Niantic Review and (Expedited) Appeal for a School Basketball Court Rejected
HaramDingo-ING
Posts: 1,499 ✭✭✭✭✭
In reference to this announcement by NianticTintino, this is a journey about a nomination of a basketball court at a local primary school:
Try 1
I decided to poke the beehive. Nominate a school basketball court to the best of my ability and see how it goes. The nomination appears as follows (with the primary photo in the next post):
Title: Holy Spirit Primary School Basketball Court
Description: Play for the local Catholic Community where people can swish and exercise here.
Supporting Statement: Please see latest UPDATED GUIDELINES before blindly rejecting: https://community.wayfarer.nianticlabs.com/discussion/38605/update-to-wayfarer-criteria-regarding-outdoor-basketball-courts-discussion Community manager has stated a "limited exception to this policy to allow outdoor basketball courts on school grounds." as wayspots. These courts open up on the weekends for the broader local community to play basketball with.
This was nominated on 7 December 2022 before being rejected by regular reviewers by 11 December 2022 for the reasons of Other Rejection Criteria, School (K-12) and Abuse. Yes, abuse. Naturally it would be appealed this right away since they just remain unused, so... that's what's what happened.
Try 2
The next time this was nominated right after rejection, the description and supporting statement were slightly changed so it would end up in Niantic's court (pun unintended). Differences in Italics (because apparently swish is a Pokemon reference).
Title: Holy Spirit Primary School Basketball Court
Description: Play for the local Catholic Community where people can **** hoops and exercise here.
Supporting Statement: Please see latest UPDATED GUIDELINES before blindly rejecting: https://community.wayfarer.nianticlabs.com/discussion/38605/update-to-wayfarer-criteria-regarding-outdoor-basketball-courts-discussion Community manager has stated a "limited exception to this policy to allow outdoor basketball courts on school grounds." as wayspots. These courts open up on the weekends for the broader local community to play basketball with and sponsor local community organisations.
As we all know, sponsor was a trigger word in allowing nominations to directly route to Niantic for their review. While it is no longer the case (as well as other tests such as Dićkson and some other expletives), this was a bit 50-50 to have to subject nominations to Niantics internal review processed. On 21 December 2022, Niantic had rejected the internal review of this basketball court despite linking this forum's announcement. I called Niantic out with some very colourful vocabulary.
Try 3
Here is the kicker. Try 1 was appealed on 11 December 2022. The appeal actually came back this evening on 29 December 2022, just 18 days after it was appealed. The appeal was rejected for, you guessed it, school property as a rejection criteria.
Thanks for the appeal, Explorer! The nomination is on school property which falls under the Wayspot rejection criteria. Hence, we are unable to approve this nomination. We recommend you review the Wayspot Criteria before submitting any more Wayspot Candidates or edits.: https://niantic.helpshift.com/hc/en/21-wayfarer/section/166-wayspot-eligibility/?s=wayspot-eligibility
I'm not surprised at the verdict given how disfigured Niantic staff are as a whole, but what I am particularly surprised with was the fact that an appeal, only submitted 18 days ago was processed. A December 2022 appeal, decided in December 2022. The statement within the appeal email that "Your appeal will be reviewed in the order it was received" is false. There are so many Wayfinders who have complained, even on the AMA question that their appeals are still in the middle or end of May 2022.
Conclusion
Going forth, I strongly suspect that this announcement is just smoke and mirrors. Something else has happened (or not happened) in the Wayfarer space and this NBA-sponsored announcement was meant to distract us from what is truly happening. Niantic is truly incompetent and any staff member who has even slightly touched this nomination are clearly dumbaśses. No joke.
Let 2023 be the year of coal.
Comments
Thanks for testing the system in different ways. And little wonder your language was colourful but allowed 🤣
Am I shocked and surprised?
No.
@NianticTintino-ING This demonstrates everything that's wrong with your team and process. You don't understand why we are frustrated? THIS is why. We are told "do X and y will happen." Yet the truth is, like with the rest of your system, ANYTHING BUT y happens.
I work in Quality and Outcomes Management. I'm tired of dealing with people who have no clue what their processes are nor have the foggiest clue how to fix them.
no staff members likely saw it. if you read the thread about the podcast with the former team member, it sounds like there are a handful of people on wayfarer. niantic reviews and appeals are outsourced. that company is likely paid per review/appeal and are likely going even faster than the free reviewers, and they arent clicking on links.
id assume the only submissions that someone from niantic sees are the forum appeals.
no staff members likely saw it. if you read the thread about the podcast with the former team member, it sounds like there are a handful of people on wayfarer. niantic reviews and appeals are outsourced.
Anyone who is outsourced by Niantic is deemed to be (at least) connected to Niantic themselves. They are not reviewers like us.
Whether they are moñkeys or not, they are still in Niantic's domain. Don't defend the paltry team.
Photos
Appeal Submission Email with Nomination Information:
Appeal Decision on Wayfarer Contribution Management:
Weep.
I think Niantic's doing things in the wrong order again - first, they should get the infrastructure in place to handle the exceptions, before making the exceptions part of live functionality. Do the supporting software build first, announce a future start date and start educating widely beforehand, and THEN make the change. I've seen a few Basketball Courts on school grounds in review, so Niantic screening isn't catching 'em. Basketball courts aren't really memorable to me so I haven't circled back to see if any of the ones I approved because Niantic said I should have made it into Ingress or Pokemon Go, or if they've been rejected by other reviewers not aware of the exception as my rating undoubtedly teeters on the precipice.
It's clear that Niantic doesn't care about Wayfarer, otherwise they would devote a minute to inform their internal reviewers about this situation.
So, Why does anyone else outside Niantic care so much about Wayfarer?
i'm not trying to defend it, just pointing out the likely reality and attempting to temper expectations that appeals will be handled correctly through the ingame appeal process.
@HaramDingo-ING
Thank you for testing this all of the different ways. You are saving the rest of us wasted efforts, and I appreciate you!
It's on school grounds and that's not allowed
Read this: