
And pretty much nothing changed since.
There have been some ongoing issues with reviewers not selecting the most appropriate rejection reasons behind their decisions, believing that a rejection is a rejection and the specific reason doesn't matter. Is there anything that Niantic can do to address this so nominators get specific feedback on their rejected nominations?
We do take action on bad reviewers as well as submitters. Depending on the severity of the issue, they can get a warning, suspension, or get their Wayfarer account terminated. If you do have a nomination get rejected for a generic reason, consider resubmitting along with more context in the description or the supporting statement. Additionally, to address this issue, we are changing the required comment on the criteria option in hopes that that will reduce the amount of random reason selection. This will be included in the next Wayfarer update, currently scheduled for next week.
And nothing changed, and I've never seen any action being taking against a reviewer for random rejection reasons. Submitters still get random reasons such as live animal or body part (and when they complain the only answer is that there is no appeals), or even get a "." instead.
How can dead zone / dry voting / black spots be addressed? These are areas with very few reviewers where review times are very long and the system feels unbalanced when compared to higher density areas that also are more likely to have higher populations of Wayspots.
We are always monitoring where there are an excess and a lack of reviewers and will fast track nominations in those areas so that the Wayspots in question don’t sit waiting forever for a review. We are also currently discussing ways to address all nominations that have sat pending review for an extended period of time, not just ones from areas with limited reviewers. Options we’ve considered have been bumping them into areas with more reviewers to increase the likelihood that they are processed and creating an internal alert to ensure that nominations that sit for extended period of time get reviewed by the Niantic team. We proactively look into areas where there is a disparity between the nominations available for review compared to the number of available Reviewers and are manually fast tracking nominations that are stuck in the review process due to this reason.
They stopped being proactive long ago, I guess. Niantic reviews nowadays seem to go to new nominations instead of the old ones.
With regard to “featured Wayspots,” could a new system be investigated that shows nomination tips, actual Niantic curated nominations, or other relevant information to turn this into an educational opportunity for reviewers?
Yes! Thanks for your feedback, based on the input from the community, the Wayspot Showcase is being redesigned with these goals in mind and you should see an updated version in the next few months.
I don't know if anything changed, but if they updated it they failed on the goals.
Would it be possible to change the frequency with which we can change our bonus location? There are some small remote island communities that don't have a lot of submissions, but if we could change our bonus more often it would make us more likely to go there and give them the reviews they need for more wayspots.
Nominations are displayed to reviewers based on three location information inputs: recently played location from the app you use to log into Wayfarer, home location, and bonus location. Updating your bonus location is limited because we don't want people jumping to places they're less familiar with and reviewing Wayspots as with limited local insight, potentially taking incorrect action compared to a local reviewer.
Is it possible to consider having “Supporting Information” for Edits as well?
Thanks for your feedback. We are discussing this internally and will share more information about this as we move forward.
Same questions, and similar answers, although they at least made it clear this time that supporting information is not a priority.
Nice job @NianticTintino , people are more than happy ...... NOT
👍🏻