Personally, I like to see the game specific tags removed from the forums and allow people to pick their own Forum IDs separate from their IGN on their game accounts. I use the -PGO name simply as a preventitive measure against PGO-only players that frequently accuses anyone with an -ING name of only caring about Wayspots in relation to ING.
I do not participate in any local Wayfarer-specific community. But according to some discussions in the local Pokemon Go forum, there are at least two local non-public Wayfarer communities in Taiwan. And there is some controversy over them. Rumor has it that they help one another’s nominations to get accepted.
I’m not saying that they are bad guys. I would say that it is human nature. Even for high-integrity people, it is difficult to remain neutral when it comes to someone they know well and like. Imagine that you saw a marginal nomination in the “nomination improvement” section, and you gave some advice. And then this nomination popped up on the reviewing screen. It is normal for you to rate higher because it is exactly your opinion. There is another scenario. Imagine that you are new to a Wayfarer community. You saw the senior member, who gave you advice, complaining about a marginal nomination got rejected. In this case, you would probably believe that the senior member is correct.
In my opinion, there are some grey areas in the current Wayfarer criteria. Whether a place is good for exploring/socializing is a subjective question. It is totally fine to have their interpretation as long as they do not violate the criteria.
I would agree that it is a great idea to shape the communities via the Ambassadors program. With this program, community members are able to collaborate with Niantic. And it is easier for Niantic to receive feedback from them. However, some issues must be considered.
1.Unfair to independent Wayfarers
Local community members are not equal to all Wayfarers in the area. Not all Wayfarers join the local community. While community members are able to send feedback directly to Niantic and help one another’s nominations get accepted, independent Wayfarers do not have such advantages. However, sometimes the consensus of the community may be wrong. In this case, independent Wayfarers’ voices are important to maintain the diversity of the ecosystem. The current Ambassadors program may not reach independent Wayfarers. The program may wipe out their voices.
2.Abusive communities
As you may know the cases in Poland and Vietnam, there are some abusive communities. Those communities ignore the criteria and accept everything located in their areas. That also happened in Taiwan. I mentioned it in this post. Rumor has it that they can control the location of gyms in Pokemon Go. They are suspected of accepting everything in their area and rejecting everything that is not in their area. I heard a lot of independent Wayfarers quit reviewing because of a lot of stupid rejections and stupid acceptance. Take this discussion as an example. It would be problematic if the community do not follow the rules. I’d like to know if there is any mechanism to prevent this from happening.
Thank you all for your positive responses, feedback, and questions. There are still several days left to apply! So far we have seen over 200 applications come through, EXCITING!!! With that said, I want to answer some of your questions from the discussions above.
Why NDA's?
Great question. We will have all Ambassadors sign NDA’s to ensure that all information about Wayfarer that Ambassadors may get access to remains confidential until (if applicable) it is ready to be shared with the community. This may be, but not limited to, unreleased features, confidential policies, etc.
Mission - Who's mission should we align with?
Both! The Wayfarer and the Niantic missions align and build off one another so when we ask about the mission or ask applicants to believe in the mission, we are referring to both. Of course, since this is a Wayfarer specific program, the Wayfarer mission will have a slightly heavier influence. I’m interested though, do you all see a difference in the missions?
How will this be different from other Niantic programs?
While I wasn’t here for the start of other Niantic programs, I’m excited to see where the Wayfarer Ambassadors Program will go. I’m excited to support the growth of the program based on the wants and needs of the Wayfarer Team, the Ambassadors, and the Wayfarer Community.
The program description is vague.
This is intentional. I made sure we provided enough information to start off and as mentioned above, I’m hoping that this program will evolve and grow to best support us all. So the vagueness is needed to make sure Ambassadors don’t come into a rigidly defined program where creativity may be stifled rather than fostered.
Special hat in PGO?
At this time there is no plan to add any distinguishers for being a Wayfarer Ambassador into Pokémon GO or Ingress, but we love the idea.
What is meant by SWAG
Super Wayfarer Access Grant hahah that’s a good one. When I mentioned SWAG I only meant it as official Wayfarer merchandise. As seen above, that might be in the form of a hat IRL and some other fun items. Currently we do not have any plans for a “Wayfarer Premium” or any type of cost for that matter.
Identifying Tags
These are meant to help us with making sure we have a well balanced team and not one heavily outweighed by one Faction/Team, geographical location, etc. We value diversity in opinions, experiences, etc and we want to make sure our Ambassadors represent the community they are a part of.
Again, thank you all for your positivity and excitement. If you’re still interested, you have a couple days left to apply!
Personally, i think the idea of having more diversity in locations is vital.
Wayfarer might be a universal thing, but the overall impression is that what "I" am doing here in my region in Germany, has little to do with what people in the United States are doing. Historical and cultural differences are huge, and so is the viewing angle from both sides of the pond.
NDA's and "legal action against the person" sounds very intimidating and makes me not want to apply. As someone pointed out, it sounds a bit too extreme for a volunteer program...? 🙂
But other than that, the program sounds very interesting. I love how you guys whip up all these great new ideas and how you listen to feedback from Wayfarers and actually reply in detail (this is a huge thumbs-up!). In my experience, the various Niantic game sections could learn a lot here. 🙈
Just a quick reminder that the deadline to apply to the Wayfarer Ambassador Program is tomorrow by 11:59:59pm! Can't wait to share with you all how many applications we receive once we close the application. I'm stoked for this program to kick off!
If your not under a good rating currently are you fully exempt from the program, or are you also able to apply at a later date? And if my rating goes up before my submission is read, will this effect my chances of being accepted?
Don't worry, there are enough people willing to work for free for Niantic, some of them even spend money to travel around in order to send more wayspots because they think that this would help other players (yeah, it will help them to spend money on Niantic's games), others enjoy "virtual travels" by watching the nominations, but I fail to see how all those bad nominations is interesting at all. Others enjoy the power trip of rejecting everything that doesn't match their standards about perfect wayspots, and there are other ones that take the power trip to the maximum by trying to attack communities requesting removals of valid wayspots as an act of revenge because they were outed due to any issues.
So in the end, there will always be people that want to take part in Wayfarer, although most of the people don't care at all about this, there are a few ones that this makes them feel important, and that's better than money for them.
Hopefully I will be accepted into the ambassador program, I would like to help my community with everything related to warfarer. I love the coexistence between all the players and everything it takes for the Niactic games
What an amazing last two weeks. Watching the applicant pool grow was very affirming that a program like this is very much needed and welcome by the community. As of last night midnight, the Wayfarer Ambassador Program Application has been closed. We got a whopping, ready for it…. 579 applications! It brings me a lot of excitement to see such a big interest in the Wayfarer Ambassador Program and I know we’re going to do some amazing things together!
So What’s Next?
In the next couple of weeks, the Wayfarer team will be reviewing all applications 1-by-1, manually, reading all of your responses, and selecting our top candidates. Once we have selected our top candidates, we'll be emailing invites to them in hopes that they'll be a part of our very first Wayfarer Ambassador Program group. Once we have all of our Ambassadors confirmed we’ll make an announcement here in the community.
I am pretty hyped. It will be really nice to see representation for all parts of the world if the Ingress Ambassador program is a good representation of how diverse the Ambassadors are.
I am excited to see who the ambassadors are. I didn’t apply as I am too busy with work. If the option comes available in the future I may though. I wish all of you the best of luck. This is a big deal. Stay awesome everybody & thank you all for everything you do for the community. Every person here has done good because I am sure everyone has submitted or made edits that benefitted the community. Thank you all for that, from me to you.
Comments
Looks like I will never get to use my -HPWU tag now.......
Maybe you can use a -BLOOM one or a -TFHM one in future?
Personally, I like to see the game specific tags removed from the forums and allow people to pick their own Forum IDs separate from their IGN on their game accounts. I use the -PGO name simply as a preventitive measure against PGO-only players that frequently accuses anyone with an -ING name of only caring about Wayspots in relation to ING.
Well I foresee this happening with the integration of Niantic Social
I do not participate in any local Wayfarer-specific community. But according to some discussions in the local Pokemon Go forum, there are at least two local non-public Wayfarer communities in Taiwan. And there is some controversy over them. Rumor has it that they help one another’s nominations to get accepted.
I’m not saying that they are bad guys. I would say that it is human nature. Even for high-integrity people, it is difficult to remain neutral when it comes to someone they know well and like. Imagine that you saw a marginal nomination in the “nomination improvement” section, and you gave some advice. And then this nomination popped up on the reviewing screen. It is normal for you to rate higher because it is exactly your opinion. There is another scenario. Imagine that you are new to a Wayfarer community. You saw the senior member, who gave you advice, complaining about a marginal nomination got rejected. In this case, you would probably believe that the senior member is correct.
In my opinion, there are some grey areas in the current Wayfarer criteria. Whether a place is good for exploring/socializing is a subjective question. It is totally fine to have their interpretation as long as they do not violate the criteria.
I would agree that it is a great idea to shape the communities via the Ambassadors program. With this program, community members are able to collaborate with Niantic. And it is easier for Niantic to receive feedback from them. However, some issues must be considered.
1.Unfair to independent Wayfarers
Local community members are not equal to all Wayfarers in the area. Not all Wayfarers join the local community. While community members are able to send feedback directly to Niantic and help one another’s nominations get accepted, independent Wayfarers do not have such advantages. However, sometimes the consensus of the community may be wrong. In this case, independent Wayfarers’ voices are important to maintain the diversity of the ecosystem. The current Ambassadors program may not reach independent Wayfarers. The program may wipe out their voices.
2.Abusive communities
As you may know the cases in Poland and Vietnam, there are some abusive communities. Those communities ignore the criteria and accept everything located in their areas. That also happened in Taiwan. I mentioned it in this post. Rumor has it that they can control the location of gyms in Pokemon Go. They are suspected of accepting everything in their area and rejecting everything that is not in their area. I heard a lot of independent Wayfarers quit reviewing because of a lot of stupid rejections and stupid acceptance. Take this discussion as an example. It would be problematic if the community do not follow the rules. I’d like to know if there is any mechanism to prevent this from happening.
Hello Explorers!
Thank you all for your positive responses, feedback, and questions. There are still several days left to apply! So far we have seen over 200 applications come through, EXCITING!!! With that said, I want to answer some of your questions from the discussions above.
Again, thank you all for your positivity and excitement. If you’re still interested, you have a couple days left to apply!
Safe Exploring!
thanks for the insight @NianticTintino
Personally, i think the idea of having more diversity in locations is vital.
Wayfarer might be a universal thing, but the overall impression is that what "I" am doing here in my region in Germany, has little to do with what people in the United States are doing. Historical and cultural differences are huge, and so is the viewing angle from both sides of the pond.
HAT HAT HAT HAT HAT HAT
NDA's and "legal action against the person" sounds very intimidating and makes me not want to apply. As someone pointed out, it sounds a bit too extreme for a volunteer program...? 🙂
But other than that, the program sounds very interesting. I love how you guys whip up all these great new ideas and how you listen to feedback from Wayfarers and actually reply in detail (this is a huge thumbs-up!). In my experience, the various Niantic game sections could learn a lot here. 🙈
Hello Explorers!
Just a quick reminder that the deadline to apply to the Wayfarer Ambassador Program is tomorrow by 11:59:59pm! Can't wait to share with you all how many applications we receive once we close the application. I'm stoked for this program to kick off!
Until then, Safe Exploring!
If your not under a good rating currently are you fully exempt from the program, or are you also able to apply at a later date? And if my rating goes up before my submission is read, will this effect my chances of being accepted?
The application should have nothing to do with your Wayfarer rating, imo.
In the end, only few people are being selected.
I'll see how things actually work in practice, and what positives Niantic actually allow Ambassadors to achieve before considering it.
Great question! I would still encourage you to apply as we'll be looking at the application holistically.
Hello Explorers!
A quick update! We are extending the deadline to 1/23/22 at 11:59pm PST! Two additional days in case folks need the weekend to apply.
Safe Exploring!
Have you decided how many ambassadors you will choose? For perspective, Ingress has 36 Vanguards and ~50 XMAs
Don't worry, there are enough people willing to work for free for Niantic, some of them even spend money to travel around in order to send more wayspots because they think that this would help other players (yeah, it will help them to spend money on Niantic's games), others enjoy "virtual travels" by watching the nominations, but I fail to see how all those bad nominations is interesting at all. Others enjoy the power trip of rejecting everything that doesn't match their standards about perfect wayspots, and there are other ones that take the power trip to the maximum by trying to attack communities requesting removals of valid wayspots as an act of revenge because they were outed due to any issues.
So in the end, there will always be people that want to take part in Wayfarer, although most of the people don't care at all about this, there are a few ones that this makes them feel important, and that's better than money for them.
Hopefully I will be accepted into the ambassador program, I would like to help my community with everything related to warfarer. I love the coexistence between all the players and everything it takes for the Niactic games
Hello Explorers,
What an amazing last two weeks. Watching the applicant pool grow was very affirming that a program like this is very much needed and welcome by the community. As of last night midnight, the Wayfarer Ambassador Program Application has been closed. We got a whopping, ready for it…. 579 applications! It brings me a lot of excitement to see such a big interest in the Wayfarer Ambassador Program and I know we’re going to do some amazing things together!
So What’s Next?
In the next couple of weeks, the Wayfarer team will be reviewing all applications 1-by-1, manually, reading all of your responses, and selecting our top candidates. Once we have selected our top candidates, we'll be emailing invites to them in hopes that they'll be a part of our very first Wayfarer Ambassador Program group. Once we have all of our Ambassadors confirmed we’ll make an announcement here in the community.
Until then, Safe Exploring!
579 is quite a lot. Do you have any estimate to how many applicants are going to be accepted into the program? Or is it too early to say?
I am pretty hyped. It will be really nice to see representation for all parts of the world if the Ingress Ambassador program is a good representation of how diverse the Ambassadors are.
I'd be curious about this as well.
I'd also be curious as to the geographic breakdown of the applicants. Like, by country and continent or something like that.
And does NIA plan to have a specific number per continent or country?
Wow! I'm really excited about this! I'm really curious about who will be chosen :) Finger crossed :P
Hope none of us typo’d when we put in our emails.
Good luck to all the aspirants and above all there are many ambassador For the benefit of the Wayfarer and Niactic community
Bummer - go away for a two week holiday and missed the window entirely.
Good to hear that so many people are interested in being an ambassador for Wayfarer.
It really shows people's commitment to the network of wayspots that is constantly improving.
Do you have an estimated time, or planned goal in mind as to when you want to complete this?
I am excited to see who the ambassadors are. I didn’t apply as I am too busy with work. If the option comes available in the future I may though. I wish all of you the best of luck. This is a big deal. Stay awesome everybody & thank you all for everything you do for the community. Every person here has done good because I am sure everyone has submitted or made edits that benefitted the community. Thank you all for that, from me to you.
Good luck to everyone who applied