Niantic can we do something about bad reviewers? I'm tired of unreasonable rejections

I'm really tired of spending time reviewing and nominating wayspots, what's the point if people reject everything with random motivations?

Today I got the only public drinking fountain of my small city because it is placed in an exlicit place (it's in a public parking lot with a pedestrian access), being a natural feature (of course, who didn't see a wild building made of bricks and metal in the forest), and the best one: being temporary.

This is what I'm talking about:

Could not be the best wayspot ever, but everyone in this small city go there to get their water (here in Italy we usually don't drink tap water), it is quite important. Anyway, any of those reasons are not legit.

Another example, today as well, is a picnic area in a public park that got rejected because it is a natural feature (again, tables and benches must grow in nature I guess) and because it shows a license plate.

Really I have to earn 200 agreements for this?

I'm not saying to accept these requests but at least punish bad reviewers.

Comments

  • Rodensteiner-PGORodensteiner-PGO Posts: 1,705 ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited June 2021

    if everyone would be able to make a direct appeal against one of these rejections, niantic would need to have 2-3 people working on this all day.

    it is easier for them to just stay stum and let people re-enter the submission. Never ever upgrade anything that is not a solid 5*. If you arent sure what a solid 5* submission is, yours are not. Itse not so bad, but not good either.

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

    I'd love for someone to make a good case for bad reviewers, but this ain't it. I have a great rating and wouldn't vote for either of these unless there was a really strong description. (Sorry, I can't read Spanish.) But I get your point, that a water fountain is not a natural feature, that it's not temporary. It's possible that someone could have accidentally picked the wrong drop down selection. I've done that myself a few times. But is it worthy of a waystop? That's highly debatable.

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

    In fact Niantic should have 2-3 people working on that all the day.

    Getting more wayspot is good for their games. Wayfarer is a good system to give a little power to players, but Niantic should work on it too. Niantic should give their opinion on nomination that are rejected for bad reasons. They also should review some nomination to give example of eligible thing to the communauty. (and also example of non-eligible things).

    When players don't agree each other on a nomination, Niantic should decided if it's eligible or no. By just saying: re-submit if it's rejected, they put the system is a bad state, Because some eligible nominations will be reviewed 2, 3, 4, 5 or more times before being validated. It's a bad use of ressources.And some un-eligible nomination will be put on the queue again again and again... And the player who nominate a bad item will never learn of his mistakes.

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

    What criteria do both these nominations meet?

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

    Bad reviewers exist, true, especially when working as coordinated groups. For most, though, their behavior is self-limiting: they review poorly, their agreement percentage drops, their rating falls into Poor level, their votes (I think, this is conjecture only) count for less, they get no upgrades, they get no medal progress. When I first started submitting, back in the pre-Pokemon-submission days, it was commonly held as fact that one might have to submit a candidate multiple times to get it passed. It was always on the submitter to improve text and title, to better support eligibility and location, to use a better photo - in short, to sell the submission better. I always look for what I can do to improve a nomination if I truly feel it's worthy. The majority of reviewers are fantastic workers doing a semi-thankless task, and it's disheartening to always see the blame for rejections put upon reviewers as a whole.

  • Rodensteiner-PGORodensteiner-PGO Posts: 1,705 ✭✭✭✭✭

    Niantic could easily hire 100 people that do wayfarer.

    But what for? Even 10 people cost money that can easily be spend trying out new technologies that, in the end turns out to be something the world doesn not need.

    Niantic wants to spend as less money as possible on wayfarer.

    -jh wants to see money beign generated out of this, not money spend into it.

  • peepee0606-PGOpeepee0606-PGO Posts: 6 ✭✭

    The first one is a public fountain (I don't know if it is the correct name in english, anyway where you can fill your bottles with drinking water) along a pedestrian path. It is a really small city and a lot of people go here to get water. As I said, not the best wayspot ever requested, but still something relevant here because in Italy no one drink tap water, so you need a public fountain to get it. Also, it is part of a public program ("Acqua Buona") to reduce the waste of water and plastic bottle pollution.

    The second one is a picnic area in a public park. You can meet there with friends and eat something, socialize or do exercise in the park and then relax there.

    Anyways there are just examples. I even got parks and stadiums rejected because they are natural features and being in an explicit place. And the main photo was at the sign at the entrance lol

  • flatmatt-PGOflatmatt-PGO Posts: 2,137 ✭✭✭✭✭

    Well the two examples you chose are not very good examples, as neither of them is likely to meet eligibility criteria regardless. A drinking fountain or other drinking water supply does not meet criteria (simply being useful infrastructure is not one of the eligibility criteria). The types of fountains that Niantic has in mind for acceptance are primarily decorative fountains that may have artistic or historical value, making them meet the exploration criteria.

    Picnic areas generally need to be much more substantial than the one shown. Often it's actual permanent picnic shelters that get approved, and sometimes designated picnic areas with permanent signage. A couple of generic picnic tables will not generally be considered notable enough to meet the acceptance criteria.

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

    As far as the water fountain goes, I don't want to tell you that you're wrong. I want to tell you that it's contextual. In a developed city, sure. That's not interesting. In other places, not so easy to say. I just read a long article about rural towns in my region that struggle to have drinkable water. In one tiny town, many people regularly use what looks like a vending machine. It dispenses drinkable water in bulk. It's absolutely a vital part of the community, and people very much congregate and.commune there. It's not amazing looking, but it's important. News and gossip get passed around there. Before I read about this, I'd have rejected it, but now I'd vote it up.

    The picnic area seems marginal, but if it's in one of two parks in a tiny town, I bet it has some significance.


    Now, that said, I'm not mad at people who rejected these. No matter how much people **** and yell, this is all a matter of judgement up to the review community, and it's up to the submitter to help with that(and not by demanding that something has to be accepted). Think about why you submitted something. Was it because it was something very interesting, important, or otherwise something that should just really be in the game? Then try again. But if it was just something that was possibly useful because it was close to you, convenient to your daily travel, or even because it would push an extra gym? That's a bad motivation, and no one is required to accept that.

  • AisforAndis-INGAisforAndis-ING Posts: 1,072 Ambassador

    One of the best things you can do is seek out local players who also submit and review and help educate them. Most people seem to have a very barebones knowledge of what is actually eligible and by working to build a local community not only will you learn the criteria better yourself, but you can teach others as well.

  • VidarEagle-INGVidarEagle-ING Posts: 56 ✭✭✭

    I'm not entirely sure this holds true... We've had a rise of "Explicit location" rejections in our area, so some of us have gotten the suspicion that this is a "stronger" rejection than e.g. "does not meet acceptance criteria". To continue on that train of thought, the bad reviewers give that rejection reason to any nomination they don't like, and then often the nomination ends up beeing rejected, thus their ratings does not get a hit...

  • Freakmaster5050-PGOFreakmaster5050-PGO Posts: 60 ✭✭
    edited June 2021

    I agree there either needs to be an appeal process or they need to up how many people reject before the submission is rejected.

    I am now on nomination #4 for a park entry sign. First it was rejected for being a duplicate (it’s not…..there is another sign about 1/4 mile up the road both are visible on street and aerial view and are for different areas and don’t even look the same), last 3 times for pedestrian access. Grass IS pedestrian access, I don’t know how to make that more clear. There is literally 20 ft of grass along the area it’s in, as well as the shoulder of the road, both considered pedestrian access.


    just had another rejected today for pedestrian access. The sign is in the corner of a parking lot. Parking lots are considered pedestrian access. You don’t need a friggin sidewalk or path leading up to stuff. If that was the case no sports field would be eligible.

    another common one is the “generic business”. Unless it’s a chain restaurant or something that isn’t considered a gathering or social place (like a hardware store or office building) there is no reason for this rejection. Pretty much all bars/restaurants are eligible now. I’m also on submission #3 for a winery for this reason. Should not have been rejected once, let alone twice. Especially considering the fact it’s a tourist destination

    Niantic needs to make the criteria more accessible. Not everyone reads these updates in this discussion area or on Reddit. They need to add the new criteria to the area where it lists the criteria and what is eligible whenever they make changes, or 98% of people will not see it and therefore continue rejecting acceptable nominations. It’s really getting ridiculous. I’ve stopped upgrading stuff b/c more likely than not even if it’s for a slam dunk it will be rejected for a ridiculous reason. Having to resubmit things multiple times when it’s taking 6 months to a year for an answer is really frustrating.

  • BochumJules-PGOBochumJules-PGO Posts: 498 ✭✭✭✭

    maybe you want to put your rejections under my collective mail, maybe Niantic will wake up in the next few years !?

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