Being warned/banned for moving nomination to the more accurate location while reviewing
ShayminC1-PGO
Posts: 69 ✭✭
Some days ago, I received the warning email from Niantic for moving nomination to the wrong location while reviewing.
I asked on my local Wayfarer group and found out that there were other 8 reviewers who also received the warning email. So total 9 reviewers were affective, 6 reviewers were only being warned and 3 reviewers were being banned from Wayfarer for 30 days.
The email is below:
The wayspot mentioned in the email is Di tích cổng chùa Bảo Lâm (Bao Lam Padoda Gate), which has current location at 19.001799,105.489714.
I quickly went to ingress map to research about this wayspot.
The blue mark is the original pin submitted by the submitter.
The red mark is the pin that I and other fellow reviewers moved the nomination to because the gate can be clearly seen on the map. This is also the pin that I saw after I received the warning email and went to ingress map immediately.
The yellow mark is the current location of the wayspot. It is the pin that I saw one day later, probably after Niantic did research, moved it, sent warning emails and the ingress map synced.
So we clearly were being warned/banned because the pin moved by us (red) were different from the pin determined by Niantic (yellow) although it was just like 1-2 meters away, and Niantic didn't even consider the wrong original pin (blue) by the submitter/reporter.
We were both angry and disappointed so we all sent appeal for the warned/banned email.
And actually, there were 2 reviewers who appealed successfully and received apology from Niantic.
So what's going on here? Firstly we were unfairly warned/banned.
And then after the appealing, only 2 persons were accepted and the others failed, although it is the same case.
I hope that Niantic would have the clear explanation for this incident.
Comments
Maybe the person who submitted the spot complained for harassment? The AI messing up again? It’s Monday? Could be anything, really.
You’ll likely never find out why this happened.
@NianticTintino-ING here is another case where Philo P is involved, and this time warnings were issued. Please check into this. I do not have the resources to check into where the pin was on the original submission, but the live portal is on an object and appears likely to be correct.
So the original pinned location by the submitter would generate a Wayspot in Pokemon Go, but the reviewers moved it into an occupied cell that was a more accurate location - then the original submitter complained that their accepted Wayspot did not appear in Pokemon Go (possibly blaming faulty reviewers/gatekeepers) so Niantic nudged the Wayspot just over the cell line within a hair's breadth of the reviewer pin and warned reviewers while appeasing the submitter's desire for a Wayspot in an unoccupied cell. It's no wonder I think the system is skewed towards quantity over quality!
That being said - I do appreciate the improved tone of the emails, but as this is apparently a formal warning and not an "educational" email (I think?) one would hope that Niantic would be able to automatically retract every warning and send an apology letter to all reviewers who moved the pin to a more accurate location, without them having to lodge individual appeals. I know that I, like many others, do not use plug-ins or examine cell lines during the review process, so it's entirely possible that these reviewers moved the pin based solely on most accurate location, without ulterior motives.
How would a reviewer know they are moving a Wayspot into an occupied cell? Unless the reviewer is using "cheating tools", they would not know where S2 boundaries are. Unless the Niantic employee issuing the warning is assuming all reviewers are using said "cheating tools".
@NianticAaron or @NianticTintino-ING, any insight into this?
It’s not hard to pull up an S2 map in a separate tab.
But why would a reviewer concern themselves about S2 cells? It isn't part of the normal review flow and they have no place when considering the most accurate location, so why get a warning involving them?
I just find out the photo that I had taken when I had research about this wayspot immediately after the warning email and before the sync happened.
Wayfarer itself does use S2 Cell Geometry for some things. Not necessarily the same levels of S2 Cells used in Pokémon Go, but it would be reasonable for the team dealing with this to have access to tools to see the geometry in case something goes wrong with the S2 Cells that Wayfarer does use.
Additionally, if Pokémon Go players are committing edit abuse (not that I'm saying this particular example is abuse, I'm just speaking in general terms here), and that directly involves manipulating Level 17 S2 Cells, don't you think it would be useful for the team dealing with the abuse to be able to see those S2 Cells so that they can better understand/confirm the abuse?
But other than the nominator's original mis-location, where was the map manipulation on the part of the reviewers? Niantic is treating this as if the reviewers were wrong to correct the location when it was clearly out of place. And let me repeat myself, why would reviewers care where the S2 boundaries are when reviewing a nomination? Because your comments seem to be defending the abusive nominator rather than the reviewers, who would not know where the S2 cells are nor is there any indication that the reviewers had such knowledge when moving the Wayspot.
Absolutely agree. It appears that Reviewers did nothing wrong correcting this location error, despite maybe getting it slightly wrong by perhaps a few centimeters. The corrected pin was well within the accuracy radius I'd expect from a dedicated GPS device. If the OP's information is accurate, the strike should be automatically removed by Niantic without the need for individual appeals.
I'm not taking sides at all. If anything I think I was simply misunderstanding something. I thought you were taking issue with Niantic staff themselves using tools to see S2 Cells when making decisions on whether something was considered abuse or not, given that the original topic of the post was that a Niantic staff member has issued a warning for this location edit.
In actuality you seem to be taking issues with regular reviewers having add-ons (or similar) with this functionality, which is fair enough - there's no real need for regular reviewers like us to see S2 Cells during reviews, as they shouldn't factor into our decision making.
Sure. No real reason for a reviewer to care about cell boundaries. My comment was only in response to the idea that someone has to use “cheating tools” to look at S2 cell boundaries. All you have to do is look at Pogomap.info in any browser.
I thought TheFarix was using the adage: "To a robber, every man appears a thief".
If the Niantic staff use S2 cell maps to judge reviewers' behavior, they can easily project ill-intent in the wrong direction.
There exists very little reason for reviewers to consider cells. Valid nominations are still good, and invalid ones bad, regardless of location within a cell.
Personally I dont like to see the cells whilst reviewing. I don’t need to see them to assess if it is accurate and if it something that needs to be moved I don’t want to have a cell line complicating what I am looking at. Clearly the wayfarer team don’t consider it necessary in order to review or it would be provided🤔
We also don’t know exactly what happens when there a nomination is moved during review as each reviewer may move it slightly differently.
I'd prefer to have all available info.
Wayfarer may underpin Niantic games/apps but it doesn't have much point, as much as I enjoy it, outwith those structures, for me at least.
I'm veering way off topic and not much help to the op though :)
Precisely. While it makes sense for Niantic's reviewers to refer to cells and meter-distances to understand the nominator's choice of location, this does not justify using those things against reviewers.
They continue to undermine all confidence each and every time they take an unsubstantiated position, or fail to walk it back uniformly.
All Niantic needed to do in this case was to identify a correct location for the POI, and put the pin there. It appears like the nominator chose an incorrect location and would have had better success if they had selected the spot Niantic settled upon, but we don't know the originator's intentions any better than the reviewers'.
The information available to us gives the impression that Niantic messed up, and then was inconsistent in their response to appeals.
Niantic is still using threatening language in an inappropriate manner, failing to use a single yardstick for everyone, and they are unapologetic about it.
Wouldn't it have been great if they informed the originator that their spot was placed a bit off, and Niantic had selected a correct placement?
They didn't need to make any threats.
Without the threats there wouldn't have been any warnings or strikes.
Without the warnings/strikes there would be no need for warning/strike appeals.
Without the appeals there would be no possibility of inconsistent response.
Vietnam isn't it? You folks still need to prove that local abusers are using bots to review as stated in another thread.
In short, in this post, I think the issue of using tools is unrelated. The poster mainly wanted to talk about the issue of the reporter making a false complaint and the Niantic staff handling the issue incorrectly and causing many people to be banned.
It's hard to believe that this is Nghe An area in Vietnam. So it proves that someone here is giving the reviewers in this area a headache.
I think the problem is that Philo P is giving an unreasonable warning, even when they appeal, the Niantic staff is not handling it correctly.
Many people are being unfairly warned when they are properly adjusted, it is possible for the nomination creator to intentionally use S2 Cell to get more Pokestops.
And we need a response from Niantic's representative because of the somewhat unreasonable way of solving this problem
I read the article and saw 2 problems:
1. First is the problem of how to handle and ban players from Niantic staff when viewing appeal tickets and review requests incorrectly and thoroughly.
2. Next is the issue of abuse and use of tools by players in Vietnam: as far as I know, it will be very difficult to verify because it is possible to determine who the culprit is but there is not enough actual evidence to prove it. the whole community sees them in use. If we had to use the tool to approve nominations, that area would certainly be like the event of previous years at the Soc Bom Bo Museum in Binh Phuoc, Vietnam. Because only using a tool can quickly pull up a number of nominations in a row and no one else can approve those nominations. So this problem must be hoped that the players here can find another new abuse area but with the same perpetrator to prove the problem of using the tool.
Care to comment on your assumption that Niantic would barely put the wayspot in the top box for quantity over accuracy? It looks like you were wrong, and frankly your tone makes it seem like you're trying to dunk on players of a specific game.
The use of "tools" is related in that whoever at Niantic reviewed the complaint automatically assumed that the reviewers were using "tools" and had purposely placed the Wayspot in a location where it wouldn't appear in Pokemon GO. That is quite the assumption on the employee's part.
Please note that the game you mention is a game I also play. I've no intention of bulk-labeling players of any game in a certain fashion. My only critique is of Niantic, and their apparent (based on this nomination only, which is admittedly not a scientifically significant sample size) feeling that placing something in the WRONG place which then generates a wayspot in multiple games is probably just a simple honest mistake, while placing something in a more correct location that makes a spot appear in fewer games is abusive, malicious, and warrants a warning strike or temp ban. From reading these forums for as long as I have, I've clearly seen a pattern where quality measures apply more to reviewers than they do to submitters. In this case, Niantic placed the pin in an accurate location, but punished the reviewers who got it nearly right while rewarding the submitter who got it so wrong to start.
Hello everyone,
Thank you for sharing your concerns regarding this issue.
One of our tools had malfunctioned that lead to an inaccurate analysis. We have fixed the issue and are in process of revoking the warnings/impacts that it had on all the accounts involved.
We regret the confusion and thank you for your understanding.
Regards,
Imagine if this statement got into "Pokemon GO influencers" like FleeceKing, JRE Seawolf PokeAK, or that one very best Singaporean Grandma.
Did you let the original location stand since it was accurate enough or are you still going to capitulate to a nominator that was attempting to manipulate the map to their advantage?
Thanks @NianticAaron for clarifying this case.
The Wayspot is currently at the correct location and does not require any adjustments.
So in other words, you are letting the manipulation stand even though the location the reviewers originally chose was also correct.
Please refrain from making judgements based on assumptions. The Wayspot does not require any adjustments.