Appeals - So, so many bad decisions are getting overturned. What next?
DragoniteDare-PGO
Posts: 26 ✭✭
In my state, a LOT of eligible POIs have never made it into the game, despite numerous resubmissions. Nianitic now seems to be adding them one by one, upon appeal. In fact, submitter teams report how they won each and every appeal so far.
I wonder how appeals decisions are tracking, are they generally mainly in favour of submitters?
And will Niantic make changes so fewer legitimate items will be rejected?
(and lastly, fingers crossed for more than one appeal a month! I have more remote trail makers for named wilderness hikes which were freshly rejected for lack of cultural importance. I won't go back there, so I can't resubmit)
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I'd like to see the numbers when they catch up too (or even now) as from what I've seen and heard, it's a very high positive turnover for accepting.
What I suspect is, people will start posting what niantic accepted onto forums, reddit, chat groups etc. and that will hopefully get people realising what they think isn't good enough is actually good enough. Same for things that end up being rejected as well
@Gazzas89-PGO I had a community centre (with a toy library etc) rejectd over and over again. It finally went through on appeal, and the local discord chat's comment was 'Well, Niantic is wrong, they shouldn't have added that'.
It is beyond frustrating. They just don't want new POI's, and particularly not in remote areas where portals are a pain to take down.
They said a community center isn't correct? I dotn know about the library thing, but a community center alone is a pass unless its in a school/nursery its am eligible candidate. Your discord group by the sounds of it isn't reviewing correctly
If Niantic themselves doesn’t systematically do anything to correct the poor voting decisions made by bad reviewers — up to and including retroactively reducing their “agreement” scores — then the systemic problem of the bad reviewers will continue eternally. But Niantic won’t.
“Trail Markers” is but one specific issue we know is systematically problematic. So is the one of “mediocre photos” — reviewers are NOT supposed to reject a nomination when a photo is merely “ok but not spectacular”. (ie. if a photo accurately represents the location, it’s ok if the lighting is not 100% perfect, or if a shiny object reflects its surroundings, or if one is unable to photograph it head-on squarely.)
But reviewers also systematically and incorrectly reject group activities like paintball or golf driving ranges. And I’ve got my own peculiar localisms (historic artifacts) that nonlocal reviewers don’t “get”, and I’m impatiently waiting for Niantic to review the appeal.
Another pet peeve of mine is that reviewers don’t appreciate “fun” titles or descriptions. MANY things don’t have official titles, and we are SUPPOSED to accept “creative” titles, as those help distinguish one location from another that may be similar. I’d much rather see a baseball-related pun in a title than “field #6” as is the sad norm.
Niantic needs to eduacte reviewers. If a reviewer declined a nomination, which got successfully accepted after an appeal, they should recieve a Message when logging in into wayfarer. This message should show them the nomination they we're wrong about.
A community centre can be eligble, but that doesn't mean a nomination is acceptable. The community centre might include a kindergarten, or something could be wrong with the photo, the title, the description, it might not be possible to verify the location, or it might not be possible to verify that this is indeed a community centre.
I'm not commenting on your nomination, of course, because I haven't seen it, just making general points. I see a huge volume of eligble wayspots trashed by the submitter and there's no way for the reviewer to effectively communicate such things as "plagiarised description" or "provide a URL - I can't find any evidence that this exists" effectively to the submitter. Very frustrating.
I'm still waiting on my first appeal which was made during the first week appears where opened. @NianticGiffard, can you give insight into why some early appeals are not getting reviewed?
I've literally only had one appeal done and all mine were in the first couple of weeks (yes, I did take advantage of the bug, but I only really had about 15 things to appeal then I was done, so rather tha wait a year and a bit I figured get them out the way early), whereas I know a few people who got the appeals in the week before they were closed and have already got them back, they are just picking completely at random, against the fifo that was said
There are lots of clues pointing that Niantic wants more Wayspot added to their database, so those that are gatekeeping "this photo is tilted", "there's a reflection in the glass", " "this is too common for my taste" should realize that this is not their travel guide.
It's so easy to read emotional post here claiming that Wayfarer is going downhill because there are too many common things being added to wayfarer, Niantic's response: You can now store up to 40 nominations and we have doubled the nominations from 7/14 days to 1 each day.
Appeals themselves are a proof that Niantic recognizes that people are incorrectly rejecting nominations, and until they act against the people that don't align with the goal of having more data in Lightship this struggle will continue.
I have only my first appeal back - acceptance on a trail rules sign that is the only marker for the trailhead. Another appeal has been In Voting Niantic for a full week.
My appeals are from 2017-2019. I don't think anyone should be punished for incorrectly rejecting them. Criteria change all the time, and most probably aren't reviewing anymore anyway. A notification would be interesting, except that there could be so many. I would suggest a new page on the Wayfarer site - Reviews Overridden... Except that Niantic is expressly against such a thing, saying it could help people "game the system".
Without researching a "community center" nomination, we can't say.
I wonder if on the back end Niantic might be able to see voting patterns with the appeals. If certain areas are rejecting trail markers and they are noticing its the same reviwers each time that they can do some re education.
I should elaborate on my specific submission: It was a plaque for the opening event of the community centre, which was unveiled by several dignataries.
The community centre does not house a school or kindergarten. While it caters for families, it requires adults to be with their kids at all times. It has a number of community meeting places inside, such as a community playground (for younger kids) and a toy library. It's a really great meeting place for local families.
@Gazzas89-PGO
@MargariteDVille-ING This was described in detail as a true community meeting place. the photo was of a plaque for the opening event of the community centre, which was unveiled by several dignataries.
The community centre does not house a school or kindergarten or similar.
Neither did it cater for 'down on your luck' locals. It is a genuine family meeting place and was described as such.
And while it caters for families, it requires adults to be with their kids at all times. It has a number of community meeting places inside, such as a community playground (for younger kids) and a toy library. It's a really great meeting place for local families, where parents can grab pamphlets about local services and share a coffee while they are there with their kids, borrowing a ride on toy or sitting with them near the playground.
It was rejected at least 3 times by voters.
My only appeal so far was rejected. The sign literally says, “National Recreation Area” but since there isn’t a sidewalk, I’m assuming they believe there is no pedestrian access. Hello most rural parks 🤦🏼♂️🤦🏼♂️
Oh well, not my area, just trying to get more portals and poke stops for people living out in the middle of nowhere…