Supposedly got a report, need detailed reasons for such
RafaSNobre-PGO
Posts: 9 ✭✭
So a few weeks before I went on vacation, I got this email from someone at Niantic support without much (or any) context saying that one (more than one...?) of my submissions go against the Wayfarer criteria (which specific criteria, I also would love to know), immediately followed by the threat of suspending not only my Wayfarer account but also my Pokémon GO account, right after sending me a default link to all the existing criteria, which really doesn't help to solve the issue in question.
First off, I can assure you that, by now, after many months of reviewing and submitting a whole lot of nominations, I already know basically all the existing criteria by heart, and I know for sure that all of my submissions actually meet not only the eligibility but also the acceptance criteria.
So, having said that, I would then like to ask someone from support to give me more detailed information on the submission(s) that supposedly go against the criteria so that I can either justify the reason why it actually does meet all criteria or at least change what I might have missed so that it finally does meet all the relevant criteria.
Unfortunately, I can not yet predict which one or two stops that I submitted go against criteria without a more detailed explanation since in the email there's not even a hint or an attempt to help rectify this situation before going immediately to the suspension threat or more information about the issue instead of a generic link that does nothing to pinpoint which stop or criteria is supposedly going against the rules.
Secondly, I also find it interesting how Niantic support are so fast at replying to what I assume was a fake report on one of my submissions and what is basically threatening with immediate suspension of one's accounts, but meanwhile all of my appeals have yet to be answered for months on end to this very day.
I find it weird for someone from support to act in such an aggressive way towards a player/explorer/whatever who has not gone against the rules before or given any reason to act in such a manner, but, fast-forward a few weeks later, and I'm receiving an email for a survey now calling me a "valued member of the Wayfarer community"...?
So, I'm a rule breaker who deserves to be punished, but then, a few weeks later, my opinion is suddenly valuable to you since I'm now apparently a great member of the community after all...?
Sincerely, I find this to be a real lack of respect for someone when, one second, you are treating some members as criminals deserving of the most severe punishment possible without any explanation whatsoever and, the next, the same ones are now some of the top members of the community in who you trust the most to give you the best feedback possible.
So, in order to prove to you how much of an upfront and serious person I am, I will once again ask you to give me detailed information on which of my nominations supposedly go against the criteria and which of the criteria itself does it not meet so that I can rectify this situation and hopefully not get unfairly suspended for something which I don't even know for sure what I might have done wrong in the first place.
Meanwhile, I would also appreciate it if you could finally check my submission appeals and look into what is wrong with the person or group of people that keep rejecting most of my vastly different submissions (which go from restaurants that have been open for over 10 years, always open 5 days a week, every week, to official parish council billboards) with "temporary or seasonal display" without any good reason for that. Since you clearly got the time to see and quickly act when faced with fake reports on my submissions, I'm sure you can also take action against someone who clearly has been abusing the rejection system for months now. I would report these people myself, but, unfortunately, only submissions can be reported (and falsely at that), while constant invalid rejection reasons on submissions from abusing members of this community remain untouched and safe from any kind of moderation.
As someone who is still relatively new to Wayfarer but has been active in here for almost a year now, it really saddens me to see this kind of situations and injustices happening on this community, and it also really demotivates me and many other explorers I know from going through the work of submitting more locations and helping grow the local community, only to get constantly rejected for no good reason.
Comments
For anyone reading, OP is from Portugal and has nothing to do with NL abuse.
Unfortunately though, Niantic tends to give "education" (read: warning/sanction) without explaining what mistake did anyone do at first. Expect that @NianticAaron or other staffs would just replying the same message without further clarification.
I can see that you had submitted Wayspot submission(s) that were on the property of private residential property. That's a violation of our policies and as a result, you were notified about it. Thanks,
@RafaSNobre-PGO
you might want to read this thread
It is a topic that remains on the Ambassador Agenda ( otherwise known as the list ) as I see proper education and development as important.
@RafaSNobre-PGO
now that Aaron has indicated that it’s to do with Private Residential Property can you have a think about what you have submitted.
I am happy to engage in a supportive discussion.
The most common misunderstanding is around the wall or boundary of PRP. Could you have submitted something related to that?
I wanna see the Private Residential Property submission (and how bad it really is)!
So if someone submits anything that doesn't meet criteria, it is a violation of policies?
I can see that you had submitted Wayspot submission(s) that were on the property of private residential property/on a location deemed inappropriate or sensitive/deemed unsafe to pedestrians/at a mismatched location. Now your Pokémon GO account shall díe.
It might just be a Street Library. It has to be awful enough to warrant an email, not because people think private property leads all the way to the kerb.
Hopefully it's easy to find the nomination that has PRP in the rejection criteria.
@Elijustrying-ING, I would love to learn more about the PRP boundaries. Is there a discussion I can read up on?
In the US it's usually LFLs that are right on the boundary - I tend to approve them as they are intended for public access, but I always have doubts. Are they really "A great place to be social with others" if they are on the edge of somebody's lawn, or hanging on the outside of a fence?
If they are on private residential property, they should be rejected regardless of what other criteria they may meet. There are no exemptions given to them for being on the edge of PRP.
It's really dependent on area, for example, I know in some places in the US they consider the sidewalk in front of the garden to also be part of prp, but in the UK, the pavement is not prp and in fact 99% of the time the fence around a garden is the property line (has led to some funny post boxes bei g accepted with fences built round them lol)
Submitting stuff on PRP is a policy violation warranting a threat against one's in-game account? I'm amazed there are any players left in my area, if so!
Submitting the occasional thing on PRP could be entirely accidental or the result of poor education. The only logical consequence is that one's submissions are rejected. Reviewers who approve stuff that's obviously on PRP, though....that might be more of a policy-level violation, but again it comes down to how obvious the submission appears on the review screens and external maps, and also if it's clearly a pattern. And of course the most egregious violation is those who willingly trespass to get to a particular portal or pokestop, but those actions are rarely punished (even if deep within a park well after closing).
We don't know how many nominations OP made on PRP. Maybe they nominated the same thing 40 times? Maybe they mis-pinned lots of things so they could have a couch gym? Maybe they're the go-to person for every new player who wants a couch portal or stop, spread around their area?
If it's an isolated case, the warning is not warranted. Like, if only one in six months, or 99 nominations were not PRP but one is. That's just being human. Especially at the curb, which is not valid in the U.S. (because of a 2019 lawsuit that Niantic settled with promises including not to do that) but anyone recently joined wouldn't know. This could include little free libraries and neighborhood signs and more.
It's not really dependent on the area. The question is not, "Is this technically within the legal boundary of the property line in this area?" Rather, it's, "Does this have the potential to cause problems for the people living in this home?"
Little free libraries are really problematic in this regard in that they seem like they should be great wayspots, and also because there are tons of them in the games right now that violate the PRP restriction.
I certainly hope Niantic has warned themselves into perma-bans for the original seeded Historical Markers located on private property which they themselves added to the database.
I really think that any Wayfarer-related violations should cross over into in-game strikes only when there's a clear, repeated pattern of abuse.
Unfortunately the answer to the "can this cause problems" question often depends on the game you play. For example a handful of Pokémon GO players doing a raid at a gym from the other side of the street may not be a problem, while an Ingress player standing right at the portal for minutes to knock out enemy mods may be more of a nuisance.
I would love it if Niantic or Ambassadors clarified the PRP boundary rule.
I would love it if Niantic or Ambassadors clarified the PRP boundary rule.
Jeezus, just how many times does a very simple rule need "clarification"? It's been clarified five hundred times already. It doesn't need five hundred more.
Now people don't know though, and a si pointed out earlier, it's different in different countries, America consider the sidewalk to be prp, in the UK its the fence line
One more every time someone asks since they may not know.
"Yes, but maybe this time I'll hear what I want to hear."
I don't think it is so much because they don't know the rule. They can learn the rule when it is stated to them. It is because they are trying to wiggle out an exception to the rule that they keep asking for "clarifications".
The PRP rules came about from Trainers hanging around gyms with their cars blocking people's driveways and mailboxes, making noise all night, cutting thru the garden to chase PokeMon, etc. Homeowners filed a U.S. class action suit; Niantic settled.
The settlement was written by lawyers, and interpreted by lawyers, so it's not plain English But here's the pertinent part:
I used to know what "CRE" stood for... it meant like commonly accepted practices. Today, that's quickly becoming: AI.
@Cosk62-ING writes:
Unfortunately the answer to the "can this cause problems" question often depends on the game you play.
This is true, although your supporting examples are off in terms of the actual impact. When we are reviewing we aren't reviewing for any particular game, but for all games present and future. This is why the rule is broad and generic.
@MargariteDVille-ING provided excellent details above about why this rule exists.
Some years ago Niantic made a fairly strong effort to remove all wayspots that were located on K-12 school property. They missed some but in my experience they got the vast majority of them. I would love for them to make a similar push for things on private residential property, perhaps by engaging players for assistance. Too many people base their understanding of what is allowed on what they see in the games right now, and the massive number of wayspots (mostly LFLs) on PRP is one of the main causes for the constant creation of new ones.
Niantic have been vague about what they want sometimes directly going against what they say they want in the database and never really fixing ineligible Wayspots
It's not surprising to me that there is confusion.
This is completely and utterly wrong. The rule existed long before Pokemon GO was even a concept. In fact, the earliest occurrence of this rule I was able to find dates to early 2015. So trying to pass it off as existing because of a Pokemon GO lawsuit is misinformation.
An ambassador offered to discuss the PRP boundary rule close to the top of this discussion. Hopefully they'll respond, but if not - would you mind providing links to one or two of those 500 clarifications?
@TheFarix-PGO I'd be interested in pinpointing the first instance where the PRP was explicitly stated. It certainly was there with the launch of OPR (beta started in November 2016) but I don't know where it happened before that.
The rule was certainly strengthened and expanded when Niantic started getting sued because PoGomania was causing problems for homeowners, and Niantic started getting sued because of it.
This is the furthest back that the Internet Archive has, but this document existed long before nominations were shut down in September 2015.
https://community.wayfarer.nianticlabs.com/discussion/comment/47104#Comment_47104
https://community.wayfarer.nianticlabs.com/discussion/comment/3272#Comment_3272
https://community.wayfarer.nianticlabs.com/discussion/comment/131736#Comment_131736
https://community.wayfarer.nianticlabs.com/discussion/comment/175599#Comment_175599
It isn't that hard to look up.
Meanwhile....
"Niantic can you remove this school for 7-15 year olds, please?"
"Nah, ****."
I'll leave those asterisks for @29andCounting-PGO 's imagination to run wild.
You savage
Yeah, imagine getting a warning because you submitted this, which is a wayspot