Welcome to 2021: Wayfarer 3.4

Hi folks,
Welcome to 2021 everyone! We’re back with a couple of tiny updates as we regroup as a team and start planning out for the next couple of quarters. For now, here’s what’s new!
New Rejection Reasons:
- Location Inappropriate: Use for Nominations whose real-world location appears to be explicit or inappropriate (e.g. adult entertainment store, weapons shop).
- Location Sensitive: Use for nominations whose real-world location appears to be sensitive (e.g. very private memorial grounds).
- Fake: Use for nominations that are clearly fake, and do not actually exist at the submitted location.
- Photo Watermark: Use when there is an obvious watermark on the photo indicating that it is copyrighted or includes personal or player info (‘tagging’).
Improved banned words list: We’ve expanded our list of banned words in English, Spanish, French, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Brazilian Portuguese, and Chinese. Based on your feedback, we now reject game-specific references, in addition to blocking hate speech or other words that are threatening or targeting specific groups. We’ll continue to actively monitor trends and expand the list as needed. Thank you so much for your reporting and feedback on this matter to date.
There’s still a few smaller improvements to come this winter, but we wanted to let you know that we’ll be focussed on upgrading our tech stack this quarter, which is much overdue.
In parallel, we’re also spending some time to synthesize feedback we’ve heard since last fall to inform our spring-summer roadmap. Any feedback you have at this time will be truly appreciated. We are really excited for what 2021 will bring!
Comments
It is really nice to see these new rejection reasons, and to see clear guidance about when to use them.
Will they show up in rejection emails?
Unfortunately, we're still researching the issue that is impacting the rejection reasons not populating in emails. Since these are new, my hope is that they will but I will look to you all in the community to confirm.
I like the new rejection reasons. I've been rejecting a few cemeteries, lately, and was just thinking about how I want a "sensitive location" reason.
Can "Generic or uninteresting" be added as a rejection reason?
Hi Casey.
Many thanks for fixing the delays in Wayfarer over the past few days, 1 thing I want to ask and I know a lot of the UK team in Telegram are looking for, can you confirm if/when will there be any progress into lifting the abuse vector in London (UK), whatever is blocking submissions from a certain area of London that stops submissions ever being seen naturally (without upgrade) and clear the Redacted submissions?
I understand this request is country/area specific, I'm not sure if this abuse vector effects other parts of the world, I'm not privy to other countries, but I can only tell you about what we see specifically here in the UK.
For the roadmap I would love to see a more balanced review times for all areas. Many submitters don’t feel the need to review because their submissions take a few days and claim upgrades make their submissions take longer. Whereas others have to wait many months and some submitters have no choice but to upgrade their submissions or they will not ever get seen at all
Also for a new rejection reason i would love a “please do more research” option.
many times I see a submission which has potential but on the evidence provided I can’t confirm or deny whether it is a good candidate or not and I don’t want to reject under “doesn’t meet criteria” because with some effort it might do and I want to tell the submitter that maybe with some more effort I will be able to give a better decision
There is reports of similar situations elsewhere (can’t remember where in America but I’ve seen others comment of @Qwizical-ING’S posts about her limbo situation with similar reports. We know 100% it’s not down to lack of potential reviewers it’s just that these subs are not going out to the reviewers that would be expected to cover that area
well sure our stuff here in Germany is in Limbo. The strangest thing my son and i are looking at is this:
He made a submission on 18.11.2019. It was upgraded, but hasnt moved a bit. Finally in March 2020 he decided to pull it back. He asked me to make the submission - and guess what, i submitted it in June 2020, and it still is in voting. I havent upgraded it.
From what we can see is that there is something else in that cell, that has been submitted before November 2019 that still is in voting or in queue.
It is just always the problem that these things that do not get resolved block out every other attempt to get something thru.
It is frustrating, a shame when i think that out there are thousands of people who are in the same situation AND STILL submit things in those cells because they think they are free.
so out of curiosity, if game specific terms are banned, how likely is it that Poke Bowl shops got the axe in the filter?
It looks like I'm still able to make nominations with the word "PokéStop" in the Description. But once the nomination is in Wayfarer, it doesn't appear that I can edit it in.
Did the banned words get pushed to the apps?
Glad to see "Fake" and Photo Watermark" as new rejection reasons.
And by the way, there's no "Brazilian" language. "Portuguese" is a language. "Brazilian Portuguese" is a dialect.
Banned words list in Korean, hope it works well
Would you please add things like "5*", "5 stars", and similiar terms in EVERY language into banned word list, as well?
Also, can you give more examples of possible sensitive locations?
Did military bases would be included to this category, as well?
Can anyone say, how the ban word list will work?
Is it while submitting a Nomination, where if i use those word, i will get error on submit?
Or is it in wayfarer website? Where there will something happend due to using the ban word.
& also, which words are banned? Can they still be used in supporting text?
Just speculating based on past behaviour, but when you enter one or more of the banned words into the nomination (title or description), it would give you a warning before being able to move forward to the next section. It doesn't tell you what word, but something in what you have entered will trigger it.
For example COVID-19 was previously banned, you couldn't submit anything with those words. But you could get around that by submitting without the text and then going into the Wayfarer website to edit the text back in. I wonder if Niantic have patched that though lol
Also the word list hasn't been published, it most likely contains various curse words and in-game references. Hopefully it's nowhere near as frustrating as this stupid forum's rules lol
Thanks for the "Fake" - rejection reason. That will come in handy. Additionally I'd like to see more rewards for wayfarer "whales" and more decisive action against large scale abusers (of which there are more than enough). Limiting their access to wayfarer would help a lot.
once again the german translation is iffy:
"Ort ist unangemessen"
Verwende diese Option für vorgeschlagene Orte, die anstößig oder unangemessen erscheinen.
and then
"Unangemessener Ort".
Verwende diese Option für vorgeschlagene Orte, die als Spielort nicht angemessen sind.
I do not know who translates your stuff, but this is just wrong.
Thanks for flagging, it looks like we're waiting for the next update for Pokémon GO to be pushed live for this to be active in the Pokémon GO nomination process.
Thanks!
This may be a long stretch, but would it be any way possible for us to be provided with a list of these banned words?
Cómo podemos agregar palabras o iniciales ya que en co junto con a otros evaluadores ya hemos recabado varias firmas
Photo Watermark: Use when there is an obvious watermark on the photo indicating that it is copyrighted or includes personal or player info (‘tagging’).
Can Casey or someone else expend on this, please? How does this differ from the "submitter identifiable" option? Does "tagging" mean something like a tag graffiti (as the nomination subject), or something else?
As you're asking for feedback, here are my top priorities for Wayfarer:
the "oldest first" should be a day every week to get out the old stuff. simple as that. i still do not understand why Niantic doesnt want to get rid of the old stuff.
Feature request: Expand the size of the description. There are some wayspot candidates (e.g. historic buildings and interesting local businesses) that can’t be done justice with fewer characters than are allowed in a tweet!
This is particularly important now that local businesses are being stressed more.
The limitations are particularly difficult for submitters who use languages that require more characters to express themselves. French vs. English is an example.
I have approved Redacted wayspots that probably wouldn’t make it through nowadays because they needed a detailed description.
Still waiting for the issues plaguing many people regarding the agreements not syncing up and the rating being negatively impacted by this issue. My badge still reads 14 agreements even though I had over 1500. I've stopped reviewing since.
You need to have the agreements when you are in "Good" or "Great" for them to count towards the medal/badge.
@NianticCasey-ING , one of the most frustrating things in the review are nomination without a 360 picture , is impossible to know lf a little sign in the middle of a forest is actually there or not just looking the satellite picture , you should add in the rejection reason "photospere requested". That will help to the submitter to understand why is review is been rejected and the reviewer to be accurate. Thank you 😊
This reason would be for watermarks or tags applied to a photo by the camera or edited in later.
Submitter identifiable is for when the identifying features were present when the photo was taken, i.e. not edited in.
Photospheres are too easy to falsify, so they shouldn't be trusted in isolated locations where there are no other reference points to match them with the surroundings.