November Criteria AMA - Topics Thread
NianticCasey-ING
Posts: 538Niantic › admin
Hi folks,
As we've announced, there's a completely new set of review criteria that overrides all previous guidelines and guidance. Learn more here: https://community.wayfarer.nianticlabs.com/discussion/9512/wayfarer-3-1-release-notes-new-criteria-darkmode#latest
Because this is such a big change, I wanted to allow you the opportunity to ask whatever questions you want to the Wayfarer team specific to the new criteria. Please add your questions below through next week and the top 15 will be added to the November AMA (for a total of 30 questions answered).
Thanks again!
Post edited by NianticCasey-ING on
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Comments
Does "private residential property" still only include single-family residential homes and farms or does it now include multi-family properties (such as apartment buildings) as well?
Does "publicly accessible" in the acceptance criteria mean that locations need to be accessible for everyone (even if restricted by time)?
In other words: are areas like members-only clubs, gated communities, restricted access industrial complexes etc. ineligible now or are they still eligible as long as some people can safely and legally access them?
What are typical motives for a non generic business?
OK, the "Sensitive Locations" guideline has clearer advice for cemeteries and graves, but it's still silent about non-grave wayspots that could potentially be in cemeteries, like government historical markers, war memorials, historic chapels, etc.
I'm inclined to think that if a community puts a giant Civil War memorial in the town cemetery, and promotes that as historic attraction, it should be OK as a wayspot, but I could be wrong. I think explicit clarification here would be good.
So, non-grave memorials and buildings in cemeteries: Eligible or not eligible?
Hi Casey.
I like it so far, but there is ALOT missing.
The bits about titles and/or descriptions do not include guidance about game specific references (e.g. pokestop/portals in the description) needs to be stated as this is a huge thing to people who submit trash.
The photo rejection criteria only mention watermarks in the context of copyrighted photos. Are photos containing watermarks automatically generated by certain phones still considered ineligible?
This! I was literally going to post the same question and already wrote a long question just waiting for this thread to be open. Guess I'll still post my question here regardless. Some specific examples in my question include apartment complexes, office buildings and university buildings that require card access.
Question:
Can you clarify what "publicly accessible" means on the new "Acceptance criteria" page?
Currently the page says "Must be safe and publicly accessible by pedestrians (indoor or outdoor)", which can easily give the impression that the POI needs to be accessible to all members of the public - which would imply that POIs in gated communities or places that require special permissions will not be eligible. The "Content Guidelines" page again uses the phrase "publicly accessible" without additional clarifications: "Indoor nominations are eligible, so long as they are publicly accessible to some capacity (e.g. inside a library or business with limited hours of operation), [...]".
However, this interpretation contradicts responses from past AMAs (examples in this Reddit post), which says a POI is considered okay as long as some members of the public can access it, not necessarily all of the public:
December 11, 2017 AMA
Q69: What do you think about portal candidates located in internal area of residential condominium, with access restricted to local residents and their guests? What do you think about portal candidates located in internal area of companies, with access restricted to her workers and their guests (i cannot join to the area without company authorization and the company not allow join to play ingress...)?
A69: Not all Portals need to be accessible to all Agents at all times. Think of it as an opportunity to make new friend.
December 19, 2017 AMA
Q1: Why are portals on private property allowed? Private corporations, military bases, etc. are content that an average agent is completely unable to access that can directly affect their gameplay with control fields covering them or links blocking them. They should not have to play at a disadvantage.
A1: Portals on corporate property are allowed because restricted access is not the same as private residential access. The people that can access portals on corporate grounds are doing so legally as they have access to the location. It would however, be considered trespassing in many areas of the world for anyone other than the property owner to access a Portal on private residential property. What you are referring to as a disadvantage is normalized globally.
November 2018 AMA
Q50: How is Niantic addressing portals and then fields made from restricted access portals? Many agents have quit and slowed down play, especially newer ones because of these large fields that can't be dropped, and needing to wait for the faction who put them up, to take them down. Do you consider such portals within the spirit of the game?
A50: I’m not sure I understand the question. Restricted or limited access Portals may be valid Portals if they meet the criteria of a Portal. There is not a requirement that every person be able to access a Portal. Both factions utilize these types of Portals globally and they have been part of the game since earliest days. Therefore, I don’t find them against the spirit of the game.
Can you clarify whether "publicly accessible" requires all members of the public, or if it only requires a smaller community or proportion of the public to be able to access it? In particular, can you clarify with respect to the following examples that I can think of:
To add to this question, if multi-family residential properties are still acceptable, can you explicitly mention "single-family" private residence in the "Rejection Criteria" and "Content Guides" pages? Since they are the only pages an average reviewer will read, it has led to confusions in the past and resulted in many submissions at apartment homes being wrongfully rejected as "private residence".
Are footbridges still eligible under places for exploration and/or exercise? Especially if they are on a named trail? Currently it's not explicitly mentioned on any page.
what is the status of ancient historical locations which lack signs. I’ve seen lots of Ancient Burial mounds, knolls and stone circles which are sometimes visually not immediately impressive but as a historical site they are incredibly important to our culture. There is plenty of detail about each of the locations on ancient historical websites (for example megalithic.com) but due to being thousands of years old they often get rejected as “natural feature”
i think that as these are manmade and are important to our culture that they are studied to learn about our history then these would meet criteria.
what would Niantic say the guidance on these historical locations without signs
I notice that there is no section labeled as guidance on what should and should not be included in the supplemental information and supplemental photo. I feel this would be a nice addition to what you have put together.
Also, I would like to know the answer to @Nadiwereb-PGO's question about phone generated watermarks as opposed to copyright watermarks as a rejection reason.
"Hiking trails" and "biking trails" are now listed as eligible under "A great place for exercise". Do they still require a sign or other man-made object with the trail's name to be eligible? In other words, are "a photo of a nature trail itself without any signs" and "trail markers with only a number and not the trail name" still ineligible?
cuantos dias tardan las propuestas mejoradas en ser revisadas?
Statements regarding indoor playplaces at a business feel like they have been in conflict. The Ingress AMA responses flip flopped. The published guidelines don't completely negate them, but the many consider the last AMA to make them ineligible.
Are indoor play areas that are accessible to the public but happen to be inside a generic chain business considered eligible?
General question:
Over close to a year ago, the new form "Wayfarer Criteria Clarifications" (https://wayfarer.nianticlabs.com/help#wayspot-acceptance-criteria-clarifications) was launched, presumably as a location to ask for updated guidance.
Have questions asked there been compiled and are being considered for future guideline updates? Can we expect to see any of the frequent asked questions on that form to be acknowledged?
"Answers to frequently asked questions will be posted on this page periodically."
Should comments made by Niantic staff on this forum and "selected answers" by the community be taken as new review criteria? Several comments have specifically endorsed and/or condoned eligibility that may not reach a widespread audience. How might this affect reviewer ratings for those who try to review with Niantic's new stances but are drowned out by the masses?
Are swimming pools still ineligible if they do not have historical or cultural significance beyond just recreational use? Examples include swimming pools in apartment complexes.
Per the latest criteria, there is nothing that explicitly states that "generic" swimming pools are ineligible. Based on these new guidelines alone, one would get the impression that swimming pools are eligible under "A great place for exercise", just like other athletic fields (which are eligible by virtue of being athletic fields alone, even if it has not been visited by an Olympic winner and does not have any purposes beyond recreational use).
Two questions. One related to this.
It seems that all trails/trailmarkers would meet the refreshed criteria but we know they’re often rejected and often faked. Is there any other criteria we should apply to these to ensure we are only accepting those that are eligible?
What is the point of criteria questions when all previous criteria are thrown out the window? Must they all be re-asked?
While covered shelters tend to be eligible as community gathering locations, what do you think about permanently installed picnic tables without an associated shade structure?
"Nominations that are duplicates of existing Wayspots
Check to make sure that the Wayspot you're nominating or reviewing doesn't already exist."
How? Asking for a (pogo) friend. Not joking.
You should probably ask PoGo, then. They control what appears in their app, not the Wayfarer team.
In “Niantic Wayfarer Clarifications: January 2020,” it stated that:
Activity-related businesses (gyms, dance studios, martial arts studios, etc.)
Acceptable: Businesses that have been featured prominently in travel guides, those with historical or cultural significance or are a popular tourist destination.
Not acceptable: Generic businesses with no distinguishing feature or significance or those that are part of a K-12 school.
However, all of them are great places for exercise. Do the new criteria supersede the old one?
In the Pogo Help about submitting pokestops, section 8 "Review by Community" states:
If your nomination was deemed eligible: Congrats, you’ve helped contribute to encouraging Trainers all over the world to explore their communities! Please keep in mind that not all eligible PokéStop nominations are able to appear live in Pokémon GO. However, they may appear in other Niantic games.
If your nomination was deemed ineligible: Please review the PokéStop criteria to make sure your nomination follows all of the criteria. We receive a large number of nominations and not all of them are guaranteed to be added to the game.
This information is basically identical in the Ingress Help.
The new criteria basically says if it a location or item promotes exploration, exercise or social interaction, it is eligible. But eligible only means it can be reviewed further to see if it is acceptable or if it should be rejected. I think this is the kind of vocabulary mismatch that causes problems.
Will you be clarifying the help page so that terminology will be consistent and we can move away from discussions of the nature of:
This (trail marker - gazebo - soccer field - etc.) is eligible, why didn't get added to (pokemon - ingress - HP)?
In the rejection criteria, it stated that:
Nominations and edit submissions may be entirely rejected if it meets at least one of the following rejection criteria:
It used the word “may”. Does it mean that there exist exceptions?
In the rejection criteria “Does not meet eligibility criteria” section, it stated that:
The object is mass-produced, generic, or not visually unique or interesting.
In the old guideline, there exist exceptions. The object is eligible if it has some cultural significance. As a result, playground equipment and basketball court are eligible despite they are mass-produced objects. Is there also an exception in the new criteria?
Hi Niantic,
@NianticCasey-ING
First, it’s really nice that you tried to do something about the documentation...
But here are two big problems with the new criteria, mostly because they are even more confusing than before :
1/ Private residential property :
Although the guidelines and AMA stated that only single-family residential property (and farms) were covered by this rejection criterium, there where a whole lot of reviewers that automatically rejected everything that was in the 40m range of apartment buildings. It was already awfully difficult to have something accepted that was in this range, even when publicly accessible on the sidewalk in 40m of an appartment building. In a high density city that means that most of unique architecture fall under this criteria and was rejected. With the new criteria page, it’s even worse, there’s even no more mention of the single-family part : the way it’s written, every decoration, wall art, mosaic tile, sculpture, engraving or even memorial plaque that’s on or near a building were people might live must be rejected. Again, in a high density city, that’s the vast majority of the actual wayspots that must be removed, and that no “hidden gem” or interesting architectural or cultural detail besides museums, parks, statues and playgrounds can be eligible anymore. Is that really what Niantic wants ? If it’s not, then, please write this in a way people would understand that, for example, a nomination on the external wall of an apartment building, visible from the sidewalk on the street is still eligible, if it meets the other criteria (permanent, culturally interesting, etc).
2/ Influencing reviewers
People were already taking this criterium in a way that, for them, pointing to the guidelines or to the AMA was “influencing reviewers” and was to be marked as abuse. In the way it’s now written, it leads even more to that interpretation. Is that what Niantic wants ? If this is the case, what’s the point of having guidelines and AMA, if we’re forbidden to point to them for people who do not know them already ? If it’s not what Niantic wants, please write it in a way that we can point to the guidelines or AMA or here without it being called abuse...
"Forests" are now listed among the examples of Wayspots that encourage exercising. Does this mean that the previous rule regarding the ineligibility of natural features is not valid anymore, or simply that only a sign containing (for example) the name of the forest can be considered eligible? What about something pretty much permanent such as a waterfall?
To what extent must a Wayspot be "publicly accessible"? Does this mean that the Wayspot must be accessible to the general public or can it be accessible to a limited community (such as apartment/condo residence or gated community)? What about Wayspots in restricted access areas of a company or even behind a locked gate?
I have some questions about the temporary display.
If any rejection criteria applies, nomination is to be rejected, not rated lower. Influencing reviewer is grounds for outright rejection.