So all the removals here is on word off players. And now i need to get more information. Beautiful. I will send some photo's and locations if i visit the wayspot!
And the sattelite photo is not correct. Because the jeu the boule is gone.
I don't recognize the other tiles from this "route" but based on that they aren't visible on google maps I have a feeling the whole stoeptegelroute is fake.
Dog walking lanes ( hondenuitlaatstroken ) are typically small areas next to the sidewalks or other paths, it is not a trail. There are hundreds of them in my city alone. Theses places are marked with generic signs often on a wooden pole. In some cases below the bins are reported to be a waypoint. They don't make a good place to gather with your friends...
We have reviewed all the Wayspots reported till here and have taken appropriate actions on the Wayspots as well as Wayfinders wherever necessary.
We have removed over 1500 Wayspots based on reports from this thread. We want to thank you all for helping us maintain the quality of Niantic Wayspots.
It’s good to see that the efforts of individual wayfinders in finding and collating the information has proved to be useful to you and your team in identifying those that caused such a problem and helping towards the task of removing the wrongly created wayspots.
I'm not sure I completely understand your concern. If it's related to this thread, we review all the Wayspots reported here. We review the reported Wayspots every few days. If you were referring to something else, please elaborate and I'll be happy to address any concerns you may have.
We are grateful to the Wayfinders who have shown dedication in collating all this information. Their efforts are much appreciated. Moreover, I'm glad that we have been able to collaborate with the community to make Wayfarer a better experience for everyone.
There have been a lot of complaints on Reddit about "innocent" players getting banned. The typical defense was that they didn't know that they were part of an "abuse bandwagon", but saw a bunch of X as Wayspots and nominated more of them, or that they saw a bunch of X getting accepted as Waytspots and thought they were eligible. Normally, a lot of these would not meet the removal criteria if they were not being accepted through an abuse ring. So is there any discussion to expand the removal criteria to cover many of the objects that were incorrectly accepted?
Also I would prefer them to update removal criteria to remove incorrectly accepted Wayspots only if they're accepted through systemic abuse. Otherwise some particular Agents might use this reason to report Wayspots as anchor Portals.
Wayfinders may not have been aware of what's happening (as discussed in this thread). These Wayfinders can, in this sense, be considered "innocent" until proven otherwise. Regarding the Wayspots discussed in this thread, five categories:
Poor submissions: they clearly do not meet any of the eligibility criteria (nominating Wayspots which are clearly not eligible according to the published guidelines; the Wayfinder should have known this. Example: generic street name signs) and can thus be removed.
Submissions which are eligible on their own: mosaic tiles (or similar) are, in principle, eligible candidates. However, some duplicates were reported here. In order to justify removal, it should be clear where the original tile is. For some of the reports in this thread these details were provided, but not for all of them. How to decide?
Submissions in "grey area": typically a proper description and motivation is required to explain why these candidates are eligible (e.g. parks without clear entry sign, restaurants, ...).
Good submissions: they meet (multiple) eligibility criteria, but are still removed due to a large number of poor submissions in that same area. Should Wayfinders resubmit these good submissions?
Submissions which do not meet eligibilitiy criteria, but were submitted by Wayfinder anyway since similar Wayspots were accepted as well. How to proceed?
Could you shed some light on how each category is handled @NianticAaron?
What I understood from the ambassadors & @NianticAaron is that only people who did the mass abusing received a 30+ day warning
The grey area and the Wayspots that ended up being in the crossfire (a few trail markers) only received a 'your sending in wrong wayspots, please check what the acceptance requirement are before sending in more nominations.'
What I noticed from all the people in the wayfarer forum and reddit that are complaining about the 30+ day ban or more never show what they submitted that earned them a ban. Even the person that wrote an article about him admitted that 'maybe I did send in coal the first time and sent more afterwards because it got accepted'.
In one of the comments he did admit to sending in 20 wayspots in a short time period. The problem is that we don't know what those nominations are, but for example a fire hydrant , electrical transformer box and waste bin are a option for you to categorize.
There were ambassadors who already stated that there are Dutch people who think if it's able to be categorized, then this location is a acceptable nomination, which is wrong.
As for not mentioning the real mosaic tiles in my last mosaic post, this is because the real tiles ended up being removed as well. And seeing as real nominations are now also getting removed I only mentioning the city of the real tile and not the GPS location. The original tile owners are not to blame that their mosaic tile is being used in abuse.
I completely agree with this. There is probably a very small minority of people that are/were abusing the system (I don’t know the details). If there is clear evidence of them deliberately abusing the system it’s fair to punish them. However by far the largest group of people who submitted stops didn’t know anything about the abuse. I also found out few weeks after the first post that there was absurd going on. In my opinion it’s unfair to punish these “innocent” submitters for such a big flaw in the system, because the system is build to reject these bad submissions if it works correctly. People who submit doesn’t know the system is not doing the thing it’s intended to do. Deleting the bad POI and maybe give the submitter a warning with information would be a fair alternative. When the system is working fine the bad submissions would easily be rejected and the submitter would know. If someone sees other POI’s of bad quality appearing in their neighbourhood or seeing their own bad POI’s getting accepted they get the false idea that nominations are eligible. I have literally spoken less active players seeing certain things getting accepted and tried that submitting themselves. However they don’t have any bad intentions and doesn’t know about the abuse. And yes I know they could read the rules on submitting or come here in the forums, but let’s be fair 99% is not doing that and can you really blame them?
What are the criteria for a submitter to get banned or punished? And how is Niantic proving someone submitted and abused on purpose? Or has any bad intentions?
For me personally I put the entire wayfarer thing on a hold completely since I found out about the abuse. Firstly it’s not worth it for me to destroy my wayfarer review score, because of all the bad POI’s getting accepted. And secondly I don’t want to risk submitting anything even if it’s 100% eligible to maybe get banned for that. I want a clear statement about this entire issue first before going on submitting and reviewing. A bann is not worth me some extra pokestops.
What I noticed from all the people in the wayfarer forum and reddit that are complaining about the 30+ day ban or more never show what they submitted that earned them a ban.
They can't show what they submitted in Nominations page if they're suspended from Wayfarer, btw.
Well, technically they can, if they still have these "Thanks! Niantic Wayspot nomination received for *blah blah blah*" emails.
It is not the fact that they got approved now, makes it a bannable offense. The problem starts at submission, if you keep submitting **** than this can be seen as abuse (fairly so). That now it becomes more visible because they actually end up in the games just increases chances of getting caught, but doesn't make the offense any different. The fact that their area shows similar low quality wayspots should also not be an excuse, because everyone can read the guidelines and can judge that those wayspots do not fulfill wayspot eligibility criteria. Previously accepted wayspots have never been the criteria to judge what is eligible.
Is there any other measures in the works as well? Don't get me wrong, I'm happy with the baby steps and the removal of 1500 wayspots, but at this pace, I don't think we're realistically getting anywhere. Abusers could add this back in no-time and total amount of coal added since the bots started being active MONTHS ago are rumoured to be tens of thousands if not surpassing 100k..
@NianticAaron sorry for the tag, but you seem to be the one to respond in this thread. Thanks in advance
Answers
More information wow. Everything is in the removal line and now more information. haha
I walk every day the route! And mine eyes give me enough information that the wayspot not excist.
Niantic will not and should not just take your word for it. You have to provide evidence that it doesn't exist at that location.
So all the removals here is on word off players. And now i need to get more information. Beautiful. I will send some photo's and locations if i visit the wayspot!
And the sattelite photo is not correct. Because the jeu the boule is gone.
Fake tile
51.6554560, 5.9370490
Real tile
52.0307860, 5.1813330
I don't recognize the other tiles from this "route" but based on that they aren't visible on google maps I have a feeling the whole stoeptegelroute is fake.
52.1049100, 5.1336730
52.1043830, 5.1335670
52.1039960, 5.1328280
51.6825980, 5.0861380
K12
51.6809860, 5.0860500
51.6830070, 5.0852630
51.6831750, 5.0845010
51.6827220, 5.0849370
51.6826610, 5.0844630
51.6819970, 5.0835210
51.6822200, 5.0801590
51.6808690, 5.0825340
51.4042180, 5.4896030
51.4134520, 5.4820330
51.4130570, 5.4822060
51.4133710, 5.4824150
51.2036140, 4.3541950
51.2039500, 4.3391940
51.5129720, 4.4492050
Another generic streetname sign:
https://intel.ingress.com/?pll=52.495646,4.94549 ( Kruispunt Rotanstraat/Bonsaistraat )
Dog walking lanes ( hondenuitlaatstroken ) are typically small areas next to the sidewalks or other paths, it is not a trail. There are hundreds of them in my city alone. Theses places are marked with generic signs often on a wooden pole. In some cases below the bins are reported to be a waypoint. They don't make a good place to gather with your friends...
https://intel.ingress.com/?pll=52.493774,4.926068 ( DoTheDogTrail )
https://intel.ingress.com/?pll=52.514613,4.960633 ( No Dogwalker Sign. )
https://intel.ingress.com/?pll=52.496145,4.945447 ( Dog Walk Route )
https://intel.ingress.com/?pll=52.492912,4.959672 ( Walking dogroute )
https://intel.ingress.com/?pll=52.513652,4.965245 ( No Dogs )
https://intel.ingress.com/?pll=52.504101,4.991229 ( Doggy Run Field )
https://intel.ingress.com/?pll=52.494835,4.954571 ( Dog walking route rietsingelpad )
https://intel.ingress.com/?pll=52.513055,4.957866 ( Honden uitlaatstrook )
https://intel.ingress.com/?pll=52.499351,4.945701 ( Uitlaat route hondjes )
https://intel.ingress.com/?pll=52.494475,4.954248 ( Honden uitlaat looproute de gors )
51.5122430, 4.4444720
51.5123560, 4.4417900
51.5124840, 4.4313200
51.5121900, 4.4296290
51.5078380, 4.4266990
51.5205660, 4.4438210
51.5224000, 4.4392480
Duplicates of the same poi
51.5247310, 4.4369120
51.5241650, 4.4369930
51.5238310, 4.4370460
51.5237540, 4.4360790
51.5235900, 4.4358260
51.5366540, 4.4482370
51.5362100, 4.4467160
51.5351900, 4.4470380
51.5350580, 4.4467810
51.5343690, 4.4437020
51.5332530, 4.4425770
51.5325750, 4.4385330
51.5319970, 4.4403040
51.5245900, 4.4341660
51.5257970, 4.4357580
51.5257630, 4.4348870
51.5248320, 4.4351100
51.5235670, 4.4353090
Playground inside a backyard.
52.0945880, 5.1172570
52.1069920, 5.0373590
52.1076690, 5.0398070
52.5457860, 6.0550050
52.5378150, 6.0525310
52.5434860, 6.0583650
51.9976720, 4.3462740
Duplicates
51.9966840, 4.3465600
51.9973610, 4.3466720
And
51.9985250, 4.3445010
51.9988200, 4.3448920
51.9994220, 4.3475300
51.9986510, 4.3475340
51.9987960, 4.3467890
51.9984740, 4.3461110
51.9974060, 4.3456020
51.9985280, 4.3446690
51.7154720, 4.5825540
52.0229320, 5.6792450
52.0192710, 5.5533000
We have reviewed all the Wayspots reported till here and have taken appropriate actions on the Wayspots as well as Wayfinders wherever necessary.
We have removed over 1500 Wayspots based on reports from this thread. We want to thank you all for helping us maintain the quality of Niantic Wayspots.
Thanks,
51.5434980, 5.0353620
52.0259620, 5.5228120
52.0258350, 5.5266680
52.0226040, 5.5286350
52.0241990, 5.6421460
52.0257040, 5.6461710
52.0257610, 5.6443120
52.0258520, 5.6435480
52.0278460, 5.6436180
52.0280790, 5.6481100
52.1536040, 5.5872460
52.1545840, 5.5918950
52.1538830, 5.5915520
51.8329640, 4.6517640
51.8323450, 4.6524030
52.6669770, 5.0736430
52.6680030, 5.0713860
52.0140490, 5.1725300
Duplicates
52.1536760, 5.5852560
52.1534330, 5.5850080
Can we have how many accounts got sanctioned as well?
A Very wise judgment.
I agree with your judgment.
But at the same time, I have a concern for you and Wayfarer team.
Wayfinder have a suspicion that you will not respond to the abuse until Wayfinder have posted this many times.
The world is currently seeing a tremendous proliferation of low-quality garbage wayspots.
But this is almost the first time you guys have addressed it in such a severe way.
Wipe out the trash from the world.
Good games and applications are only possible when there are good wayspots.
@NianticAaron Thank you for the update.
It’s good to see that the efforts of individual wayfinders in finding and collating the information has proved to be useful to you and your team in identifying those that caused such a problem and helping towards the task of removing the wrongly created wayspots.
Absolutely. We took actions of different magnitude against 33 Wayfinders in the last phase of review.
I'm not sure I completely understand your concern. If it's related to this thread, we review all the Wayspots reported here. We review the reported Wayspots every few days. If you were referring to something else, please elaborate and I'll be happy to address any concerns you may have.
We are grateful to the Wayfinders who have shown dedication in collating all this information. Their efforts are much appreciated. Moreover, I'm glad that we have been able to collaborate with the community to make Wayfarer a better experience for everyone.
Cheers!
52.6661450, 5.0676240
52.6632530, 5.0426880
52.6668070, 5.0402970
51.5821820, 5.0235190
51.6921290, 4.8726130
51.6909760, 4.8709760
51.6578320, 5.7761480
51.6897760, 5.7706810
51.6931780, 5.7708730
53.1085690, 7.0086830
52.5158290, 5.4414390
52.5155360, 5.4412290
52.4992780, 5.4613270
52.4996990, 5.4622930
52.4993550, 5.46193700
52.3086980, 4.8769010
52.2326540, 4.4425550
52.0575150, 5.1367640
52.2396050, 4.4470980
52.2418310, 4.4443940
52.3032640, 4.8756520
52.0946370, 5.1174150
Fake tile (Real tile located in Zwolle)
51.6869200, 5.7687170
Fake tile (see photoshop borders) real tile located in Gouda
51.6890850, 5.7688160
Fake tile , real tile also located in Gouda
51.6879270, 5.7728700
Fake tile , the original tile is located in Reeuwijk
51.6930000, 5.7687560
Not sure where the real tile is located found this tile in more than 1 city
51.6882180, 5.7730310
This city haves more tiles who are suspicious looking so maybe need a closer look @NianticAaron
53.1096470, 7.0096310
Fakes from the tile in Ede
This one didn't even try to hide it that it's stolen from the internet
52.3809810, 6.6717830
53.2127280, 5.8329910
There have been a lot of complaints on Reddit about "innocent" players getting banned. The typical defense was that they didn't know that they were part of an "abuse bandwagon", but saw a bunch of X as Wayspots and nominated more of them, or that they saw a bunch of X getting accepted as Waytspots and thought they were eligible. Normally, a lot of these would not meet the removal criteria if they were not being accepted through an abuse ring. So is there any discussion to expand the removal criteria to cover many of the objects that were incorrectly accepted?
Now I wonder if most of 33 Wayfinders are those people complained on Reddit. That would mean those review bots remain unscathed.
Also I would prefer them to update removal criteria to remove incorrectly accepted Wayspots only if they're accepted through systemic abuse. Otherwise some particular Agents might use this reason to report Wayspots as anchor Portals.
52.3027680, 5.2294290
52.3006600, 5.2269860
52.3012490, 5.2266470
52.2990110, 5.2351040
52.2993240, 5.2347810
52.3000680, 5.2411580
52.3769560, 4.8477960
52.3454170, 4.8285180
52.3472380, 5.2103070
52.3079420, 4.8707180
51.7895000, 4.6695600
51.7923930, 4.6673910
52.3178310, 4.8653180
52.3176240, 4.8614480
52.3167830, 4.8610930
52.3155000, 4.8616620
52.3141090, 4.8623630
52.3148350, 4.8631950
52.3164790, 4.8674680
52.2708800, 4.7881630
Based on this:
Wayfinders may not have been aware of what's happening (as discussed in this thread). These Wayfinders can, in this sense, be considered "innocent" until proven otherwise. Regarding the Wayspots discussed in this thread, five categories:
Could you shed some light on how each category is handled @NianticAaron?
51.9976210, 4.3465330
Bat sleeping area
52.2033370, 4.4211730
52.2034560, 4.4203150
52.2037490, 4.4198600
52.2043810, 4.4177140
52.1258230, 4.3874250
52.0024280, 4.7699020
52.0025170, 4.7703450
52.0028200, 4.7704830
52.0028280, 4.7720690
52.0026130, 4.7679730
52.0026710, 4.7666550
52.0013930, 4.7663610
51.9975720, 4.7790690
51.9979590, 4.7802540
51.9979660, 4.7807020
52.1757200, 5.2703770
Placed in front yard
52.1748880, 5.2733690
52.1680950, 5.2762680
51.6289810, 5.4148220
What I understood from the ambassadors & @NianticAaron is that only people who did the mass abusing received a 30+ day warning
The grey area and the Wayspots that ended up being in the crossfire (a few trail markers) only received a 'your sending in wrong wayspots, please check what the acceptance requirement are before sending in more nominations.'
What I noticed from all the people in the wayfarer forum and reddit that are complaining about the 30+ day ban or more never show what they submitted that earned them a ban. Even the person that wrote an article about him admitted that 'maybe I did send in coal the first time and sent more afterwards because it got accepted'.
The article I'm mentioning
And the person complaining about their 30 day ban:
In one of the comments he did admit to sending in 20 wayspots in a short time period. The problem is that we don't know what those nominations are, but for example a fire hydrant , electrical transformer box and waste bin are a option for you to categorize.
There were ambassadors who already stated that there are Dutch people who think if it's able to be categorized, then this location is a acceptable nomination, which is wrong.
As for not mentioning the real mosaic tiles in my last mosaic post, this is because the real tiles ended up being removed as well. And seeing as real nominations are now also getting removed I only mentioning the city of the real tile and not the GPS location. The original tile owners are not to blame that their mosaic tile is being used in abuse.
I completely agree with this. There is probably a very small minority of people that are/were abusing the system (I don’t know the details). If there is clear evidence of them deliberately abusing the system it’s fair to punish them. However by far the largest group of people who submitted stops didn’t know anything about the abuse. I also found out few weeks after the first post that there was absurd going on. In my opinion it’s unfair to punish these “innocent” submitters for such a big flaw in the system, because the system is build to reject these bad submissions if it works correctly. People who submit doesn’t know the system is not doing the thing it’s intended to do. Deleting the bad POI and maybe give the submitter a warning with information would be a fair alternative. When the system is working fine the bad submissions would easily be rejected and the submitter would know. If someone sees other POI’s of bad quality appearing in their neighbourhood or seeing their own bad POI’s getting accepted they get the false idea that nominations are eligible. I have literally spoken less active players seeing certain things getting accepted and tried that submitting themselves. However they don’t have any bad intentions and doesn’t know about the abuse. And yes I know they could read the rules on submitting or come here in the forums, but let’s be fair 99% is not doing that and can you really blame them?
What are the criteria for a submitter to get banned or punished? And how is Niantic proving someone submitted and abused on purpose? Or has any bad intentions?
For me personally I put the entire wayfarer thing on a hold completely since I found out about the abuse. Firstly it’s not worth it for me to destroy my wayfarer review score, because of all the bad POI’s getting accepted. And secondly I don’t want to risk submitting anything even if it’s 100% eligible to maybe get banned for that. I want a clear statement about this entire issue first before going on submitting and reviewing. A bann is not worth me some extra pokestops.
52.0537520, 4.3197860
52.0571380, 4.2961720
Located inside a private property.
52.0657610, 4.3016330
K12
52.1274300, 4.5965230
52.1271910, 4.5950580
52.1281360, 4.5954110
52.1291830, 4.5946000
52.1305050, 4.5949930
52.1293590, 4.5971750
52.4232650, 4.6218410
52.1794220, 5.3963170
Front garden private property
52.1814720, 5.3991650
52.1867530, 5.3994730
52.1875260, 5.3982010
52.1875010, 5.3973130
52.1872850, 5.3976410
52.1762530, 5.3943680
52.1746180, 5.3939130
52.1720450, 5.3901630
Not artwork , this is a bat house.
52.1726970, 5.3901560
What I noticed from all the people in the wayfarer forum and reddit that are complaining about the 30+ day ban or more never show what they submitted that earned them a ban.
They can't show what they submitted in Nominations page if they're suspended from Wayfarer, btw.
Well, technically they can, if they still have these "Thanks! Niantic Wayspot nomination received for *blah blah blah*" emails.
It is not the fact that they got approved now, makes it a bannable offense. The problem starts at submission, if you keep submitting **** than this can be seen as abuse (fairly so). That now it becomes more visible because they actually end up in the games just increases chances of getting caught, but doesn't make the offense any different. The fact that their area shows similar low quality wayspots should also not be an excuse, because everyone can read the guidelines and can judge that those wayspots do not fulfill wayspot eligibility criteria. Previously accepted wayspots have never been the criteria to judge what is eligible.
Is there any other measures in the works as well? Don't get me wrong, I'm happy with the baby steps and the removal of 1500 wayspots, but at this pace, I don't think we're realistically getting anywhere. Abusers could add this back in no-time and total amount of coal added since the bots started being active MONTHS ago are rumoured to be tens of thousands if not surpassing 100k..
@NianticAaron sorry for the tag, but you seem to be the one to respond in this thread. Thanks in advance
I've ran into some coal qualitiy portals today in Dongen..
Klinkerpad route #3 https://intel.ingress.com/?pll=51.625198,4.933517
Klinkerpad route #4 https://intel.ingress.com/?pll=51.625413,4.933472
Klinkerpad route #5 https://intel.ingress.com/?pll=51.625598,4.933458
Blije toetjes (K12, children daycare) https://intel.ingress.com/?pll=51.624468,4.938472
Smederij 17 https://intel.ingress.com/?pll=51.624986,4.926394
Voetgangers brug Heuvelpark https://intel.ingress.com/?pll=51.625106,4.926655
Voetgangers brug https://intel.ingress.com/?pll=51.621708,4.933224
Liberty Hockey club (A flag, really?) https://intel.ingress.com/?pll=51.621268,4.936551
Postduivenvereniging Dongen https://intel.ingress.com/?pll=51.621986,4.936747
Duck wall art https://intel.ingress.com/?pll=51.621835,4.937308
Zomerspelen tegel https://intel.ingress.com/?pll=51.621979,4.938833
Jeu de boules club Dongen https://intel.ingress.com/?pll=51.620086,4.952059
De weg naar Handbalvereniging Dongen https://intel.ingress.com/?pll=51.620267,4.95091
Op zoek naar stokstaartjes https://intel.ingress.com/?pll=51.622528,4.952237
Monito's club (K12, school) https://intel.ingress.com/?pll=51.623687,4.948336
Doolhof - Natuurlijk Spelen Speel.. https://intel.ingress.com/?pll=51.640593,4.943614 (natural thing)
What's wrong with the Postduivenvereniging or the bridges or the Doolhof? The latter is definitly not a natural feature.