Inclusion Rule Bug - Update
NianticTintino-ING
Posts: 1,019Niantic › admin
Hi Explorers,
We want to provide an update on this topic (original post here). The good news is that we are in the process of adding more Wayspots than we’re removing, resulting in a net increase of Waysposts globally. We’ve heard your feedback about these changes’ impact on your experience and have put together the below FAQ which goes into greater detail:
Q&A:
Q: What happened, and how did it happen?
A: Without getting too technical, a database error resulted in the accidental creation of about 45,000 Wayspots, primarily PokéStops, some where they shouldn't be. We’ve fixed the error and removed those Wayspots in violation of our inclusion criteria. As part of this work, we were also able to resolve a separate issue impacting Wayspot syncing, resulting in a net increase of 11,588 Waysposts globally.
Q: What will happen to my Pokémon that I currently have in a Gym that may be removed?
A: Any Pokémon in Gyms that were either converted into PokéStops or removed will return to you as soon as we finish implementing the update.
Q: Why do these new locations need to be removed?
A: You can read an overview of eligibility criteria for Wayspots here. We limit the density of locations in our games in order to keep the gameboard from becoming too cluttered.
Q: What is meant by "rebalancing the Wayspot ratio in each area"
A: This means that we will make sure our inclusion rules are honored in Pokémon GO and Ingress. In cases where the new Wayspots break the rules, they will be acted on. Some Wayspots that had been promoted as a result of this error were demoted again. We didn’t implement any type of new criteria or rules - we’re just enforcing our current policy. New Wayspots added that complied with the inclusion rules will be preserved.
Q: Why not keep all the Wayspots? Players seem to like them. It feels bad to have something added to the game board, then have them taken away.
A: We understand that it feels bad to see a new Pokéstop or Gym appear near you, then see it removed. Unfortunately, this change is necessary to keep the integrity of the game board, and we will do our best to make sure to preserve as many Wayspots as we can. Not all new Wayposts break these rules. In cases where the new Wayspots did not break the rules, they will be kept in game.
Q: There are plenty of other game bugs that I want Niantic to address first. Why prioritize making this change?
A: We know we have a lot of work to do to fix bugs and ongoing issues. Fixing this error could be done quickly and efficiently to keep our game board in a healthy state. Rest assured we’re also hard at work at addressing other known issues.
Comments
Q: What is meant by "rebalancing the Wayspot ratio in each area"
A: This means that we will make sure our inclusion rules are honored in Pokémon GO and Ingress. In cases where the new Wayspots break the rules, they will be acted on. Some Wayspots that had been promoted as a result of this error were demoted again. We didn’t implement any type of new criteria or rules - we’re just enforcing our current policy. New Wayspots added that complied with the inclusion rules will be preserved.
Theres reports of gyms that were incorrectly propmoted that were removed altogther instead of reverted to a stop.
As part of this work, we were also able to resolve a separate issue impacting Wayspot syncing
Are you sure it was resolved? We had a Pogo sync that night and none since. There's also reports of approved portals that should have synced into Ingress daily sync today and did not. (that should have made the cutoff)
It's one thing to keep the game board from getting too cluttered, but the current rules for Pokemon Go favour older POI. New and interesting POI often get left out of the game especially in dense downtown areas. My city recently installed a bunch of new sculptures around the city and with the current rules none of them will ever show up in game unless the older POI are permanently removed or people fudge the locations when submitting them. A cell with 3+ wayspots in it will obviously be too crowded in Pokemon Go but there are 2-wayspot cells that wouldn't diminish the quality of the game board.
All that was more than shared in the previous thread and this is the response to all of those comments. The Pokemon team makes up their proximity rules and seems like they arent backing away from them. Any feedback on this should be addressed directly with the Pokemon Team via in game, twitter or whatever other forms of communication they have.
I’ve noticed this evening that an original gym has been demoted to a stop with your quick fix. Is this now lost forever?
Well done for communicating I suppose, the bars been set so low that this is an accomplishment in itself.
However, I will never agree with the decision or revert back these loose stops and gyms. The words are meaningless when they’re twisted to fit whatever mood Niantic is in.
That’s all well and good, but this has resulted in the removal/demotion of long standing stops/gyms that were not added due to the issue, while the new ones remain.
...this change is necessary to keep the integrity of the game board.
...good news is that we are in the process of adding more Wayspots than we’re removing, resulting in a net increase of Waysposts globally.
Let me guess. Foursquare Imports?
Rest assured we’re also hard at work at addressing other known issues
I am not assured that many other known issues or concerns that people have raised in the forum are in the works when something that actually benefits us is reversed incredibly quickly when longstanding issues like Niantic-reviewed wayspots not appearing in Ingress, not getting back to us as to why every single post with a photo (or even the slightest of edits) has to be moderated to oblivion, and delivering other things that you promised (a streamlined abuse reporting system, better control of using our upgrades, to name a few) are not addressed.
Don't forget promised features like Appealing Rejections. Soon(TM)
@NianticTintino @NianticDanbocat @NianticGiffard @NianticCasey-ING
🤷🏻♂️ For years, there has been this nondescript statement from Niantic that the playing field should not be cluttered! I'm looking for the logic in the statement!? Why is a playing surface in Ingress with a lot more wayspots, less cluttered than PokéMon Go with less Wayspots. Do I not understand something here or is that a lie? Why are X portals allowed in a cell if the distance is right, but several PokéStops in one place that do not bring Niantic money? WHY is there not even a clear statement on this topic ? And anyway, why is there never a correct statement on a topic? Is that on purpose? The statement has a similar effect to the statement on the topic with the rejections at 1-2 ☆ stars in the categories, but as I said, it does not correspond to the truth.
What do we do if an old gym is removed by this fix? My area lost an old gym after this fix and this gym has been here since the beginning.
As part of this work, we were also able to resolve a separate issue impacting Wayspot syncing, resulting in a net increase of 11,588 Waysposts globally.
This sounds
incredibleincredulous. Color me skeptical but this is not what happened in my area. Can you elaborate any on this?We had a legitimately located Pokéstop promoted to a Pokégym, and the fix removed it entirely - no stop/no gym. Doesn't seem right.
Why is a playing surface in Ingress with a lot more wayspots, less cluttered than PokéMon Go with less Wayspots.
Because Ingress doesn't have anything on their gameboard except for the Portals and the number of times you can interact with them is extremely limited. On the other hand, Pokemon GO has Pokemon spawning all over the place, thus the need for Pokestops is much less necessary for basic gameplay. I can't understand why people are unable to grasp that.
So what about all the resources we used on the new gyms you took away? Let alone the time.
As stated on the other thread about this, I'm not too fussed by the result of this. I figured it was a bug immediately when it happened. The 8 Gyms we gained got turned back into Pokéstops, and my one Pokéstop that briefly got to experience being in Pokémon Go is back to only being in Ingress (I should've really submitted a photosphere and a location edit whilst it existed so that I could put it in the correct position, but never mind). The local game board is as it was before the bug happened.
This whole debacle has got me thinking about things though. For example, Niantic have been keen to say that these wayspots broke inclusion rules. Now most of us on here are fully aware what inclusion rules you're on about, but these rules have never officially been clarified by Niantic, and people who are not in the know may be confused by the statement mentioning this, especially if they're not involved with the Wayfarer community.
I realise the reason behind this vagueness is that you don't necessarily want the system to have that level of transparency, because that can potentially lead to people trying to game the system (and indeed there are many examples posted on here of people who are in the know about these rules and are attempting to do exactly this). The trouble you have here is, the info you're trying to keep hidden is already well and truly out there in the open for everyone to see. At this point in time, it would probably make more sense just to be open and upfront about the details of the inclusion rules, rather than just vaguely referencing them like this post does. That way, people would better understand the situation.
Originally, this message was going to include at least three additional paragraphs relating to the statement about maintaining the integrity of the game board and how that strangely doesn't apply when it comes to sponsored locations or in person events hosted by Niantic, but I realised that I was going off on a tangent that would be more suited for the eyes of the Pokémon Go team. Alas, there's no dedicated forum to post that in, and there's no real conversation when it comes to the in game support in Pokémon Go, so I'll probably just can those three paragraphs in the hope that one day, we might actually be able to share dialogue with the Pokémon Go team like we do with the Wayfarer and Ingress teams on their respective forums. It's nice to be able to talk to someone and actually have them talk back.
Interesting! Thanks for the extended response as an explanation, I appreciate the info. Although I'm not sure if I understand whether or not the update for the syncing issue is live yet. If the game map (as we're currently seeing it) is representative of its final state going forward, I'm wondering if all the changes have already been applied or if some are still waiting to be synced into the game.
However, one aspect I'd like to point out in regards to the inclusion rules themselves is the definition of "too cluttered", which once again doesn't really explain much when you think about it. Unfortunately, to get my message through I'll need to speak in technical terms here, but I hope that this won't mean it will simply be disregarded that way. As of now, we had known that the limits for Wayspot creation in each game were the 20m radius for Ingress and the S2 cells system in Pokémon Go. The issue with having two different systems across both games has become more and more apparent throughout the time that Wayfarer has been a thing, and especially the fact that it has never been officially acknowledge has made it really difficult to understand what Niantic actually knows about the topic. For example, did anyone realize that S2 cells have different shapes and sizes according to the part of the globe. For example, the area for an average lvl17 cell may range from a surface of 2970m² to a maximum of 6227m² (which is almost a factor of 2!) and therefore, instancing a limit of Pokéstop or Gym for each of this cells may not correlate to an equally fair experience for people located in different areas across the planet.
What's even worse is that, contrary to what has been the case in Ingress for many ages, the game map itself for Pokémon Go is not correctly calibrated to be displayed at different latitudes, meaning that players living closer to the poles will have their Pokéstops more spread out compared to someone who instead lives towards the equator. This is due to the equirectangular projection of a sphere onto a plain which, despite what the name might suggest, doesn't correlate to rectangles being translated into equal areas, as is the case for the S2 cells we were mentioning. Or at least that would be the case if the formula implemented in the game wasn't wrong, as you can't simply do base×height in polar coordinates. This effectively means that in some areas, the game map may appear as something like 10 times more dense than others, according to my estimates. This basically proves that the notion of "too cluttered" doesn't really make sense under this specific point of view, especially if the game was calibrated to be that way in an area which had a higher density by design. I really think that the inclusion rules as they are presented now are unambiguously the wrong approach to solve the cluttering issue going forward, and therefore I think that implementing the same system in both games is probably the best option going forward, not only for the Wayspot density but especially for how the game map is presented
All it seemed to Me is everything that got added last week or so got removed. And the 4 location edits locally thay we did last year that break the inclusion rules has re appeared.
we had 20 gyms dissapear over macarthur reigon because of this reverse. And last year we had 4 edits In queue just before the 10m edit rule came in. They got accepted. Moved in ingress but not Pokémon. Few months later they just all of a sudden dissapeared. then yesterday re appeared in the new location That was accepted last year. They’re all legit and are In the correct spots but not by there wayspot inclusion rules.
I was fortunate I guess, we gained 2 gyms and knowing it was a bug and probably going to be removed, I didn't put a lot of effort into either of them. Only those gyms were removed, one back into being only an Ingress Portal for one, and a pokestop for the other, as they were beforehand.
However there does seem to be a lot of people anecdotally stating the wrong things have been removed, or rather than being demoted a POI has been removed entirely. Additionally I have seen people reporting that pokestops that were removed from pokemon go due to the new edit rules and being edited into an occupied L17 S2 cell, seem to have been reinstated. Was this part of the 10k POI added to the game... because if so, then these seem to also be breaking the gameboard rules?
I'm still in the position that new waypoints I submitted, despite being >20m from anything else, despite being in a free L17 cell, do not show in either game. The forced sync you implemented when you announced this decision has not solved the ongoing sync problems. Sorting those problems out may go some way towards the ill feeling, because then at least we would start to be able to benefit from the contributions that we have actively been making to the game board.
While I knew that many are still in compete denial that this is even possible, I think the "keep the integrity of the game board" is Niantic's way of telling us that this is part of their licensing agreement with The Pokemon Company and that it cannot changed. Places like Zaragoza, Spain and Budapest, Hungary can be ignored because they are isolated incidences and wouldn't cause TPC to pull the license, but this was a system wide mistake that had to be corrected or else they are in breach of that license agreement.
I mean really, the doubling, then tripling, and now quadrupling down of the spacing rules dispite all the depands from Pokemon GO players to change them is as strong evidence that this is not something that Niantic is in complete control of. And yet, I still see people keep claiming that Niantic can do whatever they want are are only being "stubborn pricks", which I find far more far fetched given the IP involved and complete lack of evidence to support that position.
Put your confetti away Niantic. This has negatively impacted your player base. Premium items used by players in good faith and no comment as yet as to how you plan to reimburse these
I have an approval that nothing will prosper from August. I want to know how to inquire without anything around 20m.
This is the wrong address here!
I can only wholly agree.
We actually had very little change locally.
I warned the few gold badge hunters that they were likely to go, sooner rather than later.
I had fun placing in my long forgotten POI which appeared as a gym - it had its moment but knew it wouldn’t last.
The pointlessness of the rules “that shall not be named” has been shown up yet again.
It only causes confusion and is unhelpful especially when situations like this arise.
So many good points raised in this thread. Niantic (or The Pokémon Company, as the case may be) won't listen to them though. There's been issues that have been been raised for months, and in some cases, years yet yes, a bug that actually benefits people is fixed in mere days. What the F...?
If I understand correctly, this issue has been resolved and there aren't any more stops to be added. I know of two locations right now where all the wayspots are in Ingress, but there are none in Pokemon Go.
I received 2 mail about accepting portals - "If your submission is accepted in Ingress, then you will receive +1000 AP as well as its Portal Key for your discovery". However, more than 24 hours passed and portals did not appear in Ingress or Pokémon go. There are no portals near to hit "too close".
@NianticTintino ???
I had a pokemon in on of the gyms reverted to a pokestop. My dragonite has NOT come back. It has been more than 48 hours since the gym was reverted. When will my pokemon come back?
Two sponsor-related gyms have disappeared this time.
Even when the sponsor withdrew before, one of the valuable gyms in front of the station disappeared even though there were few gyms.
It remains a difficult environment to play.
Currently, we are trying to increase the number of Way Spots, but for local governments with a short history and no budget,
There are few candidate parks and trail markers, so I am having a hard time.
There are also cafes that have a 4.7 rating on google, which should be an approval standard.
Dojos (Olympic karate and judo) were also denied by the Niantic examination.
Please tell me what to do.
Hello Explorers,
Please note that I've taken the appropriate notes and will be sending to the Pokémon GO team.
Well, I'm glad someone has finally provided an official reasoning as to why the "inclusion rules" are a thing in the first place. But I still think it's a pretty lame reason. Ingress already has a UI solution for cases where portals are extremely close together, so a densely packed board doesn't really break anything there. And if Ingress can handle that, there's no reason why a similar feature couldn't be implemented into Pogo.
Plus, we still haven't been told exactly what these rules entail. Yeah people have more or less figured it out, but that just makes the vagueness more offputting. At the very least, you guys should really just tell us plainly what is allowed to get in each game and what isn't.
That also doesn't address the recent issue of what happens if a wayspot is approved, but is placed too close to another one to appear in any game. We'd have no way to know it's in the system and be forced to waste a submission, or worse, an upgrade, just to be informed that the submission is a duplicate. Lightship database map when?
Any information on how and when we will see an increase of wayspots?? Honestly not trusting niantic’s promised anymore, because you all break it quite often, and you always remove the good things for Pokémon GO.