End of Summer Lookback (long update!) - Discussion Thread

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

    Thats exactly how i look at it, I have played all Niantic games available to me, and plan on playing any future games, I dont nominate for PoGo specifically even though thats my main game and the game that intruduced me to Niantic. I nominate because I know my nominations will be enjoyed by players of any Niantic games... these days my nominations are for waypoint i will probably never personally use.

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

    Hello @NianticDanbocat

    Thanks for quick response…..

    I can empathise with how daunting it must feel from your end and you are obviously trying to convey information for which you are not responsible, which is not comfortable. and I do hope you got a good nights rest.

    There are lots of positives however regarding the database of POI….

    What you have announced is very significant, and it is important that you try to take the community with you. A key part of that will be about conveying information and taking on the perspective of the community which is very diverse.

    This is a change. The original system all came through Ingress and it was that database that we all understood.

    So now there is one single database of approved POI owned by wayfarer.

    Can you confirm that when we review, the feed that we are seeing for reviewing duplicates is from that database and it will always be complete? It’s a simple question that appears to have been ignored.

    You enter the wayfarer system via a game. It will be very difficult to decouple the impression that a lot of the community will have that you are doing anything other than trying to contribute to that game.

    The expectation will be, as it always has been, that the person will be able to interact with their approved POI. That is one of the great joys of creating POI which is an otherwise thankless task.

    Washing your hands at this point and saying it is up to the various games, as to how, when and if a POI appears is not helpful or realistic. I understand why you want a hard line, but as your volunteer staff it leaves us in a complete state of limbo.

    Some good examples have already been given. Put yourself in the shoes of a person who has nothing in their area, reaches the correct level, puts the self through a test, submits 2 or 3 obvious good candidates that are not close to each other, does photospheres, waits🙄 , is told they are acceptable and nothing appears in the game they play. They are going to be very disheartened and probably never engage with wayfarer again. I haven’t even mentioned how much this is if you worked for an upgrade.

    I have an autistic player I support. They have a submission in wayfarer, I helped so it is good. They are likely to have a meltdown if told it’s accepted and they can’t see it - there is a duty of care to those that are neurodiverse.

    All of these outcomes which are due to games, have an impact back on wayfarer so to ignore that is not being realistic. If the volunteers see no reward they will disengage. Wayfarer needs to keep its community happy and wanting to do the work if it is to survive.

    What you have announced has the opposite effect.

    Trying to distance Wayfarer as a brand from the rest of the Niantic family is strange. You each depend on each other so why create artificial divisions. I know it’s Niantic, but can’t you speak to each other and cooperate?

    Due to the clogged up system I have to do lots of reviews in order to upgrade to get a resolution. Until it becomes clear what will happen to those submissions if approved I am stopping the reviewing. There is currently no incentive. The impact is not on the games but on wayfarer, so you shouldn’t ignore it.

    It used to be great to be there for the birth of a gym having walked miles, done a huge amount of research, reviewing etc to find 13 new points ( my record) to create a 3rd gym. Taking control and throwing a link from a new POI I had found. That was my reward, but now it seems impossible.

  • Belahzur-INGBelahzur-ING Posts: 632 ✭✭✭✭✭

    I'm not sure why the complaining here about "this wayspot isn't in my game of choice", I submit things regardless whether they are in game 1, 2, or 3, if it's unique, interesting, and something worth submitting, the submit it. I've submitted plenty of things that I know are 100% only in Ingress before submitting them (and yes, I play PoGo too), but I still did it, a new wayspot benefits everyone in the end, doesn't matter what the game is. Your post just reads as "this doesn't directly benefit me and only me, so I'm not doing it"

  • PkmnTrainerJ-INGPkmnTrainerJ-ING Posts: 5,119 Ambassador

    I agree. Sometimes I have no idea what game or games my nomination will show up in. With more and more Niantic games coming over the years it’s going to matter less about playing just one game.

    I am excited to see how the map shows up in games that haven’t fully rolled out in my area though such as Pikmin.

  • Robdebobrob-INGRobdebobrob-ING Posts: 7 ✭✭

    @s3w2-ING Im sure theres a bug on those pictures somewhere....

  • holdthebeer-INGholdthebeer-ING Posts: 199 ✭✭✭✭
    edited August 2021

    re: upload later and pogo team has other higher priorities.

    Hello @Danbocat-PGO !

    Ingress would also benefit from "upload later" feature, and the ingress team also has other priorities.

    How about wayfarer app to submit nominations, not for reviewing? There are several areas where such app could help:

    • less memory footprint, don't need to load game stuff, - less crashes
    • can be used by hpwu players, catan, etc.
    • can implement features like "upload later" and "remote nomination" once, let all players use it
    • can show existing waypoints which do not appear in some games / in any games, to avoid duplicates AND to let players edit invisible waypoints
    • any improvements - only need to implement once.
    Post edited by holdthebeer-ING on
  • KOWLOONsGT-INGKOWLOONsGT-ING Posts: 186 ✭✭✭

    Hello! @Danbocat-PGO

    No mention is made, but are there any plans to offer a Wayspot map to replace the official Intel MAP (portal map)?


    I want to procure new ingredients that I have never got, rather than buying the same ingredients 😋

  • BlameJamal-INGBlameJamal-ING Posts: 52 ✭✭✭

    @NianticTintino I'm in the same situation as @MamaLlama619-PGO, stuck with Russia. While you are helping her. Could you help me with my bonus location also? THANKS!!

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

    I personally would really welcome a shift in reviewing away from the test/score and more towards consider/feedback.

    I am a distance learning tutor, and providing feedback is second nature, and it always makes me feel better to provide comments even though I know they won’t be read.

    So a change of emphasis may help to get better reviewing as some score too quickly and I think it seems to engender a “sense of power” that I see in response to some posts that leads to arguments over little things and hard lines being drawn.

    It would be nice to have some interactive streamed reviewing perhaps with discussion and/or some discussion threads where good and bad points can be drawn out. Hearing the thought processes of a decision is really useful.

    These educate those involved at the time and could be used as a resource for others to see later.

  • [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 0 ✭✭

    @AisforAndis-ING - thanks for the note - I'll check on that distance and discuss with the team. We definitely reduced the edit distance from in-game, though.

    @BlameJamal-ING - OK I believe @NianticTintino, @NianticGiffard or @NianticAaron will be able to help you!

    @KOWLOONsGT-ING - hmm, I don't know what Ingress's plans are for the Intel map, but maybe @NianticPooja can advise what near term plans are, if any? Also Kowloon has really great food markets :)

    @holdthebeer-ING - cheers! 🍻 yep, as I mentioned in my post, we heard many times the request for a native app and we are thinking carefully about it! It gives us more flexibility to design new features beyond submissions and reviews as well. For the Upload Later feature in Ingress, we've (Wayfarer and Ingress team) heard that request many times as well but Ingress will be deciding when :) (FYI @NianticPooja)

    @Gendgi-PGO - forgot to ask, when you say 'tagging' your noms, do you mean just for managing how your Upgrades get applied? or for other purposes?

  • [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 0 ✭✭

    @Elijustrying-ING - thanks for your insight - yep exactly. In parallel to shifting toward more of a feedback environment, we also want to create safer spaces for the community to have authentic and respectful discussions. That is why we are so excited to have @NianticTintino's expertise and experience within the Wayfarer squad.

    @NianticTintino - here's some feedback from a fellow educator!

  • [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 0 ✭✭

    @Gendgi-PGO - really exciting to hear these ideas! Agree, you really SHOULD be able to track your adventures via your contributions. I read this kind of feedback a lot from the survey responses this past spring. Your "adventure archives" 📝 I'm still working with designers to think on what these experiences should look like but I'm enthused by this. Thanks!

  • tehstone-INGtehstone-ING Posts: 1,154 Ambassador

    what kind of spaces are you envisioning? this forum exists but it has always felt very undermoderated to the point that it has a bad reputation elsewhere on the internet. conversations about what makes a great waypoint, what aspects of a particular nomination are good or bad, etc very often get derailed here. do you see some future system in which this kind of discussion could reasonably happen for some nominations? tough to scale of course but it could create some great outcomes that the existing review system could never match.

  • tehstone-INGtehstone-ING Posts: 1,154 Ambassador

    this is sort of a tangent and maybe I'm **** for the moon here, but do you think we could potentially see some means of earning bonus nominations or have a system that allows periodic or occasional higher limits? so many of us have encountered a time where we're on a trip and exploring a place we won't soon return but there are far more great candidates than we can nominate.

    the limitations in each of the two games suggests that this may be partly a decision beyond the wayfarer team but I hope that someday we can see some sort of bonus system.


    ps you're gaining a ton of favor and support by being so responsive! this is the kind of relationship the community at large has long asked for. please keep it up!

  • @BlameJamal-ING I have reset your bonus location. You should be able to set it to a location of your choice now. Thanks!

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

    I wondered about something like this. when I was on holiday in a rural area I kept seeing churches, village halls, pubs that were in POI deserts but went through my 14 submissions very quickly.

    Perhaps for every so many nominations accepted you could get a bonus submission to use anywhere.

    Or if you were in an area with low POI density you could get bonus submissions for that area.

  • Ochemist-INGOchemist-ING Posts: 355 ✭✭✭✭✭

    Have you talked to the PoGo and Ingress teams about changing the language on the submission screens, away from specifically nominating "Pokestops" or "Portals"? Until that happens, submitters will be confused and the problem will remain.

  • Ochemist-INGOchemist-ING Posts: 355 ✭✭✭✭✭

    Thanks so much for the detailed post!

    Also, a huge bug that you haven't mentioned is the lack of ability to withdraw in-voting candidates. This is very important for preventing the queue from being clogged even more. I've had to do it several times for reasons very legitimate reasons, such as:

    • The same thing having been approved while mine was in voting because somebody else submitted and upgraded it .
    • A submission went into voting very quickly before I was able to write a necessary full description (this can easily happen while one is traveling, for example). Now we have to wait for that submission to be rejected, which could take years, or waste an upgrade in order to resubmit properly.
    • In October 2019 around the time Wayfarer was rolled out, a big bug ate many submissions for days to months (a confirmation email literally appeared 4-5 months later for something I'd submitted and later resubmitted and had approved). At the same time, the photos disappeared from some submissions. I had to withdraw one of those submissions after it went into voting because the photo never appeared.

    Could you clarify if this is a permanent change or on the list of bugs to be fixed?

  • Gendgi-PGOGendgi-PGO Posts: 3,535 Ambassador

    Thanks for the update, I linked your comment to a Bug Report thread I made.

    I think you've mentioned in various posts a lot of things we've mentioned as Bugs, but is there any way somebody can focus on cleaning up that channel? And not just the Wayfarer 4.0 bug reports, but there's many, many outstanding reports that we never got Casey to circle back to. I know it's a lot to dig through, but @Roli112-PGO has curated what we think is a semi-comprehensive list going back that he could share with you.

  • Belahzur-INGBelahzur-ING Posts: 632 ✭✭✭✭✭

    Hi @NianticDanbocat

    Please can I raise attention to this? - https://community.wayfarer.nianticlabs.com/discussion/18976/2-years-in-limbo-niantic-system-fixes-dont-work

    Here in the UK we still have submissions stuck in limbo, and I don't mean just super long review times because of density-based areas, or lack of reviewers etc, this is a "blanket ban" on submissions, a handful of years ago, a specific area was rife with fakes/abuse cases/people trolling submissions, Nia's answer was to just blackhole everything and anything from that area, we've been trying to get a response on this now for many months with nothing seemingly done about it, and every answer we had from Casey just danced around the issue because whoever provides the real answers don't want to expose the inner-workings of how Nia made this happen in the first place, we can provide documented and detailed evidence in private if this is something you would be willing to communicate with myself.

    Based on not just my, but our experience with Wayfarer and Niantic as a whole (country and worldwide users), while the bar set is fairly low given Nia's previous standards, the expectation for you Dan is quite high, I wont lie, but I'm trying to remain positive about things.

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