It seems as if sometimes we have to spam the thread to get them to notice an apparent issue. We are all here to play a game & we shouldn’t have to deal with people submitting fake locations, especially more than once. Because from the looks of it the original thread showed that fake POI were removed & then were resubmitted again & accepted & were reported again which is ridiculous to say the least. We deserve better than that
If accounts would get banned for submitting fake poi & spoofing this wouldn’t be happening. I am sure if you remove a spoofers account completely that they aren’t going to just do it again. Because all of the work they put into that spoofing account would then be gone. It is what needs to happen & it’s what needs to happen to those submitting fake locations as well. Please Niantic staff, escalate this matter
I don't really want to blame any mod for it, they cant change the wayfarer system. In this case, you would need to spam this to the administration of Niantic. Even if Casey got the possibility to talk to them, he is still not able to do what he wants.
Regardless I completely stand by the idea to create threads daily to get a point across. Especially under these circumstances. I complete stand by the idea. No one said this, good work guys. If no one says something nothing gets done about it. It takes a lot to stand up & be the one to do what you done so I commend you wholeheartedly
We've been asking ever since the form was introduced for some of these changes: getting a copy of our report sent to our email, ability to submit actual evidence, having a "ticket" system to provide followup, and being alerted when it is closed.
Ever since people have requesting removal requests and/or reporting abuse on the Wayforum (and even the previous channels on the Ingress forum) we've asked for better ways to remain anonymous.
Why did it take until now for you to open up discussions with other Niantics on this? We've said it would lead to this type of harassment and even provided examples before, this is just the first time it has been hyper visible that somebody was bold enough to bring the threads to the Wayforum. It will not be the last.
Been a while since we've heard anything about the update to this form. In the month since your post, we haven't seen any comment about Niantic's efforts to improve abuse reporting and, in fact, have seen @NianticGiffard admit a problem (but we already knew that) and then later clarify that reports are prioritized differently.
Requests for modification of this form are not new.
Let's remember that edits were "temporarily" deactivated in June 2020. What was supposed to take 1 month took nearly 3 months. When edits were re-enabled, they could only be posted as requests in the Wayforum, and we know how that turned into a mess. It took over a month for then-appeals moderator @NianticKN-ING to finally reject them all before later being told to reasess them. A month later (September) edits were rolled into the abuse form.
In October, allegedly you & team at least knew we were unhappy with the process.
Months later, it's still a hot mess. Is any of this actively being addressed, and can we expect any sort of timeline on this? None of your recent updates have included any insight if this is even still being looked at.
" You punish everyone by changing the location edit rules, but refuse to punish the people that caused this in the first place."
I want to point out what a powerful statement that is. We used to be able to influence which POI became gyms. Niantic changed this and suddenly called it "abuse" because a small handful of people found a way to abuse it. The majority of us were using that function thoughtfully to make the best POI into gyms for both players and the local community. We took into account things like cell service, parking, how close it was to other gyms for convenience during raid hours, whether or not it was in a gated community, etc. None of those things are requirements, but they can make a positive impact on both local people and players if we are responsible with our choices. But since a few people decided to abuse that functionality, it is now a total crapshoot and we end up with gyms buried deep in the woods that are only easily accessible to spoofers instead of a great gym that would be EX- eligible in a park on a nice walking circuit with 3 other gyms.
Thank you for bringing this back up @Gendgi-PGO, your timing is really impeccable as I just had a sync about the current status of these changes and have been preparing an update for this thread.
An unfortunate blocker for this was our internal support staff, we simply didn't have enough people to handle the number of appeals and abuse reports we were receiving. Since surfacing this issue in February, we have hired and trained more people and they are now active in handling Wayfarer-related support issues. This unblocks our next step: eliminating the Abuse Google Form.
As I mentioned, this form has outlived its effectiveness and as such we'll be integrating this into our support ticketing service so that the support team can both receive abuse reports and also respond to reporters directly. We are in the process of creating this implementation and translating it to all languages currently supported in Wayfarer and are aiming to launch it by May 1.
Thanks again for your continued patience and trust, we haven't lost sight of this and we know that this is negatively impacting everyone here and are working as fast as we can to improve the experience.
Whats about the Wayfarer advocate idea you named? Honestly, there are a lot of trustworthy wayfarers being active here every day. Many appeals are easily rateable for users that actively checked others appeals for a week. Telling people that they cant appeal rejected PokeStop submissions is also easy and also clear. All of this is easily handleable for the community. Also, the General spam/duplicate posts could get deleted/moved by some members.
I think since Wayfarer is an own (somerimes understandebly frustrating) part which is essencial for the games and the database, you should really put more into the community. Giving people a Chance of trying out as "Non-Niantic" helpers sounds great in my mind.
If the forum Forum really is that understaffed, think about it. It would for sure work if the Power goes to the right people.
Thanks for following up on this idea @LukeAllStars-PGO, we are processing the lessons the Ingress team learned from the recent launch of the XM Ambassadors so we can build this program. Similar to the expansion of the support team, this was the first step in a possible launch of a similar program for Wayfarer.
Frankly, a big hurdle we still have to clear is our legal team's approval of such a program. I hear you on the benefits to such a program and the additional satisfaction/engagement it can offer to some of the most passionate Wayfarers. We're still working on it, but it is a bit further out.
Frankly, a big hurdle we still have to clear is our legal team's approval
That would do it alright.
Having regular updates about what's going on and progress being made would go a long way in making wayfinders feel more appreciated and that their concerns are being paid attention to hint hint.
Thanks for the replies! Echoing @GearGlider-ING, simple updates that concerns are being looked at can go a long way at alleviating our own very valid concerns.
Please, please, please allow whatever new method is used going forward to allow supporting info & files in the initial submission and utilize a feedback loop so we know if action was taken or if more evidence is needed.
I can honestly say that myself I have noticed that the Niantic staff has made strides forward in the passed few months. Thank you @Gendgi-PGO & @LukeAllStars-PGO for asking both of those questions. The answers that ensued are ones that I had wondered about myself as well
@NianticCasey-ING When the system is changed to a proper ticketing system, how will that work with marking nominations as abuse while reviewing? It very much feels like nominations that get marked as abuse and or fake nomination never truly get looked at or taken seriously by Niantic, similar to the abuse form. At one point I even received "abuse" (and natural feature) as a rejection reason for a Putting Green I submitted. I feel like if Niantic actually reviewed the nomination that someone clearly marked as abuse, that not only would they have seen that it wasn't abusive, but they would have seen that it wasn't a natural feature or reject worthy at all. It would be nice if nominations marked as abuse during review actually generated a ticket that was properly followed up on.
Also, while it is great to hear that steps are being taken to improve the reporting process for cases of abuse, we haven't had an update on any new measures that are being taken to prevent or stop abuse in the first place. A notable example is the trend we are seeing of wayspots being abusively moved long distances during the review phase. Wayspots can be moved upwards of two miles away from the suggested location during review, and this opens crazy possibilities for abuse. There is no reason that a wayspot should ever be moved that far during review, or even anything close to that. The length of a football field is probably the furthest a nomination will ever need to be moved. Significantly limiting this could go a long way to preventing this type of abuse from ever happening again, and I am sure there are other tweaks that could be made to help prevent abuse as well.
Also, unrelated but I might as well ask while I have your attention: You previously mentioned that a future app update would limit phrases like "Pokestop" from being able to be used in peoples submissions. To my knowledge we have yet to see any changes in regards to that, is there any updates on when this much needed change will occur?
The problem if we're pushing this all to the support.ingress.com portal is that it's a very long process for something we see a LOT of. On a given day of reporting, I may create 6-12 abuse tickets. Right now, it's a very easy process to fill out the abuse form. If it's not that fast on the new system, it's going to be problematic from a time perspective.
The number of abusive submissions is sky-high right now. Submitters need to be suspended/banned from the system. Then the problem starts to solve itself; remove problematic submitters, number of abuse reports goes down.
Thanks a bunch for the updates, Casey. I echo @GearGlider-ING sentiment - these updates are very appreciated.
I also agree with the concerns @AisforAndis-ING raised. Even if some of them weren't brought into consideration so far, I hope that the new abuse report system will be updated to accommodate them in the near feature.
I wanted to circle back with an update, to make sure that this interested audience is still in the loop regarding this effort. Unfortunately, we aren't quite ready to launch the replacement to the abuse form as promised for May 1. The reason for that is that we're actually going to be rolling out a more comprehensive and straightforward system to report abuse and request appeals. The combination of the two is why this process is taking a bit longer than anticipated.
While that addresses the reporting of abuse, the open question raised by a few of you is what is being done to curb abuse proactively. I don't have any information to share about that at this time, but I can assure you that both the poor quality nominations and the incorrect rejections are high on the Wayfarer team's list of issues to address via changes to the Wayfarer system at large.
I will circle back next week with more information on the current state of the above. Thanks for your patience!
That's disappointing to hear. The update is appreciated, though.
I do have a couple of questions:
Is there any estimate (as rough as it may be) to when this new system might launch? Also, is it gonna be available via the Wayfarer website, via an outside source (like the Google form), or rather in-game?
Additionally - speaking of the Google form - are the reports made via the form gonna be reviewed by the abuse team after the new system launches, or should we stop using the form now/at some point before the new system launches?
Merging the abuse form into your crappy in-app support that doesn't listen to anything said to them? Not the best idea @NianticCasey-ING. Not wayfarer related but I've had to report a particular account for using my real-world name with "the___l00zer" appended to it and each time I try to tell your support that getting them to change their name doesn't do anything (they just change it to some new variation of "isagoof" or "isal00zer"), and have forwarded the likely culprits behind it, I've basically been met with "yeah we've taken note" then nothing ever happens.
Your in-game support is awful. My experience has been literally the most bottom-of-the-barrel when it comes to game support. When I can state clearly "hey this person is using my real-world name in-game to follow and try to be threatening to me" and support either goes "it does not violate Trainer Guidelines lol" or "we have taken note" and nothing happens anyways, its kinda silly and disgraceful.
Apologies for the delay in update here, I was hoping to be able to provide a progress update with some actual progress but unfortunately we are still working on the updates to the abuse form and appeals process on our side.
Is there any estimate (as rough as it may be) to when this new system might launch? Unfortunately, I don't have any idea on when this might launch, although we are aiming for mid-June.
Will this be available via the Wayfarer website, via an outside source (like the Google form), or rather in-app? This will be hosted on the Wayfarer Help Center for now with the longer-term goal of building it into the Wayfarer site itself.
Are the reports made via the form gonna be reviewed by the abuse team after the new system launches, or should we stop using the form now/at some point before the new system launches? No change right now, the reports from the form will be cleared out once the new process launches and we'll close off the form to new responses when the time comes.
Finally, I wanted to address @Thesacrikiller-ING@TheSFCaptain-PGO's feedback about their experience with in-app support. I'm sorry to hear that you've had a subpar experience working with that team. I'll be taking your feedback to the appropriate internal team to address. The team that will be addressing and replying to these reports is the same team that works on these reports in the form or appeals in this forum, the process by which they receive and address these reports would be the only thing that changes.
Thanks for your patience and apologies again for the delay!
Thank you for answering my questions, much appreciated.
Mid-June is encouraging, even if it's just an estimate. I'm hoping you'll update us again if there'll be another delay.
I do wonder if the new system will accommodate reports of multiple instances of abuse that are linked to each other and provide context for each other, or rather if it'll be a single-wayspot system like the current one. I find that the mass cases are often the hardest to report efficiently, and often the ones that attract the most "unpleasantness" when reporters resort to posting them here on the forum.
Comments
It seems as if sometimes we have to spam the thread to get them to notice an apparent issue. We are all here to play a game & we shouldn’t have to deal with people submitting fake locations, especially more than once. Because from the looks of it the original thread showed that fake POI were removed & then were resubmitted again & accepted & were reported again which is ridiculous to say the least. We deserve better than that
If accounts would get banned for submitting fake poi & spoofing this wouldn’t be happening. I am sure if you remove a spoofers account completely that they aren’t going to just do it again. Because all of the work they put into that spoofing account would then be gone. It is what needs to happen & it’s what needs to happen to those submitting fake locations as well. Please Niantic staff, escalate this matter
Spamming inside a single discussion -> okay
Spamming in multiple discussions -> annoying
I don't really want to blame any mod for it, they cant change the wayfarer system. In this case, you would need to spam this to the administration of Niantic. Even if Casey got the possibility to talk to them, he is still not able to do what he wants.
I mean to spam to get John Hanke to notice. If he notices the problem will get fixed
They already responded and promised changes, no need for daily posts at this time.
@Roli112-PGO Good deal!
Regardless I completely stand by the idea to create threads daily to get a point across. Especially under these circumstances. I complete stand by the idea. No one said this, good work guys. If no one says something nothing gets done about it. It takes a lot to stand up & be the one to do what you done so I commend you wholeheartedly
We've been asking ever since the form was introduced for some of these changes: getting a copy of our report sent to our email, ability to submit actual evidence, having a "ticket" system to provide followup, and being alerted when it is closed.
Ever since people have requesting removal requests and/or reporting abuse on the Wayforum (and even the previous channels on the Ingress forum) we've asked for better ways to remain anonymous.
Why did it take until now for you to open up discussions with other Niantics on this? We've said it would lead to this type of harassment and even provided examples before, this is just the first time it has been hyper visible that somebody was bold enough to bring the threads to the Wayforum. It will not be the last.
@NianticCasey-ING
Been a while since we've heard anything about the update to this form. In the month since your post, we haven't seen any comment about Niantic's efforts to improve abuse reporting and, in fact, have seen @NianticGiffard admit a problem (but we already knew that) and then later clarify that reports are prioritized differently.
Requests for modification of this form are not new.
Let's remember that edits were "temporarily" deactivated in June 2020. What was supposed to take 1 month took nearly 3 months. When edits were re-enabled, they could only be posted as requests in the Wayforum, and we know how that turned into a mess. It took over a month for then-appeals moderator @NianticKN-ING to finally reject them all before later being told to reasess them. A month later (September) edits were rolled into the abuse form.
In October, allegedly you & team at least knew we were unhappy with the process.
Months later, it's still a hot mess. Is any of this actively being addressed, and can we expect any sort of timeline on this? None of your recent updates have included any insight if this is even still being looked at.
" You punish everyone by changing the location edit rules, but refuse to punish the people that caused this in the first place."
I want to point out what a powerful statement that is. We used to be able to influence which POI became gyms. Niantic changed this and suddenly called it "abuse" because a small handful of people found a way to abuse it. The majority of us were using that function thoughtfully to make the best POI into gyms for both players and the local community. We took into account things like cell service, parking, how close it was to other gyms for convenience during raid hours, whether or not it was in a gated community, etc. None of those things are requirements, but they can make a positive impact on both local people and players if we are responsible with our choices. But since a few people decided to abuse that functionality, it is now a total crapshoot and we end up with gyms buried deep in the woods that are only easily accessible to spoofers instead of a great gym that would be EX- eligible in a park on a nice walking circuit with 3 other gyms.
I was gonna bump this thread after 1 month, and it's fitting that it coincides with more systemic abuse and personal attacks today.
In short, we as the Wayfarer team need to do better. I need to do better.
When is this going to happen? How has it taken this long to improve the abuse reporting tools to allow for anonymity?
@NianticAtlas @NianticBrian-ING @NianticCasey-ING @NIACHAOSMONKEY-ING @NianticGiffard @ace-ING
Thank you for bringing this back up @Gendgi-PGO, your timing is really impeccable as I just had a sync about the current status of these changes and have been preparing an update for this thread.
An unfortunate blocker for this was our internal support staff, we simply didn't have enough people to handle the number of appeals and abuse reports we were receiving. Since surfacing this issue in February, we have hired and trained more people and they are now active in handling Wayfarer-related support issues. This unblocks our next step: eliminating the Abuse Google Form.
As I mentioned, this form has outlived its effectiveness and as such we'll be integrating this into our support ticketing service so that the support team can both receive abuse reports and also respond to reporters directly. We are in the process of creating this implementation and translating it to all languages currently supported in Wayfarer and are aiming to launch it by May 1.
Thanks again for your continued patience and trust, we haven't lost sight of this and we know that this is negatively impacting everyone here and are working as fast as we can to improve the experience.
Whats about the Wayfarer advocate idea you named? Honestly, there are a lot of trustworthy wayfarers being active here every day. Many appeals are easily rateable for users that actively checked others appeals for a week. Telling people that they cant appeal rejected PokeStop submissions is also easy and also clear. All of this is easily handleable for the community. Also, the General spam/duplicate posts could get deleted/moved by some members.
I think since Wayfarer is an own (somerimes understandebly frustrating) part which is essencial for the games and the database, you should really put more into the community. Giving people a Chance of trying out as "Non-Niantic" helpers sounds great in my mind.
If the forum Forum really is that understaffed, think about it. It would for sure work if the Power goes to the right people.
Thanks for following up on this idea @LukeAllStars-PGO, we are processing the lessons the Ingress team learned from the recent launch of the XM Ambassadors so we can build this program. Similar to the expansion of the support team, this was the first step in a possible launch of a similar program for Wayfarer.
Frankly, a big hurdle we still have to clear is our legal team's approval of such a program. I hear you on the benefits to such a program and the additional satisfaction/engagement it can offer to some of the most passionate Wayfarers. We're still working on it, but it is a bit further out.
Oh man, we apparently need to bump this thread more often lol. (I kid I kid)
Frankly, a big hurdle we still have to clear is our legal team's approval
That would do it alright.
Having regular updates about what's going on and progress being made would go a long way in making wayfinders feel more appreciated and that their concerns are being paid attention to hint hint.
Thanks for the replies! Echoing @GearGlider-ING, simple updates that concerns are being looked at can go a long way at alleviating our own very valid concerns.
Please, please, please allow whatever new method is used going forward to allow supporting info & files in the initial submission and utilize a feedback loop so we know if action was taken or if more evidence is needed.
I can honestly say that myself I have noticed that the Niantic staff has made strides forward in the passed few months. Thank you @Gendgi-PGO & @LukeAllStars-PGO for asking both of those questions. The answers that ensued are ones that I had wondered about myself as well
@NianticCasey-ING When the system is changed to a proper ticketing system, how will that work with marking nominations as abuse while reviewing? It very much feels like nominations that get marked as abuse and or fake nomination never truly get looked at or taken seriously by Niantic, similar to the abuse form. At one point I even received "abuse" (and natural feature) as a rejection reason for a Putting Green I submitted. I feel like if Niantic actually reviewed the nomination that someone clearly marked as abuse, that not only would they have seen that it wasn't abusive, but they would have seen that it wasn't a natural feature or reject worthy at all. It would be nice if nominations marked as abuse during review actually generated a ticket that was properly followed up on.
Also, while it is great to hear that steps are being taken to improve the reporting process for cases of abuse, we haven't had an update on any new measures that are being taken to prevent or stop abuse in the first place. A notable example is the trend we are seeing of wayspots being abusively moved long distances during the review phase. Wayspots can be moved upwards of two miles away from the suggested location during review, and this opens crazy possibilities for abuse. There is no reason that a wayspot should ever be moved that far during review, or even anything close to that. The length of a football field is probably the furthest a nomination will ever need to be moved. Significantly limiting this could go a long way to preventing this type of abuse from ever happening again, and I am sure there are other tweaks that could be made to help prevent abuse as well.
Also, unrelated but I might as well ask while I have your attention: You previously mentioned that a future app update would limit phrases like "Pokestop" from being able to be used in peoples submissions. To my knowledge we have yet to see any changes in regards to that, is there any updates on when this much needed change will occur?
The problem if we're pushing this all to the support.ingress.com portal is that it's a very long process for something we see a LOT of. On a given day of reporting, I may create 6-12 abuse tickets. Right now, it's a very easy process to fill out the abuse form. If it's not that fast on the new system, it's going to be problematic from a time perspective.
The number of abusive submissions is sky-high right now. Submitters need to be suspended/banned from the system. Then the problem starts to solve itself; remove problematic submitters, number of abuse reports goes down.
Thanks a bunch for the updates, Casey. I echo @GearGlider-ING sentiment - these updates are very appreciated.
I also agree with the concerns @AisforAndis-ING raised. Even if some of them weren't brought into consideration so far, I hope that the new abuse report system will be updated to accommodate them in the near feature.
In any case, looking forward to May 1st.
Hey folks,
I wanted to circle back with an update, to make sure that this interested audience is still in the loop regarding this effort. Unfortunately, we aren't quite ready to launch the replacement to the abuse form as promised for May 1. The reason for that is that we're actually going to be rolling out a more comprehensive and straightforward system to report abuse and request appeals. The combination of the two is why this process is taking a bit longer than anticipated.
While that addresses the reporting of abuse, the open question raised by a few of you is what is being done to curb abuse proactively. I don't have any information to share about that at this time, but I can assure you that both the poor quality nominations and the incorrect rejections are high on the Wayfarer team's list of issues to address via changes to the Wayfarer system at large.
I will circle back next week with more information on the current state of the above. Thanks for your patience!
That's disappointing to hear. The update is appreciated, though.
I do have a couple of questions:
Is there any estimate (as rough as it may be) to when this new system might launch? Also, is it gonna be available via the Wayfarer website, via an outside source (like the Google form), or rather in-game?
Additionally - speaking of the Google form - are the reports made via the form gonna be reviewed by the abuse team after the new system launches, or should we stop using the form now/at some point before the new system launches?
Looking forward to next week's update.
Dang, but I'm glad to have the update. Looking forward to next week!
"Next week" seems to have slipped by us. Anything new to update, @NianticCasey-ING?
I love how this never made it past Day 1
Those bars look good on you.
Merging the abuse form into your crappy in-app support that doesn't listen to anything said to them? Not the best idea @NianticCasey-ING. Not wayfarer related but I've had to report a particular account for using my real-world name with "the___l00zer" appended to it and each time I try to tell your support that getting them to change their name doesn't do anything (they just change it to some new variation of "isagoof" or "isal00zer"), and have forwarded the likely culprits behind it, I've basically been met with "yeah we've taken note" then nothing ever happens.
Your in-game support is awful. My experience has been literally the most bottom-of-the-barrel when it comes to game support. When I can state clearly "hey this person is using my real-world name in-game to follow and try to be threatening to me" and support either goes "it does not violate Trainer Guidelines lol" or "we have taken note" and nothing happens anyways, its kinda silly and disgraceful.
Hey folks,
Apologies for the delay in update here, I was hoping to be able to provide a progress update with some actual progress but unfortunately we are still working on the updates to the abuse form and appeals process on our side.
To address @SiIverLyra-PGO's questions from this thread:
Finally, I wanted to address @Thesacrikiller-ING@TheSFCaptain-PGO's feedback about their experience with in-app support. I'm sorry to hear that you've had a subpar experience working with that team. I'll be taking your feedback to the appropriate internal team to address. The team that will be addressing and replying to these reports is the same team that works on these reports in the form or appeals in this forum, the process by which they receive and address these reports would be the only thing that changes.
Thanks for your patience and apologies again for the delay!
Thank you for answering my questions, much appreciated.
Mid-June is encouraging, even if it's just an estimate. I'm hoping you'll update us again if there'll be another delay.
I do wonder if the new system will accommodate reports of multiple instances of abuse that are linked to each other and provide context for each other, or rather if it'll be a single-wayspot system like the current one. I find that the mass cases are often the hardest to report efficiently, and often the ones that attract the most "unpleasantness" when reporters resort to posting them here on the forum.