Of course there is. It's a new feature that has been rolling out worldwide for a little while now, and is available in several countries at this point. @Brukterra-PGOhas provided some information on it earlier in this thread (some I was aware of, and some I wasn't, very interesting in any case).
The wayspot photo gallery is a new feature that Niantic are implementing in certain countries for testing purposes in Pokemon Go. Screenshots are included in that thread, I am happy to provide more if necessary.
It's also not a tin-foil hat theory, it was a fact and the method employed by many people around the world to manipulate which Wayspot becomes a Gym in Pokemon Go. This was changed in late 2020 with Niantic formally addressing it (finally) in March 2021.
Likes should merely mean which photo is the default photo, however, with the rampant Pokemon Go abuse over the years, many photos have a large number of upvotes making them impossible to replace when the photo that was upvoted is terrible, because it wasn't about the quality, but rather the end-result for another game, which is why the topic of resetting upvotes has been brought up.
"Should the likes be set to zero once worldwide for the sake of fairness?" -- no, that's not "fairness", but slap in the face for the people who submitted better pictures, and people who voted for better pictures.
The highlighted problems are: 1) how to give new pictures a chance, and 2) what to do with inflated votes?
TBH, if someone inflated votes once, they can do it again, reset or not. Niantic can ban multiaccounters in all games, remove their votes, etc. - reset won't stop people if they want to fight over pictures.
How to give new pictures a chance - maybe there are other ways. Maybe keep all votes, but only use the most recent votes to pick the portal picture. Maybe rotate. Maybe give new pic few weeks of "promotion", then if ingress and pogo players liked it, they would come back to vote for it. Maybe run it through wayfarer as "vote for better picture". But not reset all to zero.
re: vertical vs horizontal. Off-topic, just my 2 cents: most of UI shows square pictures, cut from the centre of the original photo. In your example, you want to make sure the top part is included, and don't care about the sides. It's easier to take horizontal photo which includes the platform title, and let UI trim the sides. With other portals, it may be easier to take vertical photo, make sure the sides are good, and let UI trim top and bottom. So far, no big difference, just need to know where UI will trim it.
The only real difference: most of the phone displays are vertical. When you open the full-screen photo, the vertical photo is displayed as is, more or less, while the horizontal photo only gets a narrow **** from the middle. This is where the vertical photo is actually better.
I have another idea - and will explain it in detail in a comment.
I believe an alternative approach might work where newer votes are given more weighted value over older votes. A single person's vote's influence on the total score for a photo should be determined based on the age of the vote. Adding a new vote on a photo should add 1.00 to the score of the photo. However, the value of this vote should decay by a small percentage every day. On day 2, that vote should only contribute 0.99 to the score. On day 7, it might only be 0.94. After a month, it would be worth 0.74. After half a year, the value would have dropped to 0.16. After a full year, that photo would have a weighted value of 0.03. It will never fully decay to 0. This example assumes that votes decay by 1% every day.
This approach would value newer photos over older ones. It also values votes from active players. One could make it so that an agent can re-cast their vote - e.g. after half a year, the agent decides to withdraw their vote, subtracting their 0.16 contribution from the portal photo score. They can then vote for it again, and add 1.00 back to it. This would allow active players to "refresh" their contribution.
I don't know what the rest of the world looks like, but in Germany the "Likes" feature has also gone live in Pokémon Go. But in Ingress all likes are still there. I absolutely do not like this process.
I'm not sure if you understood the content of the starting post. @Brukterra-PGO did not advocate for the abuse of the Ingress photo-likes to control what becomes a Gym in Pokémon GO, instead noting that it's sad that new, better photos can't be featured because old, worse photos were upvoted into oblivion because of this abuse. By voting no on the poll, you say that these abusive likes should be kept. I don't really think that this is what you want.
Also: yes, I would like a reset, especially now that PoGO and Ingress have their own separate photo-likes. I have a Wayspot here in my own village, where I am pretty much the only still active player, which has 4 likes on a winter photo with bad focus, while my own photo with 1 like and a much better focus on the object, will now never have a chance to be displayed in Ingress.
I'm still gonna go with "No" cause it's still unfair to all the photo likes not manipulated by gyms, and any photos that aren't appropriate can be removed either by the wayfarer photo contribution process or by using the wayspot edit form.
I think its better if niantic separeted the like photo systeme and the manipulation systeme to determine who's poi become à gym , take the actualy like and put them in a preference systeme for gym and reset the score of the picture .
I don't understand why you chose "No" when you even seem to understand what this is about.
Niantic has now made it possible for Pokémon Go players to see all photos and to like them. But the likes that were set in the game Ingress by Pokémon players and old inactive accounts remain as if it were garbage. I do not like that!
I also don't understand why you, as a Pokémon Go account, are against a reset of the photos at Ingress. That doesn't affect you at all, does it ?! You can now set likes yourself on Pokémon Go!
This wayspot is an exception to the rules. It is a portal created by Niantic at Ingress which travels to events around the world and constantly changes its location.
I can see both points. In clear classes of abuse where the votes were being used to manipulate the playing field to the strategic advantage of a group of players in a different game, I would say reset the votes and sanction the accounts involved. I also suggest limiting votes to L8 accounts in Ingress, maybe even as low as L5. But L1 and L2 accounts should not be able to vote at all.
It's nice that instead of voting, people are giving me a "disagree" by the dozen. I'm just giving my opinion. But regardless, we shouldn't stall this discussion. Are there any other opinions?
I have another idea - and will explain it in detail in a comment.
I do agree with something being done. Wiping all votes to Zero wouldn’t be the best situation as the votes will rise again once it’s been realised they’ve been wiped.
I’d agree with @Hosette-ING in that if there are (both Ingress and now Pokemon Go) accounts that are below a certain level, and appear to exist only for upvoting images, then they should be banned and the associated email address blacklisted, just as when someone requests their account to be deleted. This could be done on Niantic’s end, or, with the new feature in Ingress where it is put in the team COMMS in Ingress when a player completes their Agent training and has Zero AP, players can report these accounts to Niantic.
I definitely agree into this. Others may tell that likes on a certain portal to make it a gym is not working, well its been exploited massively.
By doing that, one of the ingress rules has been violated.... Multiple accounts per player for it to get that much likes for it to become gym. As it stated that even a newly made account at lvl 1 can give an upvote. Sounds exploitable is it?
For it to avoid that kind of exploitations. Getting portal likes must have a LvL requirements. Coz if there's no requirement, i can simply register a mew Google account, creat new agent and get that likes.
Thanks for linking to my Reddit post. I also did a subsequent one three months later showing how it correctly predicted 35 new gym selections in my areas, and then continued to work a long time after that.
I rarely make gyms nowadays (after 700 accepted Wayspots you start to run out of room...), so I don’t know the details for how the system currently works, but to say that photo likes *never* had an effect on gym creation is laughable and stands in opposition to the data.
Thanks @WayfarerMSE-PGO for tagging me on this especially since this was a post from before my time here. Let me bring this back to my team for context. Hope to have more information soon.
A slightly different suggestion. Remove the likes option altogether (or if they are kept, don't have them influence the photo choice as much). Let the wayfarer reviewers decide which is the best picture. I already find it strange that the photo reviews we do is just if they meet criteria or not, there's loads of times I've seen pictures that, while not meeting removal criteria, are not good pictures, while others I've seen fantastic pictures, but have no idea if that's the main one
Yes, theoretically, one could then re-inflate the votes. However, I am certain once the gym is chosen people lose interest in voting on photographs in that area. I know that in my own area, rather than rely on multi-account people, we come together as a community to decide the location of gyms in pivotal places. This overrides anybody who may use multiple accounts.
I am in contact with people who play Ingress and I would certainly help out in getting better photographs. Sadly, Pokémon GO accounts cannot add new photographs except by way of a nomination being marked as a duplicate. Though naturally this means incorrect duplicates from inattentive reviewers will be added to the list of photographs when they should not be.
Thanks! I'm hoping for a positive feedback. Some others have already brought good ideas here, such as, for example, just like with Pokémon Go, also with Ingress, the likes can only be set from the level at which you can also submit wayspots.
That would at least prevent this problem in the future. Nevertheless, for the reasons mentioned, I am still in favor of the likes being reset there once. It's just not nice when ugly photos get more likes than there are active players just because it was supposed to be an Gym in Pokémon, that's not the point! :(
Since Niantic has already said in the past that they do not want people to choose which Waypoint becomes a gym (because random is SOOO much better, I guess) then I just don't see the point. In my area we DO have some longstanding Photo Wars. I don't want fuel added to the fire by starting old battles from scratch.
They should connect the like system from the different games completely (currently, the main photo in PGO is dependent on ING Likes) or separate them completely.
Comments
Of course there is. It's a new feature that has been rolling out worldwide for a little while now, and is available in several countries at this point. @Brukterra-PGO has provided some information on it earlier in this thread (some I was aware of, and some I wasn't, very interesting in any case).
That's cool! Thanks for teaching me something new, missed it in @Brukterra-PGO's first post about it.
The wayspot photo gallery is a new feature that Niantic are implementing in certain countries for testing purposes in Pokemon Go. Screenshots are included in that thread, I am happy to provide more if necessary.
It's also not a tin-foil hat theory, it was a fact and the method employed by many people around the world to manipulate which Wayspot becomes a Gym in Pokemon Go. This was changed in late 2020 with Niantic formally addressing it (finally) in March 2021.
Likes should merely mean which photo is the default photo, however, with the rampant Pokemon Go abuse over the years, many photos have a large number of upvotes making them impossible to replace when the photo that was upvoted is terrible, because it wasn't about the quality, but rather the end-result for another game, which is why the topic of resetting upvotes has been brought up.
"Should the likes be set to zero once worldwide for the sake of fairness?" -- no, that's not "fairness", but slap in the face for the people who submitted better pictures, and people who voted for better pictures.
The highlighted problems are: 1) how to give new pictures a chance, and 2) what to do with inflated votes?
TBH, if someone inflated votes once, they can do it again, reset or not. Niantic can ban multiaccounters in all games, remove their votes, etc. - reset won't stop people if they want to fight over pictures.
How to give new pictures a chance - maybe there are other ways. Maybe keep all votes, but only use the most recent votes to pick the portal picture. Maybe rotate. Maybe give new pic few weeks of "promotion", then if ingress and pogo players liked it, they would come back to vote for it. Maybe run it through wayfarer as "vote for better picture". But not reset all to zero.
re: vertical vs horizontal. Off-topic, just my 2 cents: most of UI shows square pictures, cut from the centre of the original photo. In your example, you want to make sure the top part is included, and don't care about the sides. It's easier to take horizontal photo which includes the platform title, and let UI trim the sides. With other portals, it may be easier to take vertical photo, make sure the sides are good, and let UI trim top and bottom. So far, no big difference, just need to know where UI will trim it.
The only real difference: most of the phone displays are vertical. When you open the full-screen photo, the vertical photo is displayed as is, more or less, while the horizontal photo only gets a narrow **** from the middle. This is where the vertical photo is actually better.
Current status, for the curious. It used to have a lot more likes before it was deleted and restored.
I believe an alternative approach might work where newer votes are given more weighted value over older votes. A single person's vote's influence on the total score for a photo should be determined based on the age of the vote. Adding a new vote on a photo should add 1.00 to the score of the photo. However, the value of this vote should decay by a small percentage every day. On day 2, that vote should only contribute 0.99 to the score. On day 7, it might only be 0.94. After a month, it would be worth 0.74. After half a year, the value would have dropped to 0.16. After a full year, that photo would have a weighted value of 0.03. It will never fully decay to 0. This example assumes that votes decay by 1% every day.
This approach would value newer photos over older ones. It also values votes from active players. One could make it so that an agent can re-cast their vote - e.g. after half a year, the agent decides to withdraw their vote, subtracting their 0.16 contribution from the portal photo score. They can then vote for it again, and add 1.00 back to it. This would allow active players to "refresh" their contribution.
I don't know what the rest of the world looks like, but in Germany the "Likes" feature has also gone live in Pokémon Go. But in Ingress all likes are still there. I absolutely do not like this process.
Ingress isn't some extension on Pokemon GO, it's its own game with its own playerbase.
Photo-likes were never supposed to be abused by players to choose gyms. NianticCasey even said it's considered abuse of the system to do so.
Posts like this treating abuse as a deliberate part of the system instead of an oversight players figured out is why Niantic came down on it.
I'm not sure if you understood the content of the starting post. @Brukterra-PGO did not advocate for the abuse of the Ingress photo-likes to control what becomes a Gym in Pokémon GO, instead noting that it's sad that new, better photos can't be featured because old, worse photos were upvoted into oblivion because of this abuse. By voting no on the poll, you say that these abusive likes should be kept. I don't really think that this is what you want.
Also: yes, I would like a reset, especially now that PoGO and Ingress have their own separate photo-likes. I have a Wayspot here in my own village, where I am pretty much the only still active player, which has 4 likes on a winter photo with bad focus, while my own photo with 1 like and a much better focus on the object, will now never have a chance to be displayed in Ingress.
****, you're right. My apologies to the OP.
I'm still gonna go with "No" cause it's still unfair to all the photo likes not manipulated by gyms, and any photos that aren't appropriate can be removed either by the wayfarer photo contribution process or by using the wayspot edit form.
Isn't a van a temporary object?
That signpost it backed into is a temporary object. 🤣 The Van is an exception to the rules and it is used for special Ingress Events.
I think its better if niantic separeted the like photo systeme and the manipulation systeme to determine who's poi become à gym , take the actualy like and put them in a preference systeme for gym and reset the score of the picture .
I don't understand why you chose "No" when you even seem to understand what this is about.
Niantic has now made it possible for Pokémon Go players to see all photos and to like them. But the likes that were set in the game Ingress by Pokémon players and old inactive accounts remain as if it were garbage. I do not like that!
I also don't understand why you, as a Pokémon Go account, are against a reset of the photos at Ingress. That doesn't affect you at all, does it ?! You can now set likes yourself on Pokémon Go!
This wayspot is an exception to the rules. It is a portal created by Niantic at Ingress which travels to events around the world and constantly changes its location.
I can see both points. In clear classes of abuse where the votes were being used to manipulate the playing field to the strategic advantage of a group of players in a different game, I would say reset the votes and sanction the accounts involved. I also suggest limiting votes to L8 accounts in Ingress, maybe even as low as L5. But L1 and L2 accounts should not be able to vote at all.
It's nice that instead of voting, people are giving me a "disagree" by the dozen. I'm just giving my opinion. But regardless, we shouldn't stall this discussion. Are there any other opinions?
I do agree with something being done. Wiping all votes to Zero wouldn’t be the best situation as the votes will rise again once it’s been realised they’ve been wiped.
I’d agree with @Hosette-ING in that if there are (both Ingress and now Pokemon Go) accounts that are below a certain level, and appear to exist only for upvoting images, then they should be banned and the associated email address blacklisted, just as when someone requests their account to be deleted. This could be done on Niantic’s end, or, with the new feature in Ingress where it is put in the team COMMS in Ingress when a player completes their Agent training and has Zero AP, players can report these accounts to Niantic.
I definitely agree into this. Others may tell that likes on a certain portal to make it a gym is not working, well its been exploited massively.
By doing that, one of the ingress rules has been violated.... Multiple accounts per player for it to get that much likes for it to become gym. As it stated that even a newly made account at lvl 1 can give an upvote. Sounds exploitable is it?
For it to avoid that kind of exploitations. Getting portal likes must have a LvL requirements. Coz if there's no requirement, i can simply register a mew Google account, creat new agent and get that likes.
Thanks for linking to my Reddit post. I also did a subsequent one three months later showing how it correctly predicted 35 new gym selections in my areas, and then continued to work a long time after that.
I rarely make gyms nowadays (after 700 accepted Wayspots you start to run out of room...), so I don’t know the details for how the system currently works, but to say that photo likes *never* had an effect on gym creation is laughable and stands in opposition to the data.
What’s the significance of the photos getting likes ?
what role does it play ingress ?
what role will it play in pogo ?
It determines which photo is the main photo in both Go and Ingress and can determine which Wayspot becomes a gym in the past.
Push @NianticTintino
Thanks @WayfarerMSE-PGO for tagging me on this especially since this was a post from before my time here. Let me bring this back to my team for context. Hope to have more information soon.
A slightly different suggestion. Remove the likes option altogether (or if they are kept, don't have them influence the photo choice as much). Let the wayfarer reviewers decide which is the best picture. I already find it strange that the photo reviews we do is just if they meet criteria or not, there's loads of times I've seen pictures that, while not meeting removal criteria, are not good pictures, while others I've seen fantastic pictures, but have no idea if that's the main one
Yes, theoretically, one could then re-inflate the votes. However, I am certain once the gym is chosen people lose interest in voting on photographs in that area. I know that in my own area, rather than rely on multi-account people, we come together as a community to decide the location of gyms in pivotal places. This overrides anybody who may use multiple accounts.
I am in contact with people who play Ingress and I would certainly help out in getting better photographs. Sadly, Pokémon GO accounts cannot add new photographs except by way of a nomination being marked as a duplicate. Though naturally this means incorrect duplicates from inattentive reviewers will be added to the list of photographs when they should not be.
Thanks! I'm hoping for a positive feedback. Some others have already brought good ideas here, such as, for example, just like with Pokémon Go, also with Ingress, the likes can only be set from the level at which you can also submit wayspots.
That would at least prevent this problem in the future. Nevertheless, for the reasons mentioned, I am still in favor of the likes being reset there once. It's just not nice when ugly photos get more likes than there are active players just because it was supposed to be an Gym in Pokémon, that's not the point! :(
Since Niantic has already said in the past that they do not want people to choose which Waypoint becomes a gym (because random is SOOO much better, I guess) then I just don't see the point. In my area we DO have some longstanding Photo Wars. I don't want fuel added to the fire by starting old battles from scratch.
They should connect the like system from the different games completely (currently, the main photo in PGO is dependent on ING Likes) or separate them completely.