2 years in limbo - Niantic system "fixes" don't work
Hi again Niantic, remember me?
I live in your abuse vectored corner of London, UK. Two years in queue. Nothing has changed from your latest supposed "update" of the way that Wayfarer treats older submissions (btw how old should a submission be to be considered old? Most of mine are over a year old now. Still have about 30 from 2019).
Once again, you are claiming to act upon the problem but I'm not seeing any improvements.
I have had SOME (2 or 3 out of 110 odd) subs come back on their own recently, after over 20 months in the system. But I personally believe that this is because my area's natural review time is a minimum of FOURTEEN MONTHS IN VOTING.
You cannot consider this normal. Or sensible. I still have over 110 subs in the systems and I would likely be over 200 if we weren't in the middle of a global pandemic.
I don't know whether you guys even care that this situation exists any more. All I see are words and no actual changes resulting in anything.
I am not re-earning onyx recon just because you don't want to fix the system for those of us who actually want to contribute positively.
Comments
I know there’s bigger issues at work with this, but did you do the Russia Challenge and earn the 10 Upgrades, as that would help get some of your nominations a decision at least.
I know they’ve said some work has been done to prioritise older submissions so hopefully that helps too.
Did you participate in the Russia Challenge? 10 upgrades would have helped your nominations reach a decision.
Guys, you know full well the answer isn't "do this for upgrades" and more that this abuse vector doesn't work, it -may- have worked back in OPR, at a smaller scale of stopping and black holing the Pymmes Park group, but it doesn't work now, the playerbase of submitters/reviewers has opened massively now it's open to PoGo, but now the scale is MUCH larger and an entire area of London is just a "dead-zone" because of this abuse vector that we know 100% full well still has Redacted submissions in there.
I'd suspect it's true what Paul said (YouLostAStar), the people whoever made/decided this abuse vector no longer work at Niantic, and the current developers have no idea how to find the code, or don't understand the backend code as it currently is. The system as a whole needs shutting down to submitters, let the backlog be cleared and re-open again in the future, similar to OPR days, and secondly the system as a whole needs a complete re-build from the ground up, a complete rework and redesign.
Yes, some of the features of Wayfarer are nice don't get me wrong, but the system right now lacks things that 100% of people would consider "basic", but the system right now does not adapt to what is asked of it, there is still so much lacking that should of been there and should of been possible 2 years ago.
Yep I did say that, I would be very much interested in being proved wrong though 👀
Can you please explain what you mean when you say your area is an abuse vector?
Submissions that are within a level 10 or 11 cell in East London are black holed, they don't get seen by reviewers unless they're upgraded, so stuff that you may want to keep local pretty much don't get seen by anyone ever. Niantic well and truly knows this as they flushed Redacted submissions upto a certain point, they became super duper priority and were seen by a lot of people in the telegram groups, and then they suddenly stopped, no one has seen E17 submissions in over a year now
I try not to be insulting as that isn't gonna help the situation, but we've pushed Casey before and all we got was "it's on our to-do list" or "we'll look into it", apart from that, the last time we raised this issue, we got dead silence, no communication, no transparency at all regarding the East London abuse vector area. But it seems the only way to get a comment about this specific thing is to push and throw this in front of everyone, at this point it's almost a political issue.
This whole thing was born out a small group of people back in 2016/2017 were submitting fakes and stuff that clearly didn't exist at their houses, so Niantic put a blanket ban on the area, as stated above, no one seems submissions from that area as they go into a black hole and are never seen again.
This is now on Niantic to comment on again, though I suspect we'll get the same "were looking into it"
Prove me wrong Niantic, I challenge you to give something actually useful beyond the generic "we'll do something but we can't talk about it because we're scared of exposing our inner system workings"
Prove me wrong.
In addition to what @Belahzur-ING said, Niantic once referred to it as an abuse vector so the phrase actually came from them. I think it was quickly edited out but not before several British Wayfarers had seen it
Also don't take this the wrong way, people like Giffard have been really helpful and Casey (to some extent) but a lot of the time, the Niantic staff here feel like they're just reading off a script that whoever is above them is telling them what to say and what not to say, those who pull the strings and make the decisions, but it really feels like the message doesn't get to them, or its read our of context and they clearly don't understand the situation.
@YouLostAStar-ING & @Belahzur-ING sounds legit to me. No one questioned it either. I wonder if we tag staff if we can get any insightful info. Worth a shot. @NianticAaron @NianticAaron @NianticGray @NianticGiffard @NianticCasey-ING
At some other point in this forum I once read, that flagging a post would be better than tagging staff xD
I done that too, lmao 😜 I made sure to explain to them that it wasn’t a “complaint” about this thread but rather an issue that needed to get fixed for those in that region of the world because of an apparent issue.
I'd say I can't believe this is still an issue but I can believe it.
I know others have said about the Russia challenge for the 10 free upgrades but that's hardly a proper fix for this issue.
The fact that you have to reach over 10k agreements to get all your submissions seen is an absolute joke, and given that you and others have posted about this particular issue before, I'm surprised Niantic haven't prioritised it for fixing.
One big difference is that I live a few hundred metres from the Meridian. I can tell you that if I deliberately submit a portal on the right side of this invisible line, it gets seen (albeit it takes about 3 months now).
Also central London clears faster than where I live. I have central London subs in the system too. Central London has cleared twice since May 2019 (the last time my corner of London had a full system clear).
Its horrible knowing that central London is more of a priority in the system than North East London.
For point of reference, here is qwizical's original thread about the problem we raised as a group in the UK Telegram: https://community.wayfarer.nianticlabs.com/discussion/comment/20894/#Comment_20894
Casey's comment was from June 2020 saying the issue was raised internally with Nia, and we let the thread go after keeping it present for 9 days at the top of the general discussion forum. There hasn't been (to my knowledge) any response or circle back from Casey (or any other Nia staff for that matter, regardless), Casey said the issue was raised, whether or not they've done anything to progress the problem... who knows? maybe? not to our knowledge or evidence as we haven't seen any Redacted submissions from London.
Casey's comment is now over a year ago, and not much, if anything has changed from the user experience, the limbo in London still exists, no submissions (unless upgraded) get seen by anyone at all.
Please note, this isn't just qwizical's problem, we have contact with other east London players, and they have the same symptoms, we never see their submissions without being upgraded. I know I'm just 1 person and 1 voice, but our Telegram group is 300+ strong, and everyone will tell you the same thing, the abuse vector is very real and we can prove it, whether or not Nia want to believe it.
yes, nothing has changed. you do not even have this problem in Londres, we also have this problem in our rural areas.
i have posted this in the Bugs-Section, and it is marked as investigating.
But - there will be no outcome to this as it is a basic structural problem of wayfarers system.
Niantics recent efforts have not shown any movement at all. i doubt that there was anything done there but scraping some of the bottom. This is also due to the fact that it is now summer, and people do have better things to do than sit at their PC and review with 30 celsius outside (and sometimes inside).
Even giving us 10 upgrades wont help here, as i have 46 in review and 35 from 2020 that arent evenin voting yet. People have quit in droves as they cant afford to drive to the cities nearby to spin pokestops.
It is a very sad situation, that Niantic isnt just able to priorize everything that is that old. I do not want review a single thing from 2021, as the backlog is filled up to the brim and if they just cant change the system to work that off, they should just stop giving people the possibilty to submit 7 things a fortnight.
The reviews today just had basicly 90% of things on private property, fake stuff, bad photos, watermarks and the usual 1*. I do not want to spend my time reviewing this.
I can tell you how Niantic could clear out the queue:
In order to be effective this might also require Niantic to shut down multi-accounters who submit on more than one account, and I'm pretty sure they don't have the appetite for enforcing that one-account-per-person rule.
the multi-accounters are indeed a problem, but not that big. they mostly know their way around and know what is a wayspot and what not. On the other hand, pushy multi-accounters are a big problem.
We do have some pushy multi-accounters, that even spoof. They are doing their daily shenenigans, and even disrecpect the ones that point them out. After years and years of telling NIAs Chat-bots that these people are up to no good, nothing has been done about it.
Even if multi-accounters are submitting legitimate candidates they are still flooding queues with more than their fair share of submissions.
Having a ingress lvl 10 and pogo lvl 38 player submitting 14+7 isnt really helping at all.
I genuinely don't mind if people are using both games to submit, lets face it, the submission system will be coming to HPWU eventually, then Pikmin and who knows what other games eventually get it. I was always taught back in the day that if your submitting stuff, you should review to help clear the queue, so everything of mine gets upgraded because I live in a low priority area, without upgrades, mine take 6+ months anyway.
Manchester U.K. is also dead zone.
In order for anything to be resolved it needs upgraded.
I occasionally get local ones to review and there are plenty clues that these have been in the system for a long time.
The chance of rejection on upgrade is high.
It has put a lot of people off bothering.
I have said it before and I'll say it again. Trusted Reviewers.
For me in the UK, I know what a fake submission looks like, what a moiré pattern looks like, and what feedback to give to people if they need it. I know how to research submissions and how to direct people to appropriate supporting info.
You can immediately tell by the begging for pokestops who should never have access to Wayfarer. Throw the book at these people immediately and force their subs to go through an official channel for review. They still beg? Suspensions or bans from Wayfarer. They work hard and do all the right things (not necessarily acceptances but legitimate objects that exist, could fit the criteria with more info, can be located, and are submitted with at least some effort)? Let them back in the main queue. Some people are beyond help, some just need a push in the right direction (when I started a lot of my reviews were BAD).
For some reason people are willing to listen to my advice because I try to be patient and understanding. I try to help people. If you have an Agent/Trainer/Wizard who is willing to give advice and listen to constructive criticism and do what is best for Niantic and the Wayspot network you need to reciprocate.
Niantic have offices in Strand, London. I live in London. Invite me over one day and we can have a civilised discussion. I can't shout and get angry because confrontations give me anxiety. I avoid lying because again, anxiety. I just want to know that someone is listening and to give me *honest* answers.
The way I see it, Niantic either have to force *everyone* to review to get Wayspots to full review, or force no one to review. You cannot leave your players in a situation where they have to pour so much of their life (for me it'll be around 330 hours total, 3 hours per upgrade) into Wayfarer just to get an outcome.
I've barely reviewed the last 3 months. It's depressing and completely demotivating. I cannot and will not do this forever. I want to contribute to the Wayspot network more than anything and I go out of my way to visit deadzones.
Niantic need to help those of us who want what is best for everyone and it feels very much like they do not care in the slightest.
Also, London edits are likely at about 10 years old right now. You want to edit a portal with correct information? Good freaking luck.
I use the location edit form Niantic provided for location edits and it's been a godsend. I can actually fix locations in limbo zones because someone at niantic looks at the requests and I can explain to them exactly what needs doing, how to identify that the location move is correct, and thank them for dealing with my request.
Ingress isnt 10 years old yet
the ability to understand sarcasm and gallows humor should be much older....
You had me nodding my head until the last bullet. I can see adding a field to "down vote" submission quality for not matching a standard getting abuse by trolls A LOT. While I don't disagree with the premise it opens up too many pitfalls especially if there isn't a team behind to monitor for abuse. We all know how Niantic loves giving themselves extra work.
Personally I would like to see a system update that includes timing triggers. Nothing crazy but put some criteria around it that makes sense
Something like The following (or pick other time periods)
Submission can not be in queue for more then 90 days. After 90 days its automatically added to the voting pool.
Submission can stay in voting for up to 6 months. After six months of voting, use a weighting forecast to determine how the population voted. If its only reached 60% of the total votes needed for an agreement, but based on the spread at 100% it would have gone through, its a winner. If the other way around reject it.
This would mean submissions only stay in queue for a max of nine months. If in 9 months a voting system can determine if something should be a valid wayspot, then your system is broked!
@Oakes1923-PGO Yeah, I understand your point. It seems like it would be possible for Niantic to identify a data-driven threshold that would let them catch the worst cases of "My girlfriend", "Where I live", etc. with a very low false-positive rate. Doing that would require some initial amount of hand-review of things flagged and then a periodic re-assessment but I'd guess this would only be a few person-days of manual work for calibration.
I think nine months is WAY too long. Nine weeks is too long, IMO.
Niantic could probably solve the wait time issue by reducing the number of submissions available to people when the queue gets too deep. When the average time is above four weeks it would go down to like three per person per fortnight. Above six weeks one per person per fortnight. Above eight weeks and submissions automatically close until it drops below six weeks.
"We're sorry, but we are unable to accept (more than N) new submissions right now. If you would like to submit more please go to wayfarer.nianticlabs.com and help clear the backlog."
I think limiting submissions per person, due to high queue times, would have the inverse effect because then you would likely have less people reviewing to get their upgrades to get submissions through. We need more people reviewing not less. The challenges are good for this but you cant just keep pouring sugar on the problem, randomly to get folks involved (especially when you **** up the rewards afterwards).
I agree nine months is too long, no doubt, but when reading about wait times of a year or more in some locations I would think having a maximum review time would be a welcome change. It would mean that you know that you have a finish line no matter what. It would also ensure that the queue stays fresh and voting doesn't get bogged down with old submissions.
But I am fine putting the threshold at a shorter point. Make it 30 days and 90 days.
@Oakes1923-PGO Ah, but my proposal increases the incentives for reviewing. "You aren't going to be able to submit unless you also review" seems pretty powerful to me. If people will review to earn upgrades then surely they'll review so that they can submit?
Except people will expect others to do it, and once they do, everyone will come collect the benefits (cough cough Russia Event)