Making Wayfarer more fun, satisfying, interesting

Hosette-INGHosette-ING Posts: 3,469 ✭✭✭✭✭

There's a thread elsewhere about incentivizing Wayfarer. I've been thinking a lot about why I review, what rewards me, what frustrates me, and how I think it could be improved.

First and foremost, Wayfarer is essentially a chore for most people. You do a lot of work with no real feedback about what you've accomplished other than perhaps a number ticking up days, weeks, or months later. There's no fanfare, no connection to the initial work, no real reward. You can never point at something and say, "I did that", unless you come across it in the wild and recognize it. The best thing I can think of to motivate people is to make Wayfarer more fun, more rewarding, less like work. Here are my ideas for making reviewing more satisfying:

Provide users with occasional interstitials about their past reviews. Every now and then it would be nice if instead of a review you got information about something you reviewed in the past. "Check out the new Wayspot you helped create Nice work! You voted to approve this, and the community agreed with you. It was accepted on (DATE)." I think this would give reviewers a much stronger connection to the results of their work.

Provide users with occasional tutorial reviews. Occasionally, provide reviewers with a curated review that has already been resolved. When they submit their own review they would either get a "Good job!" screen letting them know that they had agreed with the outcome of that review, or they would get a tutorial screen showing what they had done wrong. Reviewers who got it right should get an immediate agreement added to their score. This is another place where people would get immediate rewards for doing something well, but also gentle education if they had made a mistake.

Find a way to increase the average interestingness of the candidates. This may be my personal preferences speaking, but my main reason for reviewing is that I enjoy discovering interesting things. I completely understand why playgrounds, trail markers, and tennis courts are worthy of being wayspots but they're rarely interesting to review. The high percentage of coal is also a negative drain on reviewing enjoyment-- I am well and truly tired of seeing sidewalks, apartment complex/neighborhood entrance signs, stop signs, random trees and bushes, and other things that are just hopeless. I think Niantic may have done some work to auto-filter coal already, maybe, but it would be nice if they would work on the submission workflow to stop more of it from being submitted. It would also be nice if I saw a higher percentage of uniquely interesting things, but I'm not sure how to make that happen.

Give reviewers a better way to provide better feedback to submitters. Right now the rejection reasons are more of a frustration than useful guidance. Perhaps there could be a way for reviewers to provide more granular hand helpful feedback to submitters when their candidate is rejected? I'm imagining a yes/no option for "Should this candidate be improved and resubmitted?" If the reviewer chooses YES then they would get a set of checkboxes, and I'm doing this off-the-cuff:

  • This needs a better photo
  • This needs a better title or description
  • This needs supporting information to help reviewers confirm the location
  • This needs supporting information to help reviewers understand what this is

It goes without saying that Niantic also needs to address some of the negatives of reviewing. These have been incessantly so I won't repeat them, but making reviewing more fun necessarily involves getting rid of the things that are off-putting.

Thoughts?

Comments

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

    Beyond actually creating new Waypoints, the only real incentive is seeing your stats click over as your reviews get through the system, it's quite fun to see your weekly total up in the 700-800 per week if you are on a reviewing binge. As mentioned in other threads, get rid of the reliance on "Good / Great / Fair / Poor" and increment the stats whenever something is accepted - do not penalise reviewers for months if they hit a honeypot and drop their rating. If you hit a honeypot you should recive information and feed back from Niantic pointing out your "error", with some advice and information as to what the reasons are the nomination is acceptable / unacceptable.

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

    One of the main issues is, wayfarer keeps changing how long things take to go through, maybe it's a rotating thing where areas go faster then slower, but I've found that when things go through faster, more people show interest in submitting and reviewing, when they slow down, there's less interest in submitting, but wven more so in reviewing. So an easy fix would be to, instead do the rotation, just make everywhere go at the same speed, with an extra change being if submissions have been in for a month without being voted through (pass or fail), move them out to further reviewers.


    Next, the fact is, reviewing isn't fun, yes you get the odd cool submission, but mostly it's play parks, info signs, maps, bars, post boxes (the last 2 more uk centric) etc and the usual coal. There's not much that can be done about this thoigh, but making it so we dint need to do as much tedium, filling in pointless fields (historical/cultural significance, visual uniqueness).


    The third thing, if we get the speed up, would be to change rewards, even if its slow, I still feel no need to review to get an upgrade, as upgrades fail more often than not, even a 90% pass (there is no guarantees) such as play parks and information signs drop to 50/50 at best when upgraded and feel like a waste. Instead I'd say that either an extra appeal (as they will be more useful to a lot of people) would be good for 100 agreements, then, at 1000, maybe an option to have an appeal fast tracked or a submission be looked at directly by niantic staff (but not the ones who haven't read the guidelines, instead ones who know whay they are doing and who themselves have reviewed and got great rating). This way, reviewing and agreements feel more rewarding

  • Hosette-INGHosette-ING Posts: 3,469 ✭✭✭✭✭

    The more I think about this, the more I think it would be good if Wayfarer gave reviewers some rewarding content during the review process... something that made them feel good about an outcome other than just watching a number tick up. "Good job! You voted to approve this wayspot, and it was approved today."

  • ProjectK2-PGOProjectK2-PGO Posts: 58 ✭✭✭

    The excess of uninteresting (but valid) nominations is the real problem and what makes reviewing a boring chore.

    Every time I'm presented with a trail marker, a wall mailbox, (basic) graffitis, informative signs or maps, a small religious church (those that are basically former street shops with a storefront), etc. I lose all my enjoyment to keep voting.

    Despite I don't find them interesting at all, I feel I'm forced to approve them, in order to keep my rating.

    In the past, I followed my sense and rejected some of these things (because they really were uninteresting), and my rating quickly dropped.

    I would rather see the game populated with some "generic business" instead of the things I've listed above.

    I disagree with an extra appeal instead of an upgrade.

    Sure upgrades can be a waste since no obvious valid spots are granted. But there are some places where the appeal doesn't do anything.

    For instance, I've submitted an appeal four months ago, and I haven't heard back. And some people from my community stop caring about appeals since nothing was done with the ones they submitted over a year ago.

  • Duiomar-PGODuiomar-PGO Posts: 458 ✭✭✭✭✭

    I've always wished it gave stats about how many people used your submissions in games, something like "today 40 trainers got 300 items, 20 agents hacked portals, and 5 pikmin players fought 7 mushrooms at waypoints you've submitted!"


    They could do something similar for waypoints you've voted on.

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

    One might logic, that since my nominations are taking months - if I review a lot, I'll clear the backlog ahead of my noms, so mine will be seen sooner by other reviewers. But nope - reviewing 600 in 10 days doesn't affect the queue in my area. I get a few appeals from it - but none of my other nominations budge.

    @ProjectK2-PGO You can use 3* 4* or 5* for Overall to pass. I reserve 5* for the fantastic finds. I usually use 4*, but sometimes 3* meaning, it qualifies but is incredibly "not special". Theoretically, Niantic could use this info to populate the games. If a Lightship cell has a mass-produced picnic table and a life-sized statue of a bear, and only one will be shown to gamers - show the bear.

  • Rodensteiner-PGORodensteiner-PGO Posts: 1,705 ✭✭✭✭✭

    it is just that reviewing needs to be MUCH MUCH MUCH MUCH MUCH MORE faster than this click-orgie.

    Just make a swipe for yes, and a swipe for no. People would just rather sit down on their smartphone and review pictures. as i am reviewing pictures on a not-to-be-named portal i know that the basic review if a picture is hot or too hot can be done quite in 2 seconds, not 1/2 minute.

    But, Niantic beign Niantic, they are not even thinking about this.

  • Hosette-INGHosette-ING Posts: 3,469 ✭✭✭✭✭

    @Shilfiell-ING The interestingness value of something for a reviewer is not always the same as the interestingness of the same wayspot in games. I find trail markers boring to review because they generally look pretty much like every other trail marker, and often the review process is just confirming that there's nothing "broken" about the submission then looking at satellite view of a bunch of trees and trying to guess whether the candidate is really there.

    The things that are most fun for me as a reviewer are the ones that have something uniquely interesting-- they're a really cool piece of street art, they teach me something interesting about an area, or there's something else intriguing. I have a short list of "Oh! That's cool, and I'll check it out the next time I'm in the area " things that I've found via reviewing. I occasionally find myself "going for a walk" on street view if the wayspot is in a historic or scenic area or there's something else that catches my attention and makes me want to explore.

    There are a lot of wayspots that have solid merit but the review process for them is a chore. I'm thinking about ways to break up the stream of boring, mechanical reviews by inserting occasional diversions that will make the process of chewing through the bread-and-butter stuff feel a bit less like a slog.

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

    OK, here's some off-the-cuff ideas that could spice up reviewing (In addition to an occasional popup about something you reveiewed)

    Fireworks on the screen when you earn an upgrade.

    Glitter when you pass each 1000 reviews made.

    A bear (choose your animal) that moves around the edge of your screen to keep you company - and you can "earn" clothes and props for it.

    An option to switch up the order of the boxes in the review.

    Give 3 possible titles, and the revewier tries to guess which one the nominator used.

  • cyndiepooh-INGcyndiepooh-ING Posts: 1,317 ✭✭✭✭✭

    What currently has me most loathe to review is the lack of clear guidelines to all players. For example, I have a post here about individual disc golf holes. As soon as they started being accepted and not removed on one course in my review area, it seems like every hole on every course in that area started being submitted - and accepted. I know the criteria is not to accept, so I don't, but there go my agreements, my rating, and my upgrades - all of which are the only rewards for reviewing since I earned the game badges long ago.

    When I discuss criteria with other reviewers, we can't even agree on which swimming pools are allowed, where "private residential property or farm" lines are, or if we should be marking blank photos of "parks" as duplicates of basketball courts. So I would love feedback on how the majority of reviewers are also rating nominations, but I don't think that is possible.

    I used to love the feeling that I was helping to make a difference, but as my own nominations sit for years and I rarely see anything come through for my play area that could be blocking them, it makes me less and less motivated to try to review to clear the backlog. And then to see the same junk come through over and over for fast areas around me - some days I just don't bother.

    So my suggestions to make Wayfarer more fun are to remove the frustration of unclear criteria and backlogs that never go away.

  • ProjectK2-PGOProjectK2-PGO Posts: 58 ✭✭✭

    I know.

    For those "not special at all nominations", I usually give 3* to everything, except to Safe Access (where I give 4* or 5*, depending if it's located in a city or on an open field) and Location Accuracy (I give 3* to trail markers without SV and 5* to things that can be seen on satellite or SV).

    But, despite I quickly get through this type of submission, I think they are very boring to look at and rate.

    Even on Pokémon Go, even though they are a helpful pokéstop (as any is), I feel that they are a poor (valid) excuse for a stop as they are uninteresting and also an ugly thing to submit to anyone as a gift/postcard. In several cases, I would rather don't have a classic wall mailbox as a stop, but instead, the "generic" but far more good-looking local business to which the mailbox is attached.

  • Elijustrying-INGElijustrying-ING Posts: 5,482 Ambassador

    Just make it work.

    currently I’m back in continuous login hell. Not worth the effort to raise it again.

  • dustinyeeaah-PGOdustinyeeaah-PGO Posts: 526 ✭✭✭✭✭

    Community Add-ons make the user experience in Wayfarer so much better. I wouldn't mind some of them being implemented in the standard Wayfarer site

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

    Admittedly appeals are going very slowly, I can't argue that, but what I would say is, if we do my first point (speed up the time things are in voting/queue for) then upgrades won't have much use. I probably should have it though that appeals get checked a lot faster

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