Wayfarer Forum: Community Advocates

24

Comments

  • sinXsan-INGsinXsan-ING Posts: 299 ✭✭✭

    If I were to apply for the Community Advocates program, I would first want to change the systemic problems. Specifically, I would like to try to supplement the areas where NIA has centralized authority to remove POIs, but is not working well. We would also like this as a benefit.


    At the same time, I would like to see the review authority expanded to those who have made a number of highly rated applications. If possible, we would also like to make that selection a privilege. On the other hand, I would like you to reduce the application privileges for those who have many low-rated or Rejected projects.

  • ChopStiR-INGChopStiR-ING Posts: 16 ✭✭
    edited March 2021
    What would make you want to apply to be a Community Advocate?

    Like most people, the perks and direct meetings with staff. I would need to be anonymous so I could observe and communicate on the forums without the constant tagging. I could then report on issues discussed in the forums without being influenced/pressured by peers.

    What type of expectations do you, a forum member, have for the Community Advocates?

    To be anominous, I don't want a know it all with a glorified badge preaching their interpretations of the guidlines and having a direct impact to various local customs and cultures. They should also not be biased when reporting to Niantic staff on topics discussed on the forums.

    What type of potential perks would you expect as a part of a Community Advocate program?

    Any or all of the following.

    1. Increased number of nominations.
    2. reduced waiting time for new nomination
    3. multiple bonus locations
    4. change bonus locations more freely (not wait a year)
    5. less agreements for upgrades.

    Not the following

    1. reviews carry more weight. (The role is not an influencer).
  • SiIverLyra-PGOSiIverLyra-PGO Posts: 952 ✭✭✭✭✭
    1. That's a fantastic question. Speaking as a player from a tiny country... I'd say, at least 2 advocates per country (where the community is large enough/there are enough users interested in being Advocates). I don't think any single person should be the sole voice for their whole country's playerbase. It should be a conversation, with consideration for multiple points of views/opinions. For bigger countries, obviously, more advocates, at least a couple per certain region - again, dependent on whether there are enough users in that region interested in being Advocates/eligible for that position. BUT, definitely not one per continent (or anything larger than a single country). Local cultures and languages are too important in Wayfarer - Advocates should have sufficient knowledge of those, and I don't think one can possibly expect of an Advocate to have cultural/lingual knowledge beyond their own country (yes, some people travel a lot or live/have lived in multiple countries, but those cases are rare and even then, they don't guarantee that the person possesses the knowledge and experience needed).
    2. I imagine that Niantic directly polices the Advocates - people such as the current forum mods, preferably at least one person who would be directly responsible for the Advocates program. The community should absolutely be able to have an open conversation with Niantic about the actions made by Advocates, and reports should be taken very seriously, as with any other person in a similar position of power. Abuse is already a massive issue in the Wayfarer community - Advocates should absolutely not be another way for malicious people to spread toxicity.
  • Gazzas89-PGOGazzas89-PGO Posts: 2,619 ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited March 2021

    1. What would make me apply

    Personally, I wont, but if you were to twist my arm and say what would (and mo ey isn't an option) then I would want a direct line to a nia representative to give ideas and to get feedback


    2. What type of expectations do you have for a community advocate

    This is easy, the ability to end debates over criteria discussions and the ability to escalate poi abuse that gets posted. But, I would also want them to be lenient on criteria. I can already guess some of the people that will apply if this position came up and I feel they will be hyper critical of criteria, no wiggle room. We need someone who can look at the area or country, take on board the arguments for and against and then make the decision, not someone who will say "that doesn't meet any criteria, dont submit". I would also say, dont get someone who's already in charge of a wayfarer group, like the UK telegram owner, this isnt a slight at them, I believe though that if you had someone wgo eas already in charge, they might make bias decisions and enforce them on their area as gospel, the old sayi g is power corrupts. One last thing though, they should have the ability re open discussions if enough people have disagreed with niantics assessment of something and give feedback to nia for that (for example, gym creation, lots and lots of people were unhappy with the handling of that but niantic refused to listen)


    Edit: since I've now made the wayfarer chat, I wasnt aiming directly at the owner of the UK wayfarer chat, I was using as a general example I know if I was in charge if a group id abuse my power lol


    3. What perks

    As said, ability to escalate abuse, to end debates in criteria. But to add to that they could be able to look at appeals and give their assement before a nia representative does. They also have the option to ban people, but this would also need to be oked by niantic

    Post edited by Gazzas89-PGO on
  • NorthSeaPoet-INGNorthSeaPoet-ING Posts: 895 ✭✭✭✭✭

    What would make you want to apply to be a Community Advocate?

    The ability to help new Wayfarers with submissions, reviewing, and criteria, as well as a chance to help improve the wayspot network.

    What type of expectations do you, a forum member, have for the Community Advocates?

    They would be reasonable and civil in debate, and have knowledge of the criteria. Ideally someone that is willing to engage with the larger Wayfarer community, and someone that is willing to help others.

    What type of potential perks would you expect as a part of a Community Advocate program?

    Being able to help rule on criteria and clear up grey areas. Being able to help fast track submissions in slow areas (I.E. areas where a nomination could sit in queue for over a year). A couple of extra available nominations. Free tea.

  • Rodensteiner-PGORodensteiner-PGO Posts: 1,705 ✭✭✭✭✭

    forum activity does not equal a good knowledge of the Wayfarer System.

    as i already told a high activity forum poster, he sometimes doesnt know what is going on in the country, because he only knows "big town" and not "countryside".

    Personally i do not like the idea that Niantic is trying to get more unpaid people doing the labour of someone who could be paid in acutal money.

    Also, i do not condone to the Idea that there will be Wayfarer Avocados - i hate them. I would like them to be the Wayfarer Aficionados.

  • Raachermannl-INGRaachermannl-ING Posts: 1,070 ✭✭✭✭✭

    What would make you want to apply to be a Community Advocate?

    The most important thing is, how the communication to the Niantic staff then would be given. I know nothing about XM ambassadors, but a bit about the Vanguards - and especially how and why lots of them dropped their position. The No.1 reason was the lack of communication to the Niantic staff and the lack of backing support.

    So for this advocates-programme the official Niantic staff for wayfarer related stuff has to grow to, to ensure, that there is no lack in communication. Casey and Giffard are the only constant active staff members here - there is need for one or two more, I guess. In the same sense I would recommend to have more advocates than vanguards, too, since not evryone has permanent enough free time to do volunteer work. So activity may be varying. That was another often mentioned aspect, why vanguards dropped their task.

    For Germany in detail: afaik we had 2 vanguards .... so lets say at least half a dozen advocates would be needed here.

    To have a personal Niantic contact would be important for me, because in my oppinion the to-do-list for wayfarer improvement has a big problem: the staff doesn't adress the most basic problem of wayfarer: the timescales between different regions and the consequences for the motivation to do volunteer work in wayfarer.


    What type of expectations do you, a forum member, have for the Community Advocates?

    In my oppinion this isn't the very best question. For the forum and the members I see only the benefit of speeding up things. Official Niantic Answers in the Clarifications section are rarely seen and the speed in the appeal section varies - so right now it's very slow.

    So I would change "a forum member" to "a fellow wayfinder", because it's a bigger task to bring the people to the forum and use it, than doing something for the active members. So in the background there may be lots of big social media channels. For example Germany, Austria and the German speaking part of Switzerland have a 1200 member group using the messenger Telegram. Our admin group helps a lot for forum requests, has own "archives" of old rule and guideline examples, helps the people to do their reports and appeals here in the forum, and they serve as proxies for appeals, if the reporting person wants to stay anonymous (most famous example: @LukeAllStars-PGO ). So that's exactly, what we do already here in Germany. So administration of other communication platforms could be considered as an aspect of this task.

    So the only difference for the forum members should be, that there should be a way to reach the Community Advocates with PMs.


    What type of potential perks would you expect as a part of a Community Advocate program?

    • Own Forum Rank and maybe an own sub forum for communication to the Niantic staff. The own forum rank could be used to speed up the criteria section. Since writing detailed answers could takes a lot of time and the staff answers only happen rarely, the community advocate answers could be checked by the staff and maybe marked as trusted.
    • Advocates could be used to make the translations of the criteria better. There are at least two big translation faults in the criteria page comparing English and German, and there are lots of bad German translation in the reviewing interface (for example "Unangemessener Ort" and "Ort ist unangemessen" for inapprprioate location and for sensitive location). In the same sense advocates could provide better example pictures for their own country or language area, since a lot of them are very USA-fitted. To give an example: the hiking trail marker from the criteria page is totally different from those from Germany, and the Netherlands with their knooppunt-system are again totally different. So in the end the result is, that hiking trail markers are candidates, that are very hard to get them approved in Europe....
    • Location Edits, that could lead to vanishing stops or gyms could be reviewed by advocates in detail. The problem with the new algorithms, that lead to vanishing stops is simple: in my city our main sight, a skyscraper, had a gym, and its gone due to the algorithm. So extreme examples like this one should be reviewed very carefully. So maybe advocates as trusted reviewers could have a look, which wayspot should stay in PoGo instead of auto-deleting the moved one. Maybe in very rare cases maybe neglect the whole rule behind that. Then this could be sent with a reasoning to a Niantic-staff-member.
    • Filtering the nominations, that are flagged by reviewers. There are a few points, that lead me to propose this: a) I never heard of consequences of flagging nominations while reviewing, b) I see sometimes flagg-rejections for my own nominations for no reason, c) from our social media I see very often people, who flagg a lot of coal-nominations ..... so I guess, that there is a overload of flagged nominations and Niantics staff is simply not prepared to process all that flaggs. But if someone would help to process these nominations, fake nominations and their creators could be identified earlier. At the moment the sanctions only happen due to reports and appeals, I guess. So since lots of fakes get waved through although I and/or other good fake detecting reviewers flagg them for being fakes, I guess no sanctions happen during reviewing process....
    • Beta-Test for submitting features and changes to the reviewing interface.


    So, sorry, I'm sure I forgot a lot of things and didn't read that twice for the sake of grammar and orthography, but for now I want to catch shiny voltorbs during spotlight hour 😅

  • silverkali-INGsilverkali-ING Posts: 92 ✭✭✭

    Sorry, bit of an long incoming, but I had lots of thoughts.

    ·       What would make you want to apply to be a Community Advocate?

    I’ve been reviewing on and off since OPR was rolled out as a beta (mostly around IRL commitments) so I’ve seen a lot of changes to both the submission and the reviewing processes over the years. On the whole I enjoy reviewing and would like to encourage more people to join in and help.

    Be able to help shape the criteria, provide advice for clarifications and help to encourage a lot more community engagement in the Wayfarer programme as a whole and not just within the local community.


    ·       What type of expectations do you, a forum member, have for the Community Advocates?

    It would be nice to have a point of contact to push concerns to that could then be forwarded on to Wayfarer Staff. Often it feels, when posting concerns on the forum, that they are lost to the ether, things don’t get resolved and then players become disillusioned because their concerns are not being addressed.

    Having someone to advocate for you who understands the local reviewing/submitting landscape would be a big plus, every country has it’s little quirks when it comes to submitting potential waypoints (like postboxes in the UK) so having someone who understands those quirks and can communicate them to the Wayfarer staff.

    I don’t think that they need to necessarily be active on the forums, a lot of the work educating players currently takes place in the communities, and that work needs to continue.

    The are a lot of players with very broad knowledge of reviewing and of the criteria and it would be nice to see them share that knowledge. In the UK, have a player who livestreams their reviews during our Wayfarer First Saturdays, it’s really good to see the review process from a different point of view. Sometimes we become too set in our ways and seeing things from another angle can improve our wayfarer process.

    I’d like to see more shared reviewing and more open reviewing. Everyone reviews differently and everyone interprets the criteria differently. I realise that at the end of the day it’s down to the individual reviewer to make a decision on the review in front of them, but it would be nice to have some consistency.

    Have the Community Advocates vote on what makes the featured wayspots, it would be much better to curate the best of the best rather than the most recent approvals in the corner of a cell.


    ·       What type of potential perks would you expect as a part of a Community Advocate program?

    I wouldn’t want to see in-game perks, I don’t think that is why a player would put themselves forward to volunteer to help. Or possibly it would encourage players to volunteer for wrong reasons.

    What I would like to see is more openness and two-way discussion between the Community Advocates and the Wayfarer Staff, in fact I think this would be the most important part of the whole programme. Maybe in the form of regular meetings (Zoom?) with Wayfarer staff to go through specific issues the CAs have spotted within their areas (such as Limbo, long review times, areas of low reviewer activity).

    The ability to work with the staff to clarify guidelines, work on improving the onboarding process for submitting waypoints and also for reviewing. It could reduce everyone’s workloads and bring QoL improvements to all the games if there were more instructions/tutorials/help for new submitters. A lot of submitters don’t realise that wayfarer exists, don’t really understand the criteria and it shows in the reviews we see.

    Have a pool of beta testers, to test out any mew wayfarer features before they are introduced, or even be able to submit feature for consideration.


    I have a couple of questions for you as a result of this, how would you be looking at staffing the Community advocates? Would it be regional (from each region), or more by country?

    There be a mix of Ingress and Pokemon players, I guess, how would that be split? Proportional representation based on the number of players who submit/review (which would lead to more Pokemon players than Ingress ones)? Would you look to pull in players from games that do not have the ability to submit/review yet but utilise the waypoints? Give Niantic the chance to educate those player bases prior to opening up the ability to submit/review to them.

    Would you focus on pulling in less experienced players and players who speak (non-English) languages, as was done for the XM Ambassadors?

    How much time would you expect a Community Advocate to put in to the forums, do you have in mind particular roles that they would undertake on the forum to free the staff up to deal with other Wayfarer issues?

    How long would you have the Community Advocate in role for? Would they rotate out after a set period of time (like the XMA’s will be)?

    How would this extend out into the wider wayfarer world? The majority of Wayfaries aren’t on the forums, or rarely visit them, there’s a lot more activity on Facebook, Telegram, WhatsApp, how are you looking to engage with those players, their voices are just as important as the players who post here?

  • SiIverLyra-PGOSiIverLyra-PGO Posts: 952 ✭✭✭✭✭

    Re: salary.

    In theory, I absolutely agree with you. Money is the best way to generate true motivation and dedication. Personal passion for the game(s) will only take one so far when tedious tasks are involved - and Wayfarer often gets very tedious to deal with.

    In practice, I don't think it'll happen, simply because Niantic are probably already convinced that they'll get people to do this Advocacy work for free. If they planned to pay Advocates, then I don't think we'd have heard about this program in the first place.

  • stayKeener-PGOstayKeener-PGO Posts: 23 ✭✭

    There is no doubt that their approach works. See Vanguards, XM Ambassadors, Wayferer itself.

    But general consensus from posts here seems to be "give us access to decision makers so we can help you (Niantic) prioritize what will have the biggest impact on the community." And while Niantic can surely provide that without spending much (they have to at least allocate resources to monitor and liaise with the CAs), I think that paying CAs will achieve the best results. It sends the strongest message. As long as they are not paying the CAs, they can keep them at arm's length and not be accountable to Wayfarers in a tangible way. And what we are asking for is to not be kept at arm's length anymore. A good CA program would establish accountability on both sides. I think Salary and Benefits accomplishes that in a way that other half-measure solutions will not.

  • Kellerrys-INGKellerrys-ING Posts: 696 ✭✭✭✭✭

    What would make you want to apply to be a Community Advocate?

    Possibility to genuinely discuss about Wayfarer process and goals from common user's point of view. It feels sometimes that Wayfarer team is still building a Fieldtrip database, not a database of POIs meant to be used by players.

    What I wouldn't be interested in;

    • commit myself to do more work on the forums
    • any perks or semi-official status
  • AgentMAenlight-INGAgentMAenlight-ING Posts: 227 Ambassador

    What would make you want to apply to be a Community Advocate?

    Some nominators and reviewers have frustrations or questions for Niantic Wayfarer’s systems. And people in my region are not native English players so they hesitate to communicate in wayfarer community using English. I summarize some Wayfinder’s opinion or questions and I want to tell or communicate Niantic Wayfarer team.

     

    What type of expectations do you, a forum member, have for the Community Advocates?

    Some people feel that Niantic response slowly. I hope that Niantic wayfarer team will be able to communicate and response more smoothly than before.

     

    What type of potential perks would you expect as a part of a Community Advocate program?

    Similar to the answer above, Niantic wayfarer team will response faster than before and Wayfarer’s system’s will be better, many Wayfinders will participate in Niantic Wayfarer without frustration.

     

    In addition, just like Vanguards or XM Ambassadors, I thought that we should not give authorization individuals. Some of the Wayfarer things should be decided by community members, giving dictatorial powers to Community Advocates should be avoided.

     

  • Perringaiden-INGPerringaiden-ING Posts: 124 ✭✭✭

    What would make you want to apply to be a Community Advocate?

    Personally I already have enough Niantic volunteer work on my plate to take on another hat, but if not for that, I'd say that becoming a Community Advocate would be a great role if it allowed more direct back and forth between the Advocates and the Development team, as well as being able to provide feedback on new feature ideas before they're developed as well as test the new changes once they're developed.

    What type of expectations do you, a forum member, have for the Community Advocates

    • People who have both a good understanding of what the Niantic gamesphere gains from high quality POIs, and an understanding of why people playing the games have a regional desire for 'maxxed out POI areas', at the cost of quality.
    • People who can lead a discussion constructively on the forums, to garner feedback from many people and distill that into a general feel for the development team.
    • People with experience and/or skill at testing new features and giving constructive feedback on bugs, so that we never have to encounter them.

    What type of potential perks would you expect as a part of a Community Advocate program?

    UNLIMITED UPGRADES! 😁

  • Lechu1730-PGOLechu1730-PGO Posts: 537 ✭✭✭✭

    Since I don't think I'll have the time to be part of it, I leave it to those who would to recommend what the program should entail. However, what I would like to see is them given some limited mod powers in this forum in order to move posts to their proper subforum and make sticky posts with FAQs and such.

  • GearGlider-INGGearGlider-ING Posts: 1,335 ✭✭✭✭✭

    I wish that Niantic could give salary, or even an hourly rate for a Community Advocate role, but I imagine that the Niantic Wayfarer team budget is already pretty tight. Plus with salary there's a lot of overhead like interviewing, employee benefits, tax information, etc.

    OPR/Wayfarer became a thing because the backlog became too great and the portal monkeys (wayspot monkeys now?) couldn't keep up. Yeah, they didn't have PoGO money back then, but since Wayfarer works well enough, I doubt whoever controls the purse strings would want to make it like it used to.

    That's why I always thought giving in-game currency for agreements would be ideal, it's pretty much the closest thing niantic could do to paying reviewers. (That using that as motivation has a whole lot of other issues).

  • stayKeener-PGOstayKeener-PGO Posts: 23 ✭✭
    edited March 2021

    I'm sure their budget is tight. Though given that Wayfarer fuels the expansion of their POI database, I think there is a valid argument for spending more to make sure that "workers" stay active in larger numbers (and who remain free).

    I personally am against in game currency being used to "pay" CAs. It creates a scenario where CAs, already dedicated to the Wayfarer cause, have to spend more time playing their game of choice to get the benefits. IMO it will cause burnout and resentment. Not to mention that other players will resent spending their own money to grind while CAs get it for doing Wayfarer.

  • GearGlider-INGGearGlider-ING Posts: 1,335 ✭✭✭✭✭

    I didn't mean in-game currency for CAs, I meant in-game currency for reviewers in general. Though I guess that's a discussion for a different thread.


    And I agree there's a huge amount of good arguments for using paid labour for CAs and more professional reviewers. I think overall it would be much batter for the Wayspot database. But having dealt with departments with tight purse strings and a "minimize cost any way you can" attitude, it's not something I see happening ever.

  • TheZodiac007-PGOTheZodiac007-PGO Posts: 860 ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited March 2021
    • What would make you want to apply to be a Community Advocate? The ability to speak directly with Niantic & also be labeled as Niantic Staff for this operative so those that see comments from said staff know that they are experts & can handle issues more thoroughly than a normal person visiting the community potentially could. I believe the admission criteria could actually go by a much harder test than the one that is given to be able to become a wayfinder. The most important thing is intelligence & understanding. Open mindedness is also very, very important. We would mainly just need a good explanation as to “why” we would be a good player advocate. These advocates would need to be selected for areas all over the world as well as they were before.
    • What type of expectations do you, a forum member, have for the Community Advocates? My expectations would be high but for things to be done better than they ever have before. It seems like a lot of the time that the community of WF’s normally get things done better & faster than the Niantic team. I’m not complaining (this is because there is so much going on & not enough manpower, I know) so I am 100% sure that this idea would be better for the community than the way that it currently is while saving cost as well
    • What type of potential perks would you expect as a part of a Community Advocate program? Easier contact with Niantic Staff mainly, I personally unlike many others aren’t as interested in the perks for me. I came here to make these games better & that is what matters to me the most. I’ve helped myself. I want to help everyone else now


    •I am very interested in coming on as part of the team. I would love to be notified when the option becomes available. I will do everything in my power to prove that I am more than capable of being worthy to be added to the team. The main thing for me is understanding criteria, the ability to keep situations under control & open mindedness to reviewing.


    This idea will easily change the way that things are today & make the system a lot easier for us, & Niantic staff as well

    Post edited by TheZodiac007-PGO on
  • Bihotz-INGBihotz-ING Posts: 9 ✭✭

    Relevant Disclosures:

    • I am currently serving as an XM Ambassador for Ingress.
    • Although I play (and enjoy) all three games, I consider Ingress my main game. I play Ingress and Pokemon GO daily.


    What would make you want to apply to be a Community Advocate?

    • As someone who has experience in all three Niantic games, I am able to explain how quality Wayfarer submissions affect all three of these games.
    • As a Native woman with ADHD who is living in a rural hub, I would love to ensure that the voices of all Agents/Trainers/Wizards are heard and that all can enjoy these Wayspots.
    • For me, Ingress and other Niantic games are a way for me to advocate for active lifestyles, healthy competition, and IRL community contribution. Being a Community Advocate gives me an opportunity to help others advocate for similar positive ideals in their own communities.


    What type of expectations do you, a forum member, have for the Community Advocates?

    • Be polite and helpful to all Wayfarers.
    • Understand and apply Wayfarer requirements while submitting ratings.
    • Possess some experience in all three Niantic games.


    What type of potential perks would you expect as a part of a Community Advocate program?

    • Participation in a fast-track program to respond to clear cases of Wayfarer abuse.
    • Forum flair - We want Wayfarers to recognize Community Advocates as reliable sources of information on the Wayfarer system.
    • Interaction with the XM Ambassadors and other similar programs.


  • atsepicnu-INGatsepicnu-ING Posts: 33 ✭✭

    Above all, these roles should be played by people who know the evaluation criteria perfectly. I would definitely introduce a brief test of knowledge for applications.

    Like XMAs, these people should be able to communicate not only in English, and it should be clear that they are not the people who make some decisions about POI approval, but rather explain the rules and principles. I can imagine that the selected individuals will have a very difficult time, because someone will constantly go to them with questions "Why was my nomination not approved and a little further on is similar to the one in the game?". A good dose of patience will be much needed :)

    Personally, I would welcome more open positions than XMAs or VGs. Ideally at the level of individual countries, or at least in a narrower area of ​​countries (for example, Central Europe ...).

    It is generally a great idea and its main purpose should be to have an educational dimension. In the long run, this will definitely lead to better quality POIs.

  • Qwizical-INGQwizical-ING Posts: 91 ✭✭✭✭

    Ideally Niantic should have paid Seers (in Ingress lore, Seers could see hidden XM from a yet-to-be-discovered portal). Imagine being able to say "oh hey we need some portals in this dead zone how about we pay you to go there and search for these new wayspots".

    A lot of players (likely almost all) gravitate towards areas where Wayspots already exist. It takes a special kind of person to specifically go to a dead zone and explore without being able to achieve anything from the immediate visit. I specifically try to take different routes, side streets etc just to see if anything exists. I still miss things that happen to be on my doorstep! :)

    I also completely forgot about flagged nominations that @Raachermannl-ING raised. We don't know what happens to them and like 99% of my "report abuse" edits are because someone is trying to make my decision for me. Because we don't actually see any action on abusive submissions, clear couchie attempts, reviewer manipulation etc we feel disillusioned by repeatedly seeing it. CAs (several not just one) should review flagged noms and recommend action taken against submitter (if any).

  • Raachermannl-INGRaachermannl-ING Posts: 1,070 ✭✭✭✭✭

    I forgot a lot, too, as I mentioned in my previous post. I could have skipped the spotlight hour - It seems like Niantic doesnt want me to get a shiny Voltorb xD


    So my I'd like to add to my previous list of perk proposals:

    What type of potential perks would you expect as a part of a Community Advocate program?

    • Design of the honeypots: Since Niantic is using pseudo-candidates to check how the reviewers perform, there is for sure need for lots of new ones. In Germany the honeypot Swingerclub Escalando from Dinslaken is very famous now and evry reviewer, who is part of any social media group knows about it. Some other candidates are identified as Honeypots, too. Since Niantic doesn't have staff members evrywhere in evry language area, it's for sure not easy for them to create new honeypot-pseudo-candidates ....
    • Education button in the reviewing interface: when Community Advocates are reviewing normally and they stumble accross a very clear candidate for either being rejected or accepted, they can push this button and write a short educational text (English + local language) about this candidate, and how and why they should be evaluated. This should be used for stuff, where often lots of wrong votes happen. So here an example: lots of reviewers don't recognise pictures, that are taken from a PC screen, and wve them through. although maybe having a bad gut feeling because of the picture quality they aren't aware of Moiré-patterns, that easily reveal fakes. So when a Community Advocate clicks at the education button and writes a small text about that candidate, this information should appear later again for the wrong voting wayfinders. So the old submissions should be shown again together with the comment of the Community Advocates. Way around this should be used for positive examples, too. For example for difficult candidates like Hiking Trail Markers ..... they are often rejected for stupid reasons like no safe pedestrian access, generic business (RIP), meet no criteria and so on. A clear five star example could also be used as a educational example with a special hint to the criteria page, where hiking trail markers are a big bulletpoint of the exercising criterion.
  • Raachermannl-INGRaachermannl-ING Posts: 1,070 ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited March 2021
  • Lechu1730-PGOLechu1730-PGO Posts: 537 ✭✭✭✭

    @Raachermannl-ING

    Regarding honeypots, it's my impression that only 1* ones exist, so while there's a feedback for those who approve things they shouldn't, the reverse isn't true. Since one of the biggest problems Wayfarer seems to have is serial rejected, I think it would pay off to create 5* honeypots. Otherwise good nominations that weren't included because they fell afoul of the 20 m rule could be used for this.

  • Werewolf141188-INGWerewolf141188-ING Posts: 2 ✭✭

    I think it would be a great idea if that means people trying to move portals by demanding it at the descriptions stop.

    1. I will try to be a CA just because, it's a nice idea and I would like to be part of it.

    2. As a forum user nothing but as a reviewer I expect less false proposes.

    3. I expect benefits like a medal in ingress or fast reviewing of CA proposes.


    Thanks

  • YX3am-INGYX3am-ING Posts: 38 ✭✭

    Expectations:

    I expect Community Advocates to have a good grasp of all niantic games. I do not expect them to be active in more than one game, but I do expect them to be conscious of various gameplay needs and to pass some low-standard vetting process. A diverse range of players would be ideal (rural vs urban, ingress vs HPWU vs PoGo, multi-cultural representation, OPR vs post-OPR). I would be interested if my demographic was not represented, but I doubt that will be the case.

    I would like for Advocates to be a source of information on the usability of the website and the nomination process as a whole. I expect them to be engaged in community forums, with some guidance from Niantic and a visible way to distinguish their position. However, I hope that the expectation is not to jump into every conversation. I want there to be room for discussion and exploration of multiple viewpoints without a single voice set inserting itself early on into every thread. I expect Community Advocates to listen to our voices, then relay and emphasize the most pressing concerns to Niantic to be heard.

    Perks:

    I would like for Advocates to have an emphasized presence in question-asking in AMA, because I anticipate that applicants be passionate about the mechanics & fairness. I imagine that, through their engagement of their role, Advocates would see a variety of concerns over a large player base, and that they are better positioned to notice genuine repetited concerns that would impact the greater amount of Wayfinders when addressed. 

    A potential perk could be endorsement from Niantic for engaging in content creation, and direct feedback for producing such content. Ideally, streamed, but pre-recorded and edited videos would be cool.

  • HINABITAMEU-INGHINABITAMEU-ING Posts: 154 ✭✭✭

    What would make you want to apply to be a Community Advocate?

    • I've been on wayfarer for a long time, and I want to do something that I can do, not just give advice to wayfarer.

    What type of expectations do you, a forum member, have for the Community Advocates?

    • A person who can connect between the manager of Niantic and wayfarer.
    • A person who has performed a sufficient amount of reviews or contributed to the creation of a large number of high-quality Wayspots

    What type of potential perks would you expect as a part of a Community Advocate program?

    • Directly escalate to Niantic in relation to large-scale abuse
    • Interaction channel with other Advocate


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