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“On Hold” nomination taken into Niantic Voting?

NvlblNm-PGONvlblNm-PGO Posts: 167 ✭✭✭

I put a nomination “On Hold” because I wasn’t ready for it to go into voting.

I made an edit to it, then tried to make another edit and got an error. When I refreshed the page, I found that my nomination was now “In Voting” with a fancy little Niantic logo next to it.

I wasn’t ready for this nomination to be voted on and expected that I would continue to be able to edit it until I released the hold.

Why was my nomination pulled into voting before I released the hold?

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  • cyndiepooh-INGcyndiepooh-ING Posts: 1,319 ✭✭✭✭✭

    @NianticGiffard please check on this! The whole point of putting things on hold is that they are not ready to go into voting. Any voting!

  • TheQutestOfBorg-PGOTheQutestOfBorg-PGO Posts: 42 ✭✭✭

    I have just experienced the same issue - the nomination that I placed on hold went into Niantic Voting as I was attempting to edit it. I wasn't quite done editing, and now one of pieces of supporting information isn't as accurate as I would like it to be.

  • Howierag-PGOHowierag-PGO Posts: 5 ✭✭

    I just posted about this on the Wayfarer reddit. This happened to me yesterday and just as you stated, it also happened when I hit refresh. Luckily I had finished doing all my edits and the nomination was complete. I am glad it's technically "in voting" but still could be very frustrating for future nominations and edits! Hope it gets addressed soon! :)

  • TheQutestOfBorg-PGOTheQutestOfBorg-PGO Posts: 42 ✭✭✭

    Update on this issue (I will speak for myself and let the others chime in as they like). I have a reason to believe, with a high level of certainty, that Niantic Voting was triggered by a word contained in my supporting text. The word in question was "V1rg1n1a" - which is the name of a street. (Btw, I'm not sure if replacing "i" with "1" will keep me out of trouble here - we'll see.)


    So I have a couple of questions about this. First, does this seem like overcensoring things a little? The word in question has a lot of legitimate uses - in my case, it's part of a street name. 


    And, second - what is going to happen to our nominations that were flagged in this manner? Will we be receiving a decision directly from Niantic? Will these be returned back into Queue? And how long might it take? I'm starting to get a little nervous as it's been 11 days since my nomination was taken, without any change.


    @NianticGiffard, or anyone else - could you please help us understand what's happening here and what to expect?

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

    Adding my 2c.

    Subbed something today from a place here in the UK called Laisterďŷҟҿ (the last 4 letters, character map is too good for avoiding stupid low level word filters) it instantly went into Niantic review. I understand Niantic take things at random, take enough stuff and your bound to find something that was taken too quickly, so playing the game of odds, I submitted it again, same exact text, instantly went into Niantic voting for the 2nd time.... that seems a lot less like RNG suddenly.

    Submitted it a 3rd time, this time the text was just "edit" placeholder text, only this time, no Niantic review. So clearly something in the text instantly triggers Niantic review, re-worded my description and took the L word above out of my description and it's fine, still no Niantic review.

    So now we'll see who's faster, my upgrades, or Nia-review and which one gets duped.

  • Belahzur-INGBelahzur-ING Posts: 632 ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited August 2022

    Nevermind

    Post edited by Belahzur-ING on
  • NvlblNm-PGONvlblNm-PGO Posts: 167 ✭✭✭

    Hey @NianticGiffard , I think that @TheQutestOfBorg-PGO and @Belahzur-ING are onto something here.

    It looks like I might be risking a forum ban for typing out this word, but the last thing I was able to do before my nomination was ruthlessly ripped from On Hold into Niantic Voting added the word “Virginiana”.

    Given that biologists use this term when naming things strongly associated with the state of Virginia (I’m suddenly very glad I’m not trying to submit anything historical there!), it seems like a relatively harmless word that probably shouldn’t be problematic in a nomination, even if we’re talking about a Virginia Pine.

    Regardless as to how problematic a scientific taxonomy is, it’s concerning that my nomination entered voting before I released the hold. I could certainly understand Niantic wanting to do a little extra verification in some cases, but why is this happening before I’ve had a chance to complete my nomination?

  • fpopp21-PGOfpopp21-PGO Posts: 47 ✭✭✭

    A similar problem just happened to me. I submitted a nomination with one-word placeholders as title, description and supporting info, because I prefer to type the text on the Wayfarer website (as probably many others also do). However, when I logged in (like 5 minutes later), the nomination was already marked as in voting by Niantic, and I am no longer able to edit it and add proper text.

    Please, make it so that even nominations that are marked for Niantic voting have a 24-hour cooldown in which they can be edited or put on hold.

  • ABsoluteNOthing-PGOABsoluteNOthing-PGO Posts: 13 ✭✭

    same thing happened to me except i checked a few hours later, quite frustrating. wish i could withdraw at least

  • NvlblNm-PGONvlblNm-PGO Posts: 167 ✭✭✭

    The other day, I saw that someone had submitted a “Starbucks” since it wasn’t showing up in PoGo, despite being a sponsored location. I think this issue is pretty well understood - Niantic’s list of Starbucks locations doesn’t really get updated, so new locations don’t appear, and players who don’t understand why submit these locations thinking that this will make them pokestops or gyms. Their submission went into regular voting and was rightly rejected by the wayfarer community (though that doesn’t always seem to happen).

    Meanwhile, a couple local community members have sponsored an art installation, but attempts to nominate this artwork are pulled into Niantic Voting - either immediately (if submitted with a good description and supporting info), or when trying to edit a minimal nomination that has been placed On Hold.

    I can certainly understand Niantic wanting to prevent people from nominating sponsored locations like Starbucks or GameStop (or at least take a peek at anything that looks like it might be an attempt to do so), but it seems like these locations are still getting voted on by reviewers. Sponsored art installations, on the other hand, seem stuck in perpetual limbo, thrown into some box where they are both being reviewed and not being reviewed at the same time, regardless of how many times they are observed.

  • TheQutestOfBorg-PGOTheQutestOfBorg-PGO Posts: 42 ✭✭✭

    Pulling something with a word "sponsored" immediately into Niantic Voting may or may not have something to do with Starbucks and similar nominations. We simply don't know. Which brings me to my next point. It's been over a month now with no change in status and no communication from Niantic, while everyone is left to guess and speculate about what's going on. Can we please get an update on this?

  • NvlblNm-PGONvlblNm-PGO Posts: 167 ✭✭✭

    That’s true! I’ve made a lot of assumptions about why Niantic would want to review nominations which mention sponsors… they do want to review these nominations, right? Please tell me you actually know these nominations exist and are reviewing them, Niantic. Am I making another unfounded assumption here?

    For all I know, sponsor may be a very naughty word in some language which isn’t English completely unrelated to Starbucks or GameStop! Or is there an English meaning I’m not aware of? I better go check Urban Dictionary…

  • dustinyeeaah-PGOdustinyeeaah-PGO Posts: 526 ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited September 2022

    I know that some words were banned in Wayfarer before (couldn't save the edits because of bad word error), but for the past month or so the filter is working differently. Instead of throwing an error, the nomination edit gets saved and it gets directly send into Niantic voting. Some words that I suspect to trigger this filter are "v1rgin", "****!ocaust", "spons0red", "gesp0nsert" and maybe "educat1on", "picn1c" and "restaurant". Not sure about the last three.

    Post edited by dustinyeeaah-PGO on
  • Melurra-PGOMelurra-PGO Posts: 421 ✭✭✭✭✭

    This went through Niantic voting. What in the world could have triggered it? I'm fairly confident this was quasi-randomly selected, not triggered.


  • NvlblNm-PGONvlblNm-PGO Posts: 167 ✭✭✭

    There are two similar issues that started around the same time. This thread mostly tracks issues with things “triggering” Niantic Voting in a highly repeatable fashion, while another thread mostly tracks issues with nominations immediately entering Niantic Voting with no grace period:

    When Niantic said these are taken “quasi-randomly” I’m not sure whether what they meant by that is “seemingly randomly” (i.e. not randomly) which matches the definition of quasi-randomly, or whether they were trying to say that they are taken “partially randomly” (i.e. sometimes randomly and other times not) which is a valid meaning for the “quasi-“ prefix, but not what quasi-randomly generally means, or whether they were saying something else entirely.

    Perhaps they did mean something else entirely - they don’t always seem to have a firm grasp of the ways they can be misinterpreted, whether willfully or not. For example, when they say “several days” I might misinterpret that as meaning “three or four” when what they really mean is “an unbounded range greater than 22”.

  • NvlblNm-PGONvlblNm-PGO Posts: 167 ✭✭✭

    I heard that @NianticTintino said this was fixed, so I was excited to be able to add “sponsored” into a relevant nomination again! I had to be really careful about avoiding mentioning any sponsorships, and it was leading to some awkward and stilted language, so I was thrilled to think that I could fix this!

    I was lucky that my nomination was still “In Queue”, but it seemed a little vague as to whether Niantic might decide you yank my nomination from this state still, so to be extra safe, I put it “On Hold” before making any changes.

    I quickly edited it to mention the sponsors, hit save, and expected to still be holding onto my nomination.

    Unfortunately, it has disappeared from my hands, cast into a pit of darkness alongside several other forgotten nominations. What penance must I undergo to see my nominations returned to me? I fear Niantic shall ask too much.

  • 26thDoctor-PGO26thDoctor-PGO Posts: 4,922 ✭✭✭✭✭

    Three of my nominations that were taken into Niantic Voting came back with results.

    I'm not sure what that means in terms of trigger words, bugs etc @NvlblNm-PGO


  • Howierag-PGOHowierag-PGO Posts: 5 ✭✭

    This just happened to me two times in a row. Today is September 23, so not sure if the first issue was fixed but really isn't? Both times, my description was incomplete, was "On Hold" and suddenly just went to Niantic Review. It has happened to me countless times in the past month as well, when nominating new stops/portals.

    I'll summarize what happened, which matches previous posts: whenever I am editing my nominations on my computer, suddenly the nomination goes into Niantic Review. Most times, the title, description and supplemental information is totally incomplete or halfway complete. This has been happening a lot the past few weeks.

    It is frustrating as some times I cannot re-nominate these stops since I travel a lot. For the most recent two nominations, they are inside my local airport which makes it tougher to re-nominate. Can this be looked at deeper?

  • More than 2 months ago (around 21. of july 2022) this happened with my nomination and still stuck there. My nomination went direct into niantic voting when is was on hold. I did not release it. I was in the middel of translating from danish to english when is happened. Now it is half english and half danish, not very good, I have no way of editering it now. It was on hold, but the page went down several time when I pressed "done" (gave some error). The last time I restarted the page (on my mobile), nomination was in niantic voting. I did not release the hold. That been said, can it be right, that niantic voting takes more than 2 months or is the nomination stuck in a wird loop.


  • MargariteDVille-INGMargariteDVille-ING Posts: 2,846 ✭✭✭✭✭

    After 3 months, we have to consider this is on purpose. Maybe it's to discourage spontaneous nominations. Compose your text before you leave home. Copy and paste it when nominating.

  • NvlblNm-PGONvlblNm-PGO Posts: 167 ✭✭✭

    It’s great to hear that Niantic has finally addressed one of the most common causes of this bug!

    Will you put a bow on things now and fix the rest of them too?

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