Positive and negative elements of wayfarer

Aeryle88-PGOAeryle88-PGO Posts: 440 ✭✭✭

After using wayfarer for some months, i have some ideas about the wayfarer system to share. Maybe it could help Niantic to improve the system in the future.

I will start with a positive thing of wayfarer: the ability to create new wayspots in Niantic games. Nothing more to say, but it's very important as POI are essential to enjoy the games.

But some points could be improved by Niantic to make the system better.

-The upgrade plague: Upgrade may be usefull in area where there is already many POI, but in area where there is few POI, upgrade are at best useless, at worst, it's a plague. In fact, without upgrade, in rural area, we can have a POI validated or rejected in less than 15 days. With upgrade, it's the same, maybe a little quicker, but not so much. The problem is upgrading reduce the chance of having the POI validated. So as long as Niantic force us to use upgrade, they will be a plague, so the only solution is to stop reviewing. Witch is counterproductive.

I suggest Niantic to not force us to use upgrade, and to create new kind of use of upgrade. For example, if we can use upgrade to get more nominations or to be able to make an appeal of rejection, it would be better.


-Coldown harassement: Getting coldown just when we review is not a good system. We can be quick on certain submissions. Coldown just prevent many people to vote.


-The level wall: This problem is before getting acces to wayfarer. Getting lvl10 in ingress or lv38 in pogo is very long and almost impossible for player in area without POI. I don't say Niantic should give a full acces to players under theses levels, but at least giving the opportunity for player who regulary play in area without POI, to submit a few POI would be better for the games.


-False rejections are too punitive: Every false rejection is a dead end. A definitive lost of submission. The only thing Niantic suggest is to submit again the item... And by doing that, force us to loose a new submission slot. The impossibility to correct the submission directly in wayfarer and to submit it again (one time) without use a submission slot in pogo or ingress, is not a good system.

-Apeal impossible: In the same way, for some rejections, making an appeal to have official Niantic point of view would be very usefull for the entire communauty. Some criteria are not clear and could be interpreted in two different way. Niantic sould precise them, and appeal on rejection could be a good way to clarify that. In an other hand, appeal on nomination who should pass according to the criteria (like trail markers) would be very benefit to the system: instead of seeing one nomination being in vote for 2, 3, 4 or more time and clog the system, it could be validated by Niantic and create some examples who will certainly convice some reviewer to not reject them.


-Nomination limit: only 7 nomination every 15 days is clearly not enought. And the impossibility to took picture to submit something later (when a submission slot become avalaible) is a second mistake. For now it's impossible to just walk and nominate every eligible thing i see. I have to planify what i can nominate, and always do with the small limit of 7 every 15days. If the objective is to limit the number of nomination in the system, it would be better to let us creat as many nomination as we want and just put a limit on the nuimber of nomination we can upload in the voting system. If a player went in an area with potential POI, he won't be able to submit theses thing if he already nominate thing recently. That's not a good system.

I think a nomination management system and allowing 14 nominations every 14 days would be better for the wayfarer system.

Comments

  • Aeryle88-PGOAeryle88-PGO Posts: 440 ✭✭✭

    Other things to improve:

    -More eligible things, especially outside towns.

    Many natural features could be great POI. But that's not autorized for now. I think it's not good for the system.

    Some items like wind turbine or remarquable natural places could be a great POI when they are on a trail. Actually not eligible.

    In cities, commercial centers would be a great place too.


    -Reviewing system: little boring with some unpertinent questions. Would be better to ask submitter "what is it?" and ask reviewers to validated that (or not) instead of asking unicity and cutural.

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


    -The upgrade plague: Upgrade may be usefull in area where there is already many POI, but in area where there is few POI, upgrade are at best useless, at worst, it's a plague. In fact, without upgrade, in rural area, we can have a POI validated or rejected in less than 15 days. With upgrade, it's the same, maybe a little quicker, but not so much. The problem is upgrading reduce the chance of having the POI validated. So as long as Niantic force us to use upgrade, they will be a plague, so the only solution is to stop reviewing. Witch is counterproductive.

    I suggest Niantic to not force us to use upgrade, and to create new kind of use of upgrade. For example, if we can use upgrade to get more nominations or to be able to make an appeal of rejection, it would be better.

    Niantic has said to be working on this.

    -Coldown harassement: Getting coldown just when we review is not a good system. We can be quick on certain submissions. Coldown just prevent many people to vote.

    Cooldowns and any other discipline in my opinion are good but not without communicating what the discipline is for. Right now all it does is cause people to caomplain without being able to learn from what they could have done "wrong".

    -The level wall: This problem is before getting acces to wayfarer. Getting lvl10 in ingress or lv38 in pogo is very long and almost impossible for player in area without POI. I don't say Niantic should give a full acces to players under theses levels, but at least giving the opportunity for player who regulary play in area without POI, to submit a few POI would be better for the games.

    Niantic seems to be trying to do this with seeded portals... perhaps maybe Niantic could take feedback for what areas may need seeded portals.

    -False rejections are too punitive: Every false rejection is a dead end. A definitive lost of submission. The only thing Niantic suggest is to submit again the item... And by doing that, force us to loose a new submission slot. The impossibility to correct the submission directly in wayfarer and to submit it again (one time) without use a submission slot in pogo or ingress, is not a good system.

    Niantic needs to do something about false rejections... at the reviewer level though, not resubmitting or allowing to resubmit without losing a submission.

    -Apeal impossible: In the same way, for some rejections, making an appeal to have official Niantic point of view would be very usefull for the entire communauty. Some criteria are not clear and could be interpreted in two different way. Niantic sould precise them, and appeal on rejection could be a good way to clarify that. In an other hand, appeal on nomination who should pass according to the criteria (like trail markers) would be very benefit to the system: instead of seeing one nomination being in vote for 2, 3, 4 or more time and clog the system, it could be validated by Niantic and create some examples who will certainly convice some reviewer to not reject them.

    Maybe allowing 1 appeal every 2 weeks where Niantic could re look at a rejection nomination, provide feedback if it was rejected rightfully, provide reviewers feedback if they rejected wrongfully.

    -Nomination limit: only 7 nomination every 15 days is clearly not enought. And the impossibility to took picture to submit something later (when a submission slot become avalaible) is a second mistake. For now it's impossible to just walk and nominate every eligible thing i see. I have to planify what i can nominate, and always do with the small limit of 7 every 15days. If the objective is to limit the number of nomination in the system, it would be better to let us creat as many nomination as we want and just put a limit on the nuimber of nomination we can upload in the voting system. If a player went in an area with potential POI, he won't be able to submit theses thing if he already nominate thing recently. That's not a good system.

    I think a nomination management system and allowing 14 nominations every 14 days would be better for the wayfarer system.

    The system is so slow right now in a lot of places (16+ months in my area), the last thing we need right now is more nominations to bog down even more.

  • aceariel2016-PGOaceariel2016-PGO Posts: 59 ✭✭✭

    Regarding upgrades niantic have confirmed that they would give us ability to apply upgrades manually whenever we need in the second half of the year and regarding cooldowns I disagree to you because cooldown is a necessary thing to tell people that they did something wrong and don't follow the rating system/criteria properly but they should write that you should read the criteria again and do ratings of all questions asked accordingly and they can also give a retest option to reduce cooldown times but it still would be there as a punishment, and regarding false rejections I agree to you niantic should apply a wrong rejection system and appeals that could also apply just small cooldowns to people who wrongly rejected things and also didn't mentioned their reason to reject completely as well or just automated rejection checks might work and lastly regarding 7 nomination by 1 coming per every 14 days takes very long time instead they can increase number of nominations as they told during the launch in pogo that it's in beta stage and it would increase in future or they can rather reduce the 14 day duration so that it would become much more easy to submit the things and one more thing i like to add is that niantic should increase use of automated reviews similar to g maps (as niantic also do sometimes) more frequently so that system runs more effectively and prevents clogging and might mitigate wrong rejections and cooldown checks would also become more easy.

  • Hosette-INGHosette-ING Posts: 3,469 ✭✭✭✭✭

    FYI, I have a different take on the "upgrade plague".

    I review a ton and submit very little, and thus I am perpetually capped on upgrades. (Well, not anymore but I have 14 and I'm over halfway to #15.). In the last year 100% of my submissions have been upgraded. In the last year 100% of my submissions have been accepted.

  • ikaros02-INGikaros02-ING Posts: 54 ✭✭✭

    Half of your suggestions sound like you just want more nominations into the queue. I don't think that's a good idea since the queues are way too long even now.

  • Aeryle88-PGOAeryle88-PGO Posts: 440 ✭✭✭

    Yes i want more submissions in queue.i’m in low density area. The voting time never exceed 10 days without upgrade. There is so many items here that would make great POI. There is about 40 villages with no POI.

    adding more POI here would litterally took years with the limitations of 7 every 15 days.

    create a pogo communauty is litterally impossible as long as there is no enought POI. And that’s a probelm.

  • HaramDingo-INGHaramDingo-ING Posts: 1,725 ✭✭✭✭✭

    You're very lucky for a 100% acceptance rate. As you know, many things that I get upgraded get really bad reject reasons, so often I will need a sacrificial lamb to scapegoat and upgrade next to. It must be a cultural/different country thing.

    Yeah, maybe some places could struggle more if there were too many nominations in queue, but some places are really lacking. But the fact that someone that would grind to Level 38/Level 10 in PoGo/Ingress just to submit their house has the same privileges and number of nominations as someone who has reviewed over 30,000 wayspots and got hundreds of wayspots added, I believe that the amount of nominations available should be scaled by a Wayfarer level, depending on how much contributions you put into Wayfarer.

    And for something like, Tokyo, I remember walking there and I could still absolutely fit new wayspots there, so there is always room for someone to make a contribution.

  • Hosette-INGHosette-ING Posts: 3,469 ✭✭✭✭✭

    @HaramDingo-ING Partially lucky, yes. Partially skill, and being very thoughtful about how I present each candidate. The two prior to that were rejected although the candidate itself (a decorative fountain) was very clearly eligible. It was hard for reviewers to understand and approve, though, so I improved it iteratively to address the places where I thought reviewers were getting hung up. That was an excellent lesson in learning how to improve my own submissions.

    I live in a fairly high-density area (downtown Oakland California) and I still find new things sometimes. I haven't played in Tokyo other than passing through Narita, but I have in Manhattan, London, Paris. I have three things live in Manhattan and one in central London near Harrod's.

    I do agree with you that submissions should be fairly limited and more can be earned. That would probably knock a lot of the utter garbage out of the queue. I probably would give people an annual pool of X (maybe 14), and the rate that you earn them back is dependent on your Wayfarer rating and total agreements.

    I also think that one person should only submit things on one account, period.

  • HINABITAMEU-INGHINABITAMEU-ING Posts: 154 ✭✭✭
    edited June 2021

    Where I live, it takes at least 2 years if I don't use the upgrade, so I have to use the upgrade unconditionally.

    I have 21 nominations including ingress and pokemongo accounts, but on the contrary, the upgrade is far from sufficient compared to the number of nominations.

    I have already reviewed more than 160K, but the number of upgrades is still insufficient.

    I would like to be able to appeal at least once if I am a legitimate candidate but have been rejected.

    I hope I can get an upgrade point from modifying the title, description, and choosing a picture.

  • mikimoto42-INGmikimoto42-ING Posts: 6 ✭✭

    I find the MAJORITY of my upgraded nominations get approved. I assume it is because since they are being sent to a wider audience of reviewers that these reviewers better understand the acceptance criteria. I work hard at reviewing so that I can earn more upgrades and get decisions faster.

    When I do have a nomination rejected I try to look at it through the eyes of the reviewers. What didn't I explain well enough for them to understand how this meets criteria? How can I alter the picture, title, and description to better show off the POI and make it obvious why it should be approved? Then I resubmit.

  • Shilfiell-INGShilfiell-ING Posts: 1,559 Ambassador

    I'm in the same boat as above: I tend to submit a lot n areas with very few reviewers, and rely on upgrades to push my submissions through. Most are accepted quickly once upgraded. I still think that the key functionality for active reviewers would be the ability to mark submissions as "never upgrade" so that they could regain some control over the entire process: it could be that their reviewer pool dries up in the future, and those wasted upgrades would be more useful if a backlog develops.

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