Cafes/coffee shops?

2

Comments

  • Elijustrying-INGElijustrying-ING Posts: 5,482 Ambassador

    I get deeply concerned when sets of things that a nominated place should have start to get written as if they are essential - a set of rules develop to justify rejection with no comment as to whether this is a correct interpretation.

    it strikes me that a set of very high standards are being touted as a way to justify rejection.

    This is what the eligibility criteria says

    A great place to be social with others

    A favorite gathering place for friends or strangers alike, where you can

    share a drink or meal, be entertained, or watch public life happen.

    Or something that draws us together to share an experience in a locally and culturally relevant way.


    This is what the acceptance criteria says:

    meets the eligibility criteria plus

    Must be a permanent physical, tangible, and identifiable place or object, or object that placemarks an area

    Must be safe and publicly accessible by pedestrians (indoor or outdoor)

    Must contain accurate information in the title, description, and photo


    There is diddly squat about “must meet a high standard proved by its awards and ratings”

  • Roli112-PGORoli112-PGO Posts: 2,236 Ambassador

    I never once mentioned it was a requirement... just saying "this is local hot spot" isn't going to cut it. I gave SOME examples of proof for meeting that criteria you posted, but there could be others im missing.

  • Elijustrying-INGElijustrying-ING Posts: 5,482 Ambassador

    People seem to be making up rules as to what hurdles need to be met.

    Reminder of what the guidelines say

    ELIGIBILITY

    A great place to be social with others

    A favorite gathering place for friends or strangers alike, where you can share a drink or meal, be entertained, or watch public life happen.

    Or something that draws us together to share an experience in a locally and culturally relevant way.

    Examples of Wayspot categories

    • Favorite coffee shops

    ACCEPTANCE

    Must be a permanent physical, tangible, and identifiable place or object, or object

    Must be safe and publicly accessible by pedestrians (indoor or outdoor)

    Must contain accurate information in the title, description, and photo


    The only thing really to consider is what “favourite” might mean and that is subjective

    CONTENT GUIDELINES

    For local businesses there is additional advice is given

    For submitters, since this is a subjective judgement call the reviewers must make, do utilize the supporting text and images to strengthen your case.

    For reviewers, keep in mind that even a generic business in a small town can be an important part of the local community.

    There is nothing about it needing to have awards or excellent ratings.

    Social media is only useful if it is something that locally people would do. For example a local coffee shop that you pop into all the time might not be something you report on social media but it’s certainly a favourit.

    With the Covid crisis in many countries cafes have closed or limited. So even if they do have a social media presence everything might be out of date.

    So perhaps be prepared to accept on less.

  • Roli112-PGORoli112-PGO Posts: 2,236 Ambassador

    For submitters, since this is a subjective judgement call the reviewers must make, do utilize the supporting text and images to strengthen your case.

    Last time I repeat myself, I never said they were needed, they help "strengthen your case"

  • mortuus-INGmortuus-ING Posts: 213 ✭✭✭
    edited June 2021

    but criteria says its enough ? so how make it more relevant ? it says they should be accepted. Again niantic need make the criteria rule smore specific then.'

    I mean anyone can say this is favourite coffee shop, where do we draw the line what is favourite and whats not ?

  • SlicedPeas-INGSlicedPeas-ING Posts: 336 ✭✭✭✭

    There is no line. Niantic said it was subjective, that means there is no right/wrong here.

    The problem with demands for clarifications is they follow a pattern of Niantic providing something along the lines of "Some examples of X could be great submissions of they are Y or Z" and then submitters hammer every example of X even if it isn't remotely Y or Z. Then when most of those get rejected, there are more demands for clarification and so on. The end result is creating a new "must accept" class which will be then have it's definition stretched to the limit. Need an example? Footbridges. They started out with "historic, architecturally interesting or visually appealing" but then that got argued about, and further clarification was demanded and at this point people are submitting a piece of steel culvert with a sidewalk over it and calling it a bridge.

    So I think clarification is not going to help, because instead of actually getting information about the coffee shop, we will get a link to the AMA or whatever. That's not gonna actually produce good results. Instead we need to just change the culture of reviewers by discussing the idea of being more open to the idea, by making good submissions(and being ok with the idea that they're likely to be rejected) and voting up good submissions(and being ok with the potential for a disagreement).

  • Roli112-PGORoli112-PGO Posts: 2,236 Ambassador

    i agree, but its sad that 99% of the ones i see show no effort. I approve just about any that show some level of effort. I mean at least tell me it has good reviews in yelp or google so i can check it out and confirm.

  • Gazzas89-PGOGazzas89-PGO Posts: 2,619 ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited June 2021

    I suppose somwthing to look at could be, how long as the cafe been around. You would tend to find that cafes that are popular tend to last decades, while one's that aren't as popular pop up then disappear. That's just from my perspective though, maybe in other places this is different.

  • Gazzas89-PGOGazzas89-PGO Posts: 2,619 ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited June 2021

    As a side note, this is one I have submitted (for a second time, but first since the guidelines refresh). I kind of expect it to fail, but I put a bit of effort in


    I will add, the history of it being a bank is known locally, but I couldn't find anything online about it unfortunetly, I would have put a link in if I could find it

    Post edited by Gazzas89-PGO on
  • Oakes1923-PGOOakes1923-PGO Posts: 419 ✭✭✭✭

    Why? If Niantic states that your favorite coffee shop is a valid submission, and I write a local favorite and popular, what about that makes it not acceptable to you? I am doing exactly what Niantic said I should. Your personal rule seems arbitrary.

    For clarification I have submitted many restaurants and cafe's with far more detail, everything that folks in these forums have asked for. (local awards, details about their community involvement, history and online ratings) and they've still been rejected. Mostly with "Does not meet criteria", which by the way to is the laziest rejection reason on the list but folks hang their hat on it to no end. Which is laughable because as others have pointed out; even those that judge these harshly; agree with that detail they meet criteria.

    The issue I see is that if you wont accept a write up, that fits into Niantic accepted guidelines, because you demand more, you tip the scales too far the other way and it makes it better for reviewers to decline more and more submissions. They do it either to keep their rating up, gain agreements for upgrades or badges, or you're just creating the culture of rejection of places that are explicitly acceptable per Niantic and reviewers assume that the standard. They really aren't allowed.

    Also because it takes far fewer rejection votes then it does acceptance votes to gain an agreement on a submission the small minority with a very narrow view of the criteria end up ruling the day. In your mind your trying to be consistent but ultimately your leading to more issues, repeat submissions, wasted upgrades, agreement fishers, long queue times, on and on. Wouldn't you rather be part of the solution?

    Like everything else, I am not saying blindly accept any café or restaurant. I am not lookin for a hard and fast yes or no. Niantic intends grey area. But if someone takes the time to submit their local small café, with a good picture and a quick write up about how its their favorite coffee shop, its got pedestrian access and its in the right location, assume they aren't making it up. It should never qualify as a 1* rejection. For the majority of us it isn't but the majority doesn't rule in Wayfarer.

  • Roli112-PGORoli112-PGO Posts: 2,236 Ambassador

    Niantic has also said that its up to the submitter to show proof that their submission is eligible, you fail to do that if you are only using buzz words. I am not making my own personal rule, you must show proof of your claims.

    For clarification I am very lenient when effort and proof (of any kind) is provided. I don't require awards reviews etc. but they are great examples of proof.

    Part of the solution is educating nominations to make the best nominations possible, which is my intention here, giving advice on how to improve a nomination. That fairs better than just approving lazy submissions that only leads to more lazy submissions.

    I also don't 1* these. You are only assuming I do. When a location seems like it might be eligible I 2* overall, and 1* or 2* cultural if that is what was failed to be proven.

  • Oakes1923-PGOOakes1923-PGO Posts: 419 ✭✭✭✭

    Niantic has also said that its up to the submitter to show proof that their submission is eligible, you fail to do that if you are only using buzz words. I am not making my own personal rule, you must show proof of your claims.

    That phrase has never been uttered by Niantic. This is a great example of twisting their guidelines to fit a narrative.

    Here is the actual the from Niantic.

    Local Businesses

    Generally speaking, local businesses that are considered long-standing watering holes, favorite hyper-local hangouts, or even more regionally recognized as a cultural hotspot, fall under the eligibility criteria of Explore and can be submitted for consideration and review. For submitters, since this is a subjective judgement call the reviewers must make, do utilize the supporting text and images to strengthen your case. For reviewers, keep in mind that even a generic business in a small town can be an important part of the local community.

    Tell me where it says you must show proof for your claims. It doesn't. They recommend you use the text to strengthen your case but that is a Grand Canyon size leap to demanding proof. Which means you as the reviewer are putting in that standard based on your own biases. ITS ON YOU AT THAT POINT. And if that's how you review own it, but stop the pretense that its an edict from Niantic. FLAT OUT FALSE.

    When a location seems like it might be eligible I 2* overall, and 1* or 2* cultural if that is what was failed to be proven.

    You are correct that I assumed you 1* reject things without overwhelming evidence. I lumped you in with some other common posters who quite often post; 1* reject it its not valid; on similar questions. My one comment here however is again around the guidance from Niantic. In your last statement you're basically saying. "Could be but I don't know because I was not given enough info". Which is totally fine. At that point however Niantic has made it very clear that this should be a 3* review.

    Rating Scale

    You will be asked various questions about a nomination and answer by rating on a scale of one to five stars. In general, use the following guidelines when deciding how to vote:

    If you strongly agree, choose 5 stars

    If you are unsure or have no opinion, choose 3 stars

    If the answer is definitely no, choose 1 star and select a rejection reason

    It's certainly a much bigger conversation then just the café/restaurant issue. And I do appreciate the effort to inform folks on review/submission standards. But if that is in fact the case, lets stick to the actual standards from Niantic. This goes back to the larger issue that by adding in these arbitrary rules into your review process, by manipulating standards, you are making the issue worse, not better.

  • Stephyypooke-INGStephyypooke-ING Posts: 506 ✭✭✭✭✭

    I think the word “proof” is being fixated on here. In the quote you provided from Niantic, they state that Local Hotspots are subjective and therefore submitters should use the resources to help strengthen their case. That is exactly what @Roli112-PGO is asking for when they say “proof”.

    For me it’s more of an explanation. Explain why this place is so popular in your community, explain why it’s you and your family’s favorite place to go, explain what they are known for, etc. A submitter is essentially trying to sell reviewers on their nomination and that is why Niantic states local hotspot nominations should have additional information to “strengthen your case”.

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

    Specifically:

    Deciding whether a location is generic or not is really up to the reviewer and their understanding of the impact of the location to the community. The burden is on nominators to include enough details in the supporting text to reinforce why a possibly generic / chain location is actually important to their community.

    You can claim that @NianticCasey-ING never said this all you want, but here is a direct quite from the first time this topic came up after the 3.1 update.

  • Oakes1923-PGOOakes1923-PGO Posts: 419 ✭✭✭✭

    Refers to chain location and is directly related to a discussion around why a Starbucks could be considered. Its in his first paragraph of what you linked. Irrelevant to this conversation as we are not discussing chains. Again twisting guidance to your narrative or in this case flat out ignoring context of a quote to pass it off as something its not.

    I don't disagree with you that its subjective, which is why I mentioned in an earlier post Niantic puts in grey area, but by claiming you need "proof"; well who's standard of proof? That will be different for every reviewer, which is why we must look to Niantic for that standard. And the most they've stated is "favorite coffee shop", "popular restaurant". When folks claim they need to see tripadvisor, google, or yelp reviews, or local awards, or magazine articles its nonsense, its noise, and it goes against the standard and guidance that Niantic has laid out for us all to follow.

    Show me the article/writeup/guidance where Niantic claims a certain level of proof is required, different then wants on the criteria page and I'll follow it.

    I'll wait.

  • Jtronmoore-PGOJtronmoore-PGO Posts: 1,581 ✭✭✭✭✭

    Haha buddy give it up already 😂. The generic/chain restaurant would really apply to all restaurants. Regardless of any submission its always on the nominator to provide enough information so that us reviewers can make an educated and informed decision. If you chose not to do that its your problem and no one else’s.

  • Oakes1923-PGOOakes1923-PGO Posts: 419 ✭✭✭✭
    edited June 2021

    You know you've lost on argument when your rebuttal is "buddy give it up already" LOL.

    You know how I know we are on the right side of this discussion? Because the guidelines tell us so. I can site them and they match my argument. I don't have to add or remove text or misquote or make s%*t up. You know how you can tell you're on the wrong side? When you legit have to make up justifications, standards, twist the narrative and misquote Casey to fit a closeminded view of what makes a good submission, and are unable to understand the negative impact that your actions have on the greater roll of reviewing wayspots.

    I never said you don't have to provide information, but the burden of "proof' that you and a minority of others demand goes beyond anything that Niantic states. Fact not opinion.

    I'll let my posts speak for themselves and let you try to fit your generic/chain narrative into a non existent rule about proof. Also let me know when you want to take up my challenge of citing something that actual fits your argument direct from Niantic. (preferably without screwing it up)✌️

    Post edited by Oakes1923-PGO on
  • Roli112-PGORoli112-PGO Posts: 2,236 Ambassador

    https://community.wayfarer.nianticlabs.com/discussion/comment/43694#

    Read that thread and see where Casey "hughlights" about whag Damastaglen says. It is what we have been saying here. No dancing around.


    Thanks for the feedback folks, I want to highlight what @Damastaglen-PGO said in response to a lot of the questions about 'how am I supposed to know when reviewing':  If the place is the only coffee shop/pub/restaurant for miles and is a meeting point for all the nearby villages or if it’s got a cool back story, submitters should tell us that so we understand why it isn’t generic, it’s not exactly hard - there is literally a box to fill in during a submission which asks you to do just that.

    Nominators can't expect a hyper-local spot that is also a chain to be blindly accepted if there's no local context added to their nomination. And the burden is not necessarily on the reviewer to research every business in the area to make that type of determination.

    As for what's being done about it, we are in the middle of revising the criteria to make things easier and more straightforward for reviewers as a lot of categorical decisions and discussions have led to inaccurate or inconsistent decisions.

  • Mormegil71-INGMormegil71-ING Posts: 202 ✭✭✭

    Don't know if this will further the discussion, but my own recent experience of this is as follows:

    About a week ago, I did a WF session, and I ran out of skips. I got some cafés and restaurants, and as I was out of skips, I 3 starred them. Descriptions were not bad, but not outstanding. They mentioned that they were local hotspots and social meeting places. Some wrote about what they served, that they had beer and wine and so on.

    In the beginning of the session, I was in Great rating. At the end, I was in Good. I highly suspect my 3 starring of those places didn't match up with what other reviewers had rated them as. And, so, my rating went down. It is impossible to rate such nominations "correctly" with the guidelines we have now.

  • Innerlize-PGOInnerlize-PGO Posts: 13 ✭✭

    I never managed to get a Cafe through, this including a good historic story about the place

    But don't think they should include what they serve ha.


    We really need some reminder send to all wayfarer users, it's just costing others rating as stated above. Most probably still consider it generic business.

  • Oakes1923-PGOOakes1923-PGO Posts: 419 ✭✭✭✭

    Your rating only changes when things reach agreement. It is very doubtful that by the end of a session all those cafe's would have reached an agreement point. Maybe a couple by pure chance but not enough to negatively impact your rating. More likely several other things from past sessions reached agreement and it was pure coincidence. You're rated on when things reach an agreement (either rejection, duplicate, or acceptance not at the time you actually rate them).

  • Jtronmoore-PGOJtronmoore-PGO Posts: 1,581 ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited June 2021

    When you get queotes used and thrown at you left and right and decide to ignore them regardless how relevant they are to the topic. Would mean your in denial 😂

    other nominations you can use resources in the nomination to prove why your nomination is eligible. Where as a picture of a cafe doesnt really give any info other than its a cafe. That and every person nominating a cafe is going to use the buzzword local hotspot in there nomination. Just does t give much to review off of. So logically backing up any claim would help any nomination.

    niantic does tell people to:

    “The final step helps give the nomination reviewers some more context as to why your nomination should be considered eligible. Here, you can specify what makes your nomination a high-quality PokéStop candidate. These sections will not appear on the PokéStop details and will only be shared with the community of reviewers that are evaluating your nomination.”

    context being local hotspot. Specify why its high quality in my opinion means give helpful information that would support your claims

  • Oakes1923-PGOOakes1923-PGO Posts: 419 ✭✭✭✭

    I had a post all ready to go for you on this one because you seem to be missing much in the way of context (your own quoted text deceives you) but hardly seems worth the key strokes at this point, instead I will reply with this.

    Also let me know when you want to take up my challenge of citing something that actual fits your argument direct from Niantic. (preferably without screwing it up)✌️


  • Oakes1923-PGOOakes1923-PGO Posts: 419 ✭✭✭✭

    try using quotes in actual contexts and you can talk to me about denial. This is where those critical thinking skills you claim to have would come in handy. Although I'm guessing that ship as sailed. #challangenotaccepted 😥

  • Roli112-PGORoli112-PGO Posts: 2,236 Ambassador
  • Oakes1923-PGOOakes1923-PGO Posts: 419 ✭✭✭✭

    Your ignoring words in your own "evidence" that completely contradict whatever point your trying to make. I can't sit here all day and try to teach you how to read context and apply them appropriately on this medium. I would love to if I could, but at this point I've proved my argument beyond a shadow of a doubt and all you've done is link a couple of out of context quotes from Casey to do... 🤷‍♂️ no one knows.

    The funny part is I don't think we are as far apart on this as you think but you and Jtron are so stuck with this notion that your right you cant get out of your own way.

    If you want to reread my posts and try again feel free. Otherwise I've made my point... we're all still waiting on yours.

  • Gendgi-PGOGendgi-PGO Posts: 3,534 Ambassador

    Anyone who takes @NianticCasey-ING's comments seriously when they said they'd consider a Starbucks eligible (showing how out of touch they are with the state of Wayfarer reviewing) and multiple times saying artistic grave markers are eligible (contradicting published guides)....

    As a submitter, I try my best to lay out eligibility. If it's a unique or especially "interesting" diner, etc, I make sure to express how it is a place for local culture & flavor - a place for exploration. Maybe I know it's the type of place for "FAC" activities or the place to go to celebrate over a great dinner - a place to be social with others. If possible, I'll include links to news sites or city culture websites. Those aren't always available, though. When not, I'll make sure to include what I personally have found interesting about the place.

    As a reviewer, I carefully consider any business. Especially in rural areas, "Tom's Diner," "American style diner," "Good food" isn't going to get a 5* from me but it also isn't going to get a 1*. If the submitter had put any effort, it could easily have be been 5* all the way down. Unfortunately, these areas are also the least likely to have websites or awards to reference, but simply explaining a little why a nomination is important goes a long way. I won't (usually) do independent searches of the restaurant. I do expect them (and honestly any candidate I review) you put forth that bare minimum effort to explain why it should be approved.

    I grew up in a rural area - "hot take," I know, but I can see a case being made for a convenience store an hour from any town because I know that local culture does happen there.

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