Upcoming Wayfarer 4.3 Updates - Discussion

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  • MagicalThorn-INGMagicalThorn-ING Posts: 532 ✭✭✭

    It is easy to imagine that the number of judges who do not really understand what they are judging and are willing to pass anything will increase after this update.

    It is clear to see that the alarming events we have experienced in the past will be accelerated.

    If more and more people apply for bad objects and more and more people pass them easily, there will be more and more lamentable Wayspots on the street.


    Anyway, even if these inappropriate Wayspots temporarily go online, if they can be easily removed, the system can work like a pair of wheels.

    However, there are no plans or announcements for the other wheel of the system.

    With only one wheel, it is inevitable that we will not know where we are going to crash.




    Mr.Tintino.

    You and your team might want to reconsider.

  • giantfox-INGgiantfox-ING Posts: 2 ✭✭

    Educational info and testing is a much better idea. Have examples of both good and bad examples in educational portion and have test takers pick the good or bad, then explain afterwards if not completely correct why. This should be a little lengthy and should be required before the actual test can be retaken each time, no skip ahead option. Any time you change your mind about what is good or not good submissions that should be added to educational material and required by all, even those that have already passed the test to review. But if you change what is good or bad, then there should also be a good way to have bad ones removed from system, because if people see it in game in one area then they believe it is okay in all areas, you can't say its okay for a "Walmart" in one town but not in another and expect normal players to understand the why and not submit everyone they see. Also there needs to be a way to see all waypoints in an area when submitting to avoid duplicates. PoGo players do not see all ingress portals and try to submit things already in the system because it doesn't appear in their game and don't have access to ingress intel maps to see them. This needs addressed across all Niantic platforms using these waypoints. Also please quit automatically adding a photo to existing waypoint when it gets marked as a duplicate. Too many things are being marked as duplicate that are not and the pictured added to something else which confuses people when it gets resubmitted. And as far as listening to people, reach out to people with an email asking for input, such as people actually submitting nominations about submitting nominations or people reviewing nominations about reviewing nominations and not just the few people that are knowledgeable enough to know there is a forum to express opinions to you. Niantic needs to be more transparent with expectations and how they handle things to all of its users not just the select few that are able to find these forums.

  • Gendgi-PGOGendgi-PGO Posts: 3,534 Ambassador

    I'm sorry to derail this thread, but we've been hoping for a clarification on one of those pesky questions that has been unresolved for years. I don't know if you are specifically involved in criteria and publishing guidelines, but would you mind poking the folks responsible a little at taking a look at this thread? https://community.wayfarer.nianticlabs.com/discussion/24653/action-required-niantic-must-update-criteria-to-clarify-no-candidates-within-military-bases

    To reiterate a primary point, it has to do with a criteria that has long been established on the Wayforum (and Ingress forum prior) but never clarified on the criteria page despite multiple promises to.

  • tehstone-INGtehstone-ING Posts: 1,154 Ambassador

    one thing I am really curious about is what expectation the team has for the "lifespan" of a reviewer.

    is this something you envision folks staying involved with long term? some time or review count threshold? do you focus more on continuing to bring new folks in?

    it seems the system works more smoothly with more reviewers doing fewer reviews each than a small group each doing a lot.

    did you envision people reaching 25k, 50k, 100k reviews completed? or were the badge tiers in the games more of what was expected?


    @NianticDanbocat

  • patsufredo-PGOpatsufredo-PGO Posts: 4,222 ✭✭✭✭✭

    @NianticDanbocat I think I would agree with most of the clarification. But did you think what new Wayfinders will do after the test? You may tell they can start reviewing now and earn upgrades for their nominations, but what if they do a lot of mistakes? People who got their driving licenses might still do some mistakes while driving, of course.

    You see that many folks are complaining in this forum that their nominations are wrongly rejected. You understand either these new reviewers are still learning the criteria or maybe doesn't care about the criteria. Not to mention there might be ongoing review abuse that people will reject everything they see so they can earn upgrades quickly (only to be rejected after by another people following this method, karma hits yeah). Instead to correct these Wayfinders, why did you decide to put only two reasons in the rejection email? What if the third most picked reason is the most relevant or maybe the only correct reason? Did you aware submitters won't be helpful with this?

    And again, what will new Wayfinders do after the test? Here, Niantic's engagement is actually important. But the only engagement in Wayfarer (as long as I thought) are the orientation along with the test, and another test if their rating drops below "fair". You drop the set of criterias and AMAs as well in the site, but what would you do to let them fully understand the entire criteria? You can say they should look at this forum but would you expect them to know this forum exist and visit the forum? And when they're asking the criteria in this forum, will you engage as well to them?

    And we still didn't receive any Niantic's direct action for military bases yet.

  • tp235-INGtp235-ING Posts: 1,383 ✭✭✭✭✭

    @NianticDanbocat

    Are those reviewers who don't respond really good reviewers?

    Are the reviewers who really randomly clicked a button and passed the 21st time really good reviewers?


    Sure, some of them can reach a certain level if they study, but as far as the current wayfarers are concerned, unfortunately, there are more low-quality reviewers.

    They put their own interests first. They ignore the public interest.

    As a result, the number of low-quality and unqualified Wayspots is increasing every day.


    If we don't have a system in place to quickly report, review, and remove low quality Wayspots, as well as a system to eliminate the judges who give high scores to low quality Wayspots and the players who recommend them, the situation will only get worse.


    A good POI is the foundation of Niantic's games.

    Fictional characters like ADA, Jarvis, Pikachu, Harry Potter, and Pikmin are just seasonings to add flavor.

    Wayfarer needs to be set up in such a way that it does not undermine its roots.

  • PkmnTrainerJ-INGPkmnTrainerJ-ING Posts: 5,129 Ambassador

    It really seems that you’re going for quantity over quality here @NianticDanbocat & @NianticTintino

    If the cool-down time for taking the test is only fifteen minutes, those with multiple Pokémon GO accounts at level 38+ (I can think of ten people with at least three accounts in my local community) can just switch between those accounts, take the test on account 1, fail, take the test on account 2, pass, take the test on account 3, pass and then return to take the test on account 1 by the time they’re done. Or they could watch a “How to pass the test” YouTube video (surely dozens will exist shortly after the update to the test) and pass on all their accounts at the same time.

    Then they (this hypothetical person with three Pokémon Go accounts) have 120 nominations, with surface level understanding of the criteria, and has no incentive to review.

    If you’re really looking to keep this 15 minute thing, you need to then get the relevant teams to crack down on other areas to prevent abuse and ensure you listen to players here. I’m already seeing that with the decrease in quality and increase in quantity that I’ll want to start a Coal thread or similar to this one. (If we are going to have to see them, we do need to discuss them, and this would be the right place to do so to get your folks attention)


  • MelodyS88Chi-PGOMelodyS88Chi-PGO Posts: 627 ✭✭✭✭✭

    I am expecting even more coal from across the country on top of the junk I get locally such as chain fast food restaurants, K-12 schools, gas stations, holiday decorations, people posting stuff inside their home, etc. as the people that have no ability to understand the criteria get lucky and pass the test then upgrade their junk.


    I hope Niantic at least gets tougher on cracking down on people that repeatedly submit blatantly ineligible stuff if they insist on both increasing the number of nominations and basically eliminating the need to have a basic understanding of the criteria (as demonstrated by passing the test without unlimited retries). Someone on Reddit today posted an email from Niantic warning them that because they have submitted multiple ineligible spots, if they continue doing so they may not only lose access to Wayfarer, they may be banned from the games.

  • dev1linside-INGdev1linside-ING Posts: 21 ✭✭

    By far, 15 min cooldown is not what the Comm wants.


    We're already waiting to have a test before submitting POIs and you're decreasing the regularity to vote on wayfarer... Like some others said, listen what we want and don't think you do what we want...

    That's how you will break it down.

  • PkmnTrainerJ-INGPkmnTrainerJ-ING Posts: 5,129 Ambassador

    If this feedback didn’t come from users on the forums, can I ask where it did come from?

    Did you have focus groups? Did you just listen to the Pokémon GO folks squealing on Twitter? Do we need to abandon this forum and raise any concerns on Twitter instead?

  • tp235-INGtp235-ING Posts: 1,383 ✭✭✭✭✭

    I don't want to sound too horrible, but the Niantic Wayfarer team doesn't understand the critical situation Wayfarer is in.

    Until recently, the filter that removes low-quality POIs had holes in it.

    But thanks to the efforts of Wayfinder here, we can say that the hole is finally being fixed.

    But on the other hand, we still have no control over the large amount of water that is mixed with filth.


    In the meantime, you have suddenly announced a maximum of 40 quotas.

    You have suddenly announced a maximum of 40 quotas, with little or no penalty for submitting low quality POIs.

    There is no penalty for submitting a mass-produced product that is probably worthless and being rejected.

    This is more than enough to destroy proper review.

    Now the filters are starting to clog up. I'm already seeing a lot of spam submissions in my neighborhood using third party images. The filter will probably have a hole in it again.

    And now this action.

    It will be impossible to install the filter again.

    It's a shame.

  • PkmnTrainerJ-INGPkmnTrainerJ-ING Posts: 5,129 Ambassador

    They’ve made it clear that they don’t value users input on the forums.

    If anything, the long cooldown just led to folks never coming back (and those are the folks you'll never see share their story in this forum). So since we're keeping this quiz for now, I'd prefer new community members stay and learn through practice and repetition.

    Only new community members matter. Not seasoned reviewers.

  • Shilfiell-INGShilfiell-ING Posts: 1,560 Ambassador

    I think it's company policy to cater to new people exclusively, despite what experienced folks might need or support. That's why the level I worked on for over a year originally is now reachable in under a month, that's why rare things get re-released, that's why hard-fought medals are repurposed with vastly lower requirements. You see, it's just not fair that new people should have to work for stuff, or learn hard things. This flawed mindset encourages a culture of entitlement - which appears to be flourishing already.

  • 0mAndy-ING0mAndy-ING Posts: 34 ✭✭

    Just like the Military Thread that I have commented, what I see here confirmed the image for most of player about NIA which is full of contradictory action.

    NIA told us when we review the nomination not to use of shortcuts or pre-canned responses but every mail from NIA to us is pre-canned responses.

    NIA said not to nominate portals that only employee or special person can access, but in reality, a lot of requests to remove these invalid portals rejected for no obvious reason at all.

    So, what have been announced in this thread is nothing new, is a contradictory action also, NIA let 15 minutes cooldown time to let a lot of new people come and review the nomination but in the other hand, it gave 24 hours cooldown time for experience reviewer only because the algorithm detected that the reviewer is too fast. It doesn’t compute and make sense. Kindly listen to majority of us here, 15 minutes for failed wannabe reviewer to come and retry the quiz again is so fast. Do not afraid they are not coming back again. If their true intention is expansion of Quality Portal Network, they will come back and do the test again.

    If we still want to play the game, we just need to accept it. Just like old saying, take it or leave it.

  • mortuus-INGmortuus-ING Posts: 213 ✭✭✭

    yay more low quality poi will flood the portal network, is this what niantic wants have tons of agents that failed the test numerous times to submit poi of no value ??

  • Losifer026-INGLosifer026-ING Posts: 204 ✭✭✭✭

    I have some thoughts…..

    unlimited quiz attempts is begging for abuse and degrading the POI quality. Maybe you get to retake it every 6 months if you fail. That seems like a much more reasonable limit.

    I am very curious about Niantic reviewed nominations. How are nominations selected for review by Niantic? Is there a time limit, like say a nomination has been in voting for 4-6 months? Because I’ve got over 50 that have been marinating in wayfarer for over a year. Maybe once a player gets to 50 or 60 nominations in wayfarer? I’ve got over 250. I’m also hoping there will be an appeal button. We had a horrific run of valid nominations(sports fields, pavilions, fountains mostly) that got improper rejections and I’ve been waiting to resubmit until I find out how that will work.


    better emails for rejections is good, that should help let people who are making multiple mistakes learn what they did wrong.

  • AScarletSabre-PGOAScarletSabre-PGO Posts: 754 ✭✭✭✭✭

    Yeah, somebody I know had a trail marker seemingly rejected by the Niantic. It got nominated remotely before bed, doesn't appear in nominations page right away so goes to be in the hope of adding the information after waking up and by the morning (several hours later), it's been already rejected by Niantic.

  • WheelTrekker-INGWheelTrekker-ING Posts: 3,388 ✭✭✭✭✭

    Fortunately now your friend has a new nomination slot available that morning and he can nominate the candidate again hoping that now it can be properly reviewed.

  • AScarletSabre-PGOAScarletSabre-PGO Posts: 754 ✭✭✭✭✭

    I was informing people just the other day that Niantic needs to engage in good faith discussions with players because there is often derision aimed at the steady stream of people who state that they are fed up with Niantic. A lot of people with legitimate grievances are laughed at here. There are absolutely some ridiculous people who complain sure, but soon enough we will reach a tipping people where Niantic is no long making a profit and some people are seemingly happy to sleepwalk into that abyss.

  • HaramDingo-INGHaramDingo-ING Posts: 1,725 ✭✭✭✭✭

    I guess now it's time to play devil's advocate against the massive wave of disapproval.

    There are lots of things that are crazy in this world, but I don't think the 15min cooldown is one of them... If anything, the long cooldown just led to folks never coming back (and those are the folks you'll never see share their story in this forum). So since we're keeping this quiz for now, I'd prefer new community members stay and learn through practice and repetition.

    I guess if we really want more people to be inducted into Wayfarer to reduce the heavy backlogs throughout the world, this is probably one way to do it. Maybe places with not enough reviewers (especially non-english oriented places) are due to the quiz and possible translation inaccuracies. If we gate new Wayfinders from ever accessing Wayfarer, we would never know what their contribution would look like. A lot of us assume that they could only be either a serial rejector or a mega-lenient person accepting everything, but do we ever look back on ourselves when we first started? Everyone goes through a journey in Wayfarer, but many do stop maybe a couple hundred or thousand reviews in. But to those who never started in the first place, even if their contribution was just a single drop in the ocean, if they didn't do it, the ocean would be one drop less.

    On whether the quiz should be improved or randomized? Probably? But it's not an immediate change on our roadmap. We're making changes bit by bit right now to see how small changes help the program overall. Besides, there are other ways that we are thinking about qualifying contributors and gating features in the future, besides a simple quiz pass/fail.

    I've personally inducted many of my own Wayfarer recruits into reviewing. People have these huge and tightknit Pokemon Go communities but often they're the single and only Wayfinder in that community. It's hard convincing people to review. I've watched over people do the test (they often tell me to just give me the questions or do the test for them entirely), and I have seen people almost crash and burn, but the Wayfarer test is not a closed-book exam. It doesn't say "do it by yourself away in a secluded room from others" like it's sensitive information or a driver knowledge test. Start the foundation right, and then the real world of Wayfarer opens up to them. The test and its 10 standardised questions, although not perfect, does its job well enough in my opinion.

    On the question of whether Niantic reviewed nominations in the past will also be marked as being reviewed by Niantic, no this will only display during the review by us, but once there's a decision, you will only see the decision label on your nomination. But I think it's a good call out to consider improving the feature to display whether it was decided on by Niantic.

    Once the appeals process comes in, whether or not the decision was by Niantic or not, that won't matter anymore. The only purpose is to berate Niantic or their staff member/contracted who rejected a trail marker or temple (which I do, frivolously). However, I would appreciate Niantic staff reviews moving away from the Yes/No response and implementing accurate reject reasons that the rest of Wayfarer has at their disposal. Then it looks like you'll need to add a label for appealed nominations.

    On the comment 'don't blame us', I'm honestly a little confused by that. Not sure why we would ever blame you for anything? Has that happened before?

    "What can everyone do? Praise and blame. This is human virtue, this is human madness." - Nietzsche

    On @NianticTintino's "you spoke and we listened" - that is in reference to your earlier comments about the new emails not including rejection reasons. So we decided to prioritize adding the rejection reasons to your nomination page so that when the new emails are rolled out, you'll have a place to see them.

    There is a subset of submitters (larger than you think) who have never set foot into Wayfarer. Most of them just nominate from their games and rely solely on the email to see their decision. If the email directs the submitter straight into the rejected nomination in their management page, and provides that very subset of rejection reasons with further links and tips to improve on how or why they received their nomination, then that is a win. But for this to happen, all submissions must be gated behind the quiz and Wayfinders must go through the onboarding process before they even get their nominations unlocked. And their edits and photo submissions too. Please. You haven't confirmed that.

    For folks who wanted to point out all the other things you felt frustrated about the system, we hear you. This is just a note about the next release. We really wish we could change everything for you at once but we're still searching for that magic wand!

    Personally I think Niantic is even more frustrated themselves. Not actioning invalid wayspot reports properly or promptly (the in-game ones, not the appeals), seeing abusive photos after photos being flagged but rarely disappearing from the queues or being actioned. Delaying the release of the abuse reporting systems and form (which Tino hinted to a release in October). The fact that they have resorted to internal staff reviewers rather than giving privileges for community advocates to retain as much control as possible shows how much they want to ensure as little power is given to the community as possible. The community is eons greater in terms of size, passion, understanding of the criteria, culturally sensitive to their country's different customs and intricacies, and much more proactive in wanting to deal with the bad actors and invalid/abusive wayspots who make it terrible for everyone else. Aren't you strapped for resources, considering that those taking care of Wayfarer is a "pretty small team within Niantic"?

    ...

    Consider being the mediator instead. You provide the platform, we run the world. Stop trying to do everything at once. Reposition your internal reviewers to better deal with invalid or abuse reports/appeals (that are probably run by better experienced Wayfarers) instead of reviewing haphazardly and rejecting a couple of photos every now and then. Who made the executive decision to do Foursquare imports all across Turkey and Russia and even added a Pleasure Chest? There should be star reviewers or community advocates/Wayfarer ambassadors (maybe those who have done over 20k reviewers) who are supremely passionate for the Wayfarer community but leaving them be is squandering an opportunity.

    Stop working harder, work smarter.

  • TrevorAlan-PGOTrevorAlan-PGO Posts: 998 ✭✭✭✭✭

    I feel like maybe this announcement might have gone over SLIGHTLY better if it didn't start with "You spoke and we listened!", and was just like, listen up, here's the new rules. lol

    Because I don't think anyone on the forum was really asking for the 1st bullet point...

    So I guess we'll just see what happens. I won't lose any sleep over this change. (unless all my stuff starts getting rejected for no good reason) lol

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