Best Pacing Practices for Reviewing?

I've received the dreaded "Come back later" message. I live in Los Angeles, so I'm pretty sure it hasn't run out of nominations. The FAQs say this message can be triggered when abuse is detected, but I'm not sure if I've broken any rules and haven't received any warnings.

I read that reviewing too quickly is frowned upon, but when the nominations are generic park playground after generic park playground, it doesn't take a ton of deliberation, in my opinion.

What are the best practices to stay in good standing on this? Is there a certain amount of reviews that should not be exceeded in a day? Are the reviewer guidelines posted somewhere and I just missed them?

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Comments

  • GearGlider-INGGearGlider-ING Posts: 1,335 ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited April 2021

    Try to take at least 30 seconds per review. I know that many don't require that much time, but it's a good average to stay on to not trigger any cooldowns. Niantic ideally wants you to take a few minutes per nominations but like you said, playground after playground.

    Make sure you're not approving any obviously rejectable nominations (Targets, Starbucks, things on school grounds, LFLs on Private Residential Property, etc.)

    Make sure you're not rejecting good candidates either, like trail markers, churches, local hotspots, etc.

    Be sure to use the whole 5 star spectrum for reviewing. Make sure you're not exclusively using 1*, 3*, & 5*. 2* & 4* exists for a reason!

    There shoudn't be any limit to the number of reviews you can do in one day that you'd be punished for exceeding, but doing too many reviews too quickly can trigger cooldowns. So be careful and attentive when reviewing! Filling in a rejection reason with a comment or selection an option from the "what is it?" section are good ways to help make sure you're not going too quick.

  • Hosette-INGHosette-ING Posts: 3,470 ✭✭✭✭✭

    In my experience, cooldowns are often triggered by a sequence of similar reviews. The last one I encountered was after four very obvious 1* submissions followed by timing out on one because I was interrupted. It's only happened to me a few times, but I've learned to skip things that I would normally 1* if I've just given that rating to a few things. (In my experience, more than half the queue is a rejection so getting a sequence of five in a row is not improbable at all.) Also, be conscious of other star ratings and vary them slightly if you find yourself giving the same rating to several things in a row.

    Having said that, I wouldn't call any of this best practices... far from it. Let's go with necessary practices to dodge overzealous cooldowns.

  • Snapsquatch-PGOSnapsquatch-PGO Posts: 19 ✭✭

    Super insightful, thanks. I've been putting most of these points into practice, but to your point about rejecting good candidates, maybe some of my Photo Quality rejections weren't exactly what Niantic had in mind. It's possible backlit doesn't count as blurry, or poor composition doesn't necessarily make a Stop ineligible. I'll have to browse some more of the photo quality channels. Hopefully the hold won't last too long.

  • Babarushki-PGOBabarushki-PGO Posts: 195 ✭✭✭
    edited April 2021

    I appreciate what other reviewers have suggested. What would really help is if Niantic @NianticCasey-ING would weigh in.

    I ask because, after a few weeks without a cooldown, I got a four-day cooldown yesterday. The reason eludes me. I spend at least two minutes on each nomination. I don’t assign the same ratings in a row. Scores are mixed up. I know what works and doesn’t work for approval. I’ve had a “great” rating for a while and around 2,800 reviews.

    @NianticCasey-ING please help? Four-day cooldowns are the worst, and guessing at reasons isn’t helping much. Thanks!

  • pkmnsearch2-PGOpkmnsearch2-PGO Posts: 249 ✭✭✭

    @Snapsquatch-PGO

    wait 20 seconds per review

    dont give the same exact rating in everything (mix 3-4* for example), several times in a row. The system is more a yes no maybe approach....so who cares about star rating.

    use wayfarer+ plugin


    for sure, you will never receive a cooldown again

  • DerWelfe2205-PGODerWelfe2205-PGO Posts: 374 ✭✭✭✭

    People who base their rating on what they think will avoid cooldowns should be banned.

  • sogNinjaman-INGsogNinjaman-ING Posts: 3,313 ✭✭✭✭✭

    In my experience, getting a cooldown is a combination of speed and / or review scores, particularly if you get a series of rubbish 1* nominations coming in series. The system really does not like you rating multiple submissions in sequence as 1*, no matter what speed.

    I can easily generate a cooldown by reviewing at a "reasonable" speed almost on demand. I tend to do reviews at the same time I participate in the forums, going back and forth, which slows me down.

    Does not help with 10 1* spam submissions in a row though, that little "are you a robot box appears", which is a warning you are getting close to a cooldown. Carry on reviewing 1* subs in like with the guidelines and you get the cooldown.

  • TheFarix-PGOTheFarix-PGO Posts: 5,063 ✭✭✭✭✭

    It seems you received the end-of-queue message and there isn't much you can do to avoid it. When you start a review session, a random number of nominations are assigned to you for review. Once you completed reviewing all nominations in that session, it will take around 4 days before your queue is refreshed. Unfortunately, there is no warning when you are about to reach the end of your queue. However, if you have not reached the end of your queue when you stop your review session and start a another session later, a new set of nominations are assigned to your queue. In short, the only way to reduce the number of times you reach end-of-queue is to avoid long review sessions, but instead use mutiple shorter sessions where you are only reviewing 25 to 50 nominations at a time. But even then, you will still hit the end-of-queue from time to time.

    And no, just because one of your locations is in a major city like Los Angeles doesn't mean there are a lot of nominations to review. For starters, there are many, many other reviewers covering the same area and you are all competing for the same pool of nominations. Second, I'm pretty sure that most everything that is eligible in that area has already been nominated, and short of "trash" nominations there aren't as many nominations being made as you think.

  • pkmnsearch2-PGOpkmnsearch2-PGO Posts: 249 ✭✭✭

    @DerwanEX-PGO sure, go ahead and 1* bad sub or 5* an excel sub without waiting 20 seconds each time.. and tell me you dont get a 4h cooldown after around 10-15 reviews.

    Not to mention, in Ingress AMA there was a question about the star rating and the answer was 1-2* are a negative review, 3* neutral and 4-5* are a positive review.

    Not to mention, thank god for the roadmap! if niantic fulfills that the star rating is over!!! welcome yes no maybe answers!

  • Hosette-INGHosette-ING Posts: 3,470 ✭✭✭✭✭

    @DerWelfe2205-PGO I tweak my reviews slightly to avoid cooldowns, but the operative word is slightly and I do it carefully. I'll change one of the less-important fields by one star if I know my pattern has been consistent. Sometimes two of them. like if I was going to rate 3 for historical/cultural and 4 for visual uniqueness I'll flip them around if I've given the same rating to several in a row. It won't affect the bottom line, and it may keep me from being treated as a bot.

  • DerWelfe2205-PGODerWelfe2205-PGO Posts: 374 ✭✭✭✭

    In other words: People who vote correctly receive cooldowns. I take them as a compliment.

  • Mernie9-INGMernie9-ING Posts: 42 ✭✭✭

    After 40,000+ reviews with an excellent rating, I got my first "All done for now. See you later" cooldown. The thing is, I don't just review my home area and bonus area. They have me going around the continent, so there are always places to review. So I don't believe they've run out of things for me to review.

    I live in an area where only a small fraction (perhaps 5%) of submissions get decided without an upgrade within a year. In order to get my submissions decided, I have to do the Wayfarer work. I can't tell you how discouraged I get when my legitimate wayspots are turned down. I resubmit them and they eventually get approved.

    About a month ago, after a string of rejections, I decided to pause my Wayfarer work; it was too much work with little acceptances. Since then I got three resubmissions accepted, felt hopeful, and started reviewing again. Until I got the "All done for now" message.

    This. Is. Nuts.

  • creison1996-PGOcreison1996-PGO Posts: 4 ✭✭
    edited May 2021


    Essa mensagem de fim da fila é agoniante kk, já peguei umas três vezes seguidas até desanimar um pouco mais e pra uma avaliação mais saudável, imagina só se não existe esse limite e nem congelamento eu estava mesmo viciado, cansei de fazer mais de 100 avaliações em um único dia. Mais uma coisa que ajudaria a comunidade era abaixar o nível para os avaliadores já fiquei com avaliações travadas mais de 90 dias em votação por falta de avaliados na minha região

  • pkmnsearch2-PGOpkmnsearch2-PGO Posts: 249 ✭✭✭

    não é só pela falta de avaliadores. há muitas mais variáveis que influenciam o atraso.

    e reduzir mais o nível? no passado, era só nível 12 no ingress e nível 40 no pokemon go. hoje em dia é nível 10 no ingrss e nível 38 no pogo.


    acho que colocar teste para quem submete cenas é que é o mais importante. evitaria que entrasse muito lixo...

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