How much weight do you put on the description?

I make a point of writing up short yet informative descriptions. I also always include even more information in the supplemental information including links relevant to the stop.

I so rarely see any of the above - mostly just one or two words like church, museum, ball field, etc. So what to do in those situations? Most of them would make great submissions aside from the poor descriptions.

(Note: mine usually get rejected anyway no matter how much additional info I include :/)

Comments

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

    I would not reject because the nominator can not come up with anything better than "church" (for a church), or "park" (for a park), etc.. I may give like 3* for description though but vote to approve the nomination.


    What I will drop down to 2 or even 1 star for the description aspect or 1* reject based on the description is nominations of a church where the person uses the description to proselytize. I have had church nominations that have descriptions like "Believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved" or quoting biblical verses such as Acts 2:38 "Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost".


    The latter I just had on a nomination today.

  • Belahzur-INGBelahzur-ING Posts: 632 ✭✭✭✭✭

    I tend to go quite harshly - straight 1* on the title/desc box - Now we have Wayfarer, you have literally no excuse to NOT put some effort into your descriptions, your stuff sits in queue for 3-5 days before votring (normally my average), surely you can come up with more than 1 word? if your not making an effort, I'm giving it a very low rating.

    My view is that "should this be a portal"? - technically yes, but "should this submission pass?" no, absolutely not, I'll submit it myself and do a better job and upgrade it and get mine in before yours, then yours can be a dupe of mine.

  • PhoenixOmicron-PGOPhoenixOmicron-PGO Posts: 57 ✭✭✭

    I make my descriptions a single sentence. Anything beyond that reviewers will likely skim over. I personally rate overall if it should be a stop and rate every other box with that in mind. If it should be a stop I rate a three star on everything minimum. It isn't worth the time of wayfarer to nitpick nominations as long as the submissions are good overall. Just my opinion.

  • sophielab-INGsophielab-ING Posts: 266 ✭✭✭✭

    So, how should I "sell" you the park? Are you more interested in the swing set being a squeak free delightful gliding experience or the fact the the dog waste station is always stock with fresh bags for picking up. I can't even say you're doing it wrong because we're allowed to use judgement. I just don't see the point in rejecting a church because description is "church". It's appropriate/accurate and can be edited later if a long verbose description is desired.

  • sophielab-INGsophielab-ING Posts: 266 ✭✭✭✭

    @Fleur718-PGO The minimum description/title should be what would allow someone the locate the place if stated the name. Your city/town usually has a list of playing fields with names on a website if not use street names. That should help with the playing fields.

  • Gazzas89-PGOGazzas89-PGO Posts: 2,619 ✭✭✭✭✭

    For me, I try to add stuff in if there's stuff to add. For example, a play park, all I need to say for that is "play park for the locals to use" Why bother adding anything else? Same for football pitches or basketball courts etc. But if I'm adding a trail marker, a mural, park/nature reserve entrances etc. I'll try to add a bit more info, like the park, I'd mention when it opened, what's in it etc. The trail marker I'd say where the trail starts and ends, the mural I'd add the painters name if I can find it, then in the supporting of all of them I'd add any links of info i could find

  • sogNinjaman-INGsogNinjaman-ING Posts: 3,313 ✭✭✭✭✭

    90% of the time my opinion of the Waypoint is decided by a look at the photos and the Sat View location map. Not because I won't read descriptions, but because 90% of the stuff I get are "standard" submissions - postbox, coal, PRP, LRF, village hall, road sign type things that I have seen 100s of times before - the description just gets a quick scan.

    For standard stuff, I don't think there is any need to provide a massive description - "Parish Church in xxx" is fine. One problem I have noticed recently is an uptick in people doing "cut and paste" 3rd party descriptions, which means a rejection for an otherwise valid Waypoint. I presume these are done by people doing remote subs who feel the urge to fill the description box. If it looks to "well written" or sounds like an advert from a web page ("At xxx restaurant, we server a great selection on xxx") then I will look into it more.

    One thing I could really do without is the constant stream of "No Pokstops nearby / need more stops in the village / high footfall, good place for a gym" type supporting info. Thats irritating.

  • feliscybernicus-PGOfeliscybernicus-PGO Posts: 97 ✭✭✭
    edited November 2021

    IIRC, the Niantic guideline for title and description is:


    1* inaccurate but not wrong enough to warrant rejection for the entire nomination. Such as, you nominate a statue and it says "Old thing".

    2* something that is a broad inspecific description of the target but technically not inaccurate, such as you nomiante a statue and call it "Stone art thing"

    3* for nominations that are neither wrong nor right, or you're unsure. Such as for a statue, just "Statue"

    4* when it's slightly more descriptive, just "Statue of famous person" or "Statue of Elvis".

    5* when it's an elaborate description, such as (title) "Statue of Elvis Presley" or (description) "Statue of Elvis Presley, the King of Rock and Roll. One of the most significant cultural icons of the 20th century, 1935-1977. " and anything more elaborate than that, as long as still on topic.

  • Stephyypooke-INGStephyypooke-ING Posts: 506 ✭✭✭✭✭

    I think your example of “Play park for the locals to use” doesn’t necessarily need anything else but I think the OP is talking more about if you put just “play park” as the description.

    The one word descriptions (church, park, playground, etc.) are not my favorite so I usually rate the title/description category as 4*.

    If the title, description, and supplemental are all the exact same couple words I usually mark down to 3*.

  • Gazzas89-PGOGazzas89-PGO Posts: 2,619 ✭✭✭✭✭

    Yeah I've just realised that now. But it's also how I would review, 5 star for both want I put in. If its just 1 word, I'd probably 3 star that, if the description for a church was just "church" and not even the name of the church, that would be 3 star, 4 star for if they give the name of the church (so say, Lord Jesus christ church) for both the title and description. 5 star if they add more

  • HankWolfman-PGOHankWolfman-PGO Posts: 4,851 ✭✭✭✭✭

    Descriptions are not required, but I don't understand people who don't use them. It's an extra text box for you to put additional information in about what makes your nomination interesting, and unlike the supporting info, the description box isn't skipped over by the autoscroll in Wayfarer, so the chances are that reviewers will actually read that part (I wish it was required to actually look at all of the supporting info before making a decision on a nomination, but that's a gripe that can be saved for a different thread). It can really help to sell a nomination.

    If there is no description, I wouldn't mark a nomination down, but if there's a poor description, then I may score it slightly lower (though as long as it's still legible and doesn't break any rules, I won't rate it low enough to reject it).

  • feliscybernicus-PGOfeliscybernicus-PGO Posts: 97 ✭✭✭

    I think the point basically is that the title is more relevant than the description in terms of evaluation. Desc isn't necessary, but title is. If the title isn't much, the desc becomes more important, but if the title is descriptive enough and the target surefire, an empty desc is better than a desc with inaccurate information. A good desc though is always better, naturally.

  • Kawhinot-INGKawhinot-ING Posts: 189 ✭✭✭

    I usually see the description as being more important when there is a nomination where the title is not exactly clear about what the nomination is for. For example, if the title is a historic building, I would like to see something about when it was built, etc (i.e. Built in 1920 by well-known architect X., or as appropriate.) And that would likely help me give it slightly more stars. But if it is pretty much a slam-dunk nomination such as a park or a playground, I would hope to see something short and sweet like "Community Playground in X neighborhood". If someone puts zero effort into a description like one word, I would likely just 3 star it, as opposed to something with a few more descriptive words where I would give it 4 or 5 stars.

    The title and the picture are more important than the description to me. Although I have seen a few horrible descriptions such as requests to get it approved, wording that makes no sense, riddled with spelling/punctuation/grammar errors where I have taken away stars.

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