20m rule, is it really needed?
So for the last couple of months in ingress, the 20m rule was gone and several people found that interesting things could be submitted without fear of it never appearing everyone was happy. Then the sync fail happened, and people let biantic know, still thinking the 20m rule was gone forever but nope, it returned, and a lot of people on here and the ingress forum are rightly peeved.
I believe the 20m rule was for pre prime days, when there wasn't an option to select the portal you want in the game, but now there is so ghe question becomes, is the 20m rule necessary anymore? The reason it was introduced now no longer exists, the last few months have proven it isn't needed now, so should niantic have brought it back?
I know this is probably shouting into the hurricane, but I figured it would be worth opening a thread on here, letting people give their views and hopefully @NianticDanbocat @NianticTintino and @NianticGiffard can give their views, and five the feedback from this thread to the relevant people, letting go go know that we don't want (or maybe do want) the 20m rule anymore, and that in our opinion (or mine at least) its just meaning there will be hundreds of thousands of pois not being submitted as there's no point
Comments
It would also be good to hear from the wayfarer ambassadors (and they also bring this uo at their meetings or whatever they have to do)
Its understandable that no rules at all can create huge unplayable clusters,
BUT on the other hand, a ton of POI get lost into the void of lightship database.
I've already lost three high quality POI's in an archaeological site since this rule is back again after the fix of the sync.
I've recently visited places that could get more portals( i haven't submitted them in the past since we had the 20m rule),
and I had a ton of fun exploring and collecting new available& submittable Points of interest since i've noticed that the rule did no longer exist.
Now we are back into misery, wasting a ton of time and energy, planning the location of the pin of every submit especially in clustered areas. (A lot of POI can have several locations such as football fields, churches, playground and other big objects).
I am really demotivated to submit more things, I feel the burnout, now we wait for sync and pray to Niantic gods that they won't mess up again and our accepted submit will give us the +1 count in our profile and we will see it in-game.
Just simply imagine using one upgrade, one submit, a ton of time to take pictures, prove the location, and add a good description/title in a submit, and after all this effort it gets accepted only to have it lost into the void of Lightship just because of some meters. And the worst thing is that after all that, you cannot submit it again since it will be voted as a duplicate even if it doesn't show up in any game, just in the Lightship database.
After 400 updates used & 1300 submits done, I feel like quitting, Niantic keeps on shoting themselves on the foot , showing zero respect for their players. We only get more frustration on every update.
It was very poorly communicated but that’s to be expected with Niantic now I guess.
Players noticed, and submitted some things that would have been proxy before and had a bunch accepted.
I get that it’s needed on Pokémon GO for the cells, to not have stops on top of each other as there’s no tap ambiguity to ensure you’re using the right one. But even on GO, you can have one less than 20m away, so long as it’s in a different cell.
The Ingress forums are also in disagreement with this.
As far as i cam tell, the 20m rule isn't in pogo at all, probably never was as originally it took its stops from the ingress game map, so if a portal didn't exist because of 20m, pogo never got it, but there was a few months before the 20m rule left ingress that stops within 20m were coming in so long as they met the cell rules
Thanks @Gazzas89-PGO for opening this up.
I agree with @PkmnTrainerJ-ING about communication.
If as soon as it was noticed there was a communication to say that it is a glitch and they will remove it, it would have been clear and peoples expectations would have been managed.
If the said we now have a timetable for changes and we expect sync to be disabled and it will fix the 20m rule, again everyone would be clear.
Its really not hard to do and clear communication with wayfarers shows you respect them and see them as valuable parts of the team.
It has resulted in the 20m rule ingress being confirmed…….if only Niantic could be clear about the PoGo spacing rule that dares not speak its name it would be a start.
I have never minded the 20m rule in the past and have experienced the frustration of trying to utilize portals right on top of each other while playing.
However, since the introduction of Lightship and these proximity portals now being accepted into a ghost database, I do find it frustrating not being able to see my contributions. I would be happy with a Lightship map so I could see my contributions that were accepted within 20m of another portal and ensure they are correct. I don’t think it’s good enough only being able to see them on the submission map to check for duplicates, I want to admire my work!
Why does this remind me of all the people complaining about their nominations for pokestops that don't appear in Pokémon go, and they get back this "helpful" people telling them that each game has its own rules that be must respect, that we are nominating for Niantic and not for one specific game and that all of that doesn't belong to this forum?
I think, just like any of the complaints about PoGO inclusion and S2 restrictions, there's a case to be made about how spacing restrictions in games affect Wayfarer by adding "unnecessary" review time and/or "wasting" upgrades and also end up "encouraging" abuse of people gaming placement on the map.
I also think almost every complaint that has been made so far on the Wayforum is only about inclusion to the games, not anything to do with Wayfarer and should be being brought up on the Ingress forum for their community, Vanguards, and dev/Niantic team to discuss.
I had my response typed up before reading your comment, but basically parallels my thoughts, too.
However, I'll add that when I've pushed the narrative on PoGO restrictions (I have before and tried to bring it up in an AMA) it was in a Wayfarer focus. I believe my question was similar to "What sort of lessons learned and takeaways have the Wayfarer dev team learned from how restrictions in popular games affect the Wayfarer map and, and what sort of feedback are they able to return to those dev teams to help mitigate excessive duplicates and such abuse?"
The S2 and 20m restrictions DO affect Wayfarer, but most of the complaints in this thread and similar ones don't address that, just how they are back in "misery."
Weirdly, one of the xm ambassadors said it should be brought up here 🤣🤣 hopefully this isn't a pass the problem lol
While I don't like the pogo spqcing, I do understand it's need to an extent, stops, gyms, pokemon, rocket grunts, these are all on the map amd there's no easy selection method, but ingress does have one and the portals are not big, so it doesn't make as much sense
I have withdrawn all my queued nominations. I am neither reviewing nor nominating until the 20m rule is no more.
Speaking for myself, I would love to see a change of the restriction at the least but fully removing would be ideal. 20 meters is a long distance, even lowering it to 5 would open up a ton of possibilities. I did mention my own thoughts and what the community has said about it to Niantic. Whether anything is changed in the future is impossible to know.
Now that Lightship is the main repository of Waypoints, it seems logical that the Ingress inclusion is decided by the Ingress side server/app and their associated team. Maybe the logic is coded into Lightship, but it seems more clear based on that separation and NianticThia's response that it is an Ingress decision and not (necessarily) a Wayfarer one.
Sorry about the runaround between sites. I saw your note about bringing it up as an Ambassador. I personally don't have as strong of an opinion on the 20m wrt Ingress, but I've shared in my above posts why I do feel it is a Wayfarer problem. This topic will be discussed more, but it would be nice to see more people in here contributing to why it's a Wayfarer issue than simply for Ingress.
The 20 meter rule ensures that Ingress Agents cannot get good submissions through, because of other, weaker candidates that are nearby. We got a ton of great portals activated lately, and now we're going to see a ton of rejections. There's no point to the 20 m rule.
I posted this in reply to the announcement to the Ingress forum:
Really bad move on Niantic. Since new wayspots were going into Ingress, within 20 metres, this has been fantastic from a Wayfarer perspective.
I and many others in the UK wayfarer community have had our passion for discovering new places reignited.
Since December, I have been able to add dozens of amazing points of interest to the network that would have otherwise not seen the light of day, this was why I started OPR and Wayfarer years ago.
Others who share my enthusiasm, have driven hundreds of miles, spending days just visiting new places, just to be able to add amazing places in our world to YOUR network, Niantic, for everyone to enjoy.
If I’m not mistaken, this is your aim? Promoting exercise, exploration and being social with others. It feels like a kick in the teeth to have put in all this effort for the rug to have been pulled out from underneath.
In the queue and voting, I have over 30 candidates - great and genuine points of interest: pubs, historic buildings, mile markers, sculptures, education boards - all that would just get added to your network, but with no benefit to Ingress.
As others have said, the lack of communication is on of Niantic’s shortcomings. We’re supposed to in a new age, where break downs of communication were a thing of the past, but here we are.
This is probably going to fall on deaf ears, but this was a bad decision. A very bad one.
Hopefully, myself and others expressing our views constructively may help this decision to be reversed, but this very anti-community decision has lost a great deal of good-will from the Wayfarer community- the very people who Niantic owes its network and successes to.
I stand by this statement and hope someone at Niantic will reconsider their stance.
Simplest answers to whybit could pertain to wayfarer are
Less submissions will be put in cause why bother if they won't appear in any game, I know future games may, but just now ingress has the most pois on the map. So having it gone would be beneficial from that sense to wayfarer
Less abuse fron the ingress side (pogo will have its own abuse)
Those 2 alone could at keast warrant wayfarers inclusion in the discussion
I was in the botanical garden of Hamburg yesterday. I submitted over 60 nominations. Based on the thought that the 20m rule is not active, I haven't checked any cells or distances. From my 60+ Nominations, only TWO would now be eligible for any game. Partly, a few centimeters will now make my nominations worthless.
As a wayfarer, not having to watch the 20m rule makes things way easier, decreases location abuse, and leads to the possibility of showing great wayspots close to other wayspots.
Please, please, please.
Could someone explain me how applying again the 20m rule that had been working for so long is so different with regards to wayfarer to what the Pokemon players have been facing since day one such that only ONE wayspot in a S2 L17 cell is visible in their game?
You are now so upset because you can't get two wayspots closer than 20 meters in your game???
If you didn't stand with the pokemon players that requested to remove or change the S2 rules, why do you expect that now Niantic will care about you?
All that I see in the screenshots above is "abuse" of people "clustering portals" . You have no right to tell other people that the spacing rules of their game are right or aren't related to wayfarer itself and then start posting these messages to remove the rules in your game of choice.
really sad to hear the 20m rule wasnt intended, means that alot of valid submissions in dense areas is no longer possible. so i will need to withdraw a few whats the point waste upgrade if it will only be rejected too close existing.
No, they won't be rejected. They will be accepted and added to lightship, that's the mantra that some people keep repeating.
The goal isn't to add wayspots to your game, but to feed them to lightship and they might be used in the future.
Does that sound right? Because that's the answer that has been provided to the people that complained that their nominations didn't appear in Pokémon go
I see this as more similar to the backlash when Niantic returned interaction distance to its original amount before eventually giving in and making the doubled distance permanent but that's just my personal take.
There is definitely a comparison to be drawn in the behaviors that this choice will lead to along with the behaviors we see as a result of the L17 S2 restriction in Pokemon Go. The big ones are purposely inaccurate locations, needless location edit requests that make the location less accurate, and simply choosing not to bother nominating something at all.
That last reason is the big one, and it transcends game loyalty. Regardless of other current or future incentives for nominating, simply seeing the thing you took the time to nominate appear in any way for other players to view is a big deal for a lot of us. As it stands currently, the only way to see these approved nominations at all is in our personal contributions list on the wayfarer website, and on the map displayed while submitting new Pokestops. There is currently very little incentive to take the time required to nominate things that are within 20 meters of an existing waypoint and nearly all wayfinders will choose not to. This has a negative impact on wayfarer and niantic's lightship db.
What can niantic do about this? well they could explore the possibility of lowering the distance limitation to say 10 or 5 meters. on a human scale 20 meters is a fairly long distance, does it make sense to keep it? they can provide tools such as a lightship intel map, or a new platform to explore all the way points in your area outside of the context of a game. will either of these be enough? hard to say, at the end of the day a lot of us simply want to improve our gameboards so maybe this will just become another permanent sore spot just like the cell restrictions in pokemon go.
And if they would reduce the distance restrictions for Ingress, why shouldn't they do the same for every other game?
each game is different and has unique reasons for the criteria used to select waypoints. it's pretty clear the differences between ingress and pokemon go and tweaking the distance for ingress would have a vastly different impact than it would in pokemon go
As it stands currently, the only way to see these approved nominations at all is in our personal contributions list on the wayfarer website, and on the map displayed while submitting new Pokestops.
And unfortunately, our personal contributions list might not even be an accurate portrayal of the Lightship poi since it only shows the original submitted location of a poi, it no longer updates to the accepted location if it is moved during review.
@WheelTrekker-ING
I think it’s the same fundamental issue.
Each game has its own rules and this was a hiccup applying the one in Ingress.
Ingress players are now back to where they were before.
in both ingress and pogo the spacing rules affects wayfarer. Although the submitting etc is meant to be separate from if it will appear in either game, there are few that will go to the effort if there is little chance of it appearing. So a lot of PoGo players will ignore a potential POI ( it uses resources in terms of submissions, time and effort ). The same applies to Ingress players it’s less than 20m - so yes it will go in the database but you will never have the satisfaction of interacting with it.
So yes it’s essentially the same and it does affect the overall database.
@WheelTrekker-ING
Could someone explain me how applying again the 20m rule that had been working for so long is so different with regards to wayfarer to what the Pokemon players have been facing since day one such that only ONE wayspot in a S2 L17 cell is visible in their game?
Sure. Even after reapplying...
20 meters distance restriction is somewhat logical, intuitive and often "works" in real world. Causes rarely surprises and frustration for submitters
S2 cell restriction is crude, non intuitive and in (too many) real world situations doesn't exactly work. Causes constantly surprises and frustration for nominators.
This is an Ingress issue, not a Wayfarer issue. Nobody on the Wayfarer team has any more say over Ingress inclusions than they do over Pogo’s. How did this thread get to nearly 30 replies with nobody expressly pointing out that this conversation is in the wrong place, when the same questions posed about Pokémon Go get shut down right away? The usual answer includes some form of ‘if only there was a Pogo forum like there is an Ingress forum’ yet still here we are.
How did this thread get to nearly 30 replies with nobody expressly pointing out that this conversation is in the wrong place
My comment would disagree with you.
I also think almost every complaint that has been made so far on the Wayforum is only about inclusion to the games, not anything to do with Wayfarer and should be being brought up on the Ingress forum for their community, Vanguards, and dev/Niantic team to discuss.
Despite that comment, I do think it's short sighted to completely ignore this as not being a Wayfarer issue.
Your comment is wrong.
This conversation has no relevance to PoGo, Pikmin, or future games. This is Ingress-only. The admins here have no influence over the issues at hand. This belongs in the Ingress forum.
It is being spoken about in the ingress forum but if you had bothered to read the thread, you would have seen that, as well as gendgi saying it maybe should have been in ingress, and me listing 2 reasons for why it could be wayfarer related