I’ve been submitting fairly regularly since 2020 and remember the old slow days. However we have not been seeing those kinds of wait times since before the last challenges a year ago. I’m in a rural voting area in Southwestern USA where there are no large cities within 150mi/ 200km or s2 cell local review area. In December and in January I had nominations take 3-8 days from submission to resolution email without upgrades. As of mid February none of my 24 nominations in the same area has reached a natural resolution. The two oldest I left as is, to see how long it would actually take. Today marks 60 days since they entered voting and still counting.
Yes, this was not unusual in the olden times. However when the average person talking about how long thier nominations are taking is quoting 6 days or less, this is a big difference.
This one I held in “upload later” untill February 11 and then it was decided in 2 days. Another in the same town that was made later has been in voting for more than a month.
Historically this was an issue and most commonly seen in small island areas or the earth’s poles, where there simply are not enough reviewers. Niantic fixed it by auto boosting some rural regions somehow. I experienced this when submitting on the island of Saint Paul Alaska. Nomination would get faster reviews than in the mid west without needing an upgrade. So what changed in mid February?
I am a long time part of the community and aware that this is not expected behavior. How many other people in low player population countries, remote northern areas, and just plain rural America are also suffering this?
I submitted one nomination last week in a different review area that overlapped a big city. It was in queue for 4 days and in voting for 1 day before reaching resolution.
As a test I started mapping all the reviews I did in March and April. Over 1000 reviews. Outside of my set review area I only saw 1 in the whole state of Montana and it was in the capital Missoula. 1 in North Dakota in Bismarck, 2 in South Dakota in Brookings, 2 in Arkansas in Little Rock, 0 in Alaska (still winter that’s expected), 0 in Main, and 1 in the center of west Virginia. Nearly all following the pattern of coming from high population centers. There are less than 10 from areas generally considered low population area. I know there are many more things in these area to vote on because my extra review areas are in a few and inside those review areas I voted on 21 and 28 respectively. Outside of those areas I received none that were not in the highest populated city in that state.
So what changed? I’d love to hear from others who are seeing 14 day to multi month wait times in rural areas.
Never Seen your nomination is in voting, those two wayfarer U post aredy approved by your community, u check your wayfarer map
You missed the point. The two I posted show time stamp proof of how long a nomination used to take to get resolved in my area. I dont want to dox myself by showing all the things since then. I can do a few examples.
Those in voting , mean that you area lacking of reviewer of your nomination at your area
My point is that there were enough reviewers on Feb 15 that nominations got decided in 3 days. By March 1st there were suddenly none and things have been in voting for 2 months. This kind of abrupt change indicates that something in the algorithm of who sees what review, changed dramatically and rural areas are loosing.
Wayfarer are highly depending on how many reviewer in your area. People can get busy or people reach platinum and stop reviewing. Review time is never considered something constant. You can do review yourself to help reduce the queue. 2months review time is still considered normal. You can wait if niantic staff check and say something. But if nothing said, considered everything is runnning normally
Have you tried using an upgrade? That I believe would push one out to non-local reviewers.
Mentioning (in general) where you are might help too, maybe someone would switch their bonus to your area?
My guess is what changed is you had one or more regular, local voters who got to platinum, quit playing, moved, or something and simply aren’t voting on yours anymore.
I want to say I saw one of your examples, but I’m not 100 percent certain of it. The one I’m remembering had a location in southern Arizona. Which isn’t exactly local to me but kinda close.
Thanks.
To be honest @niktero I agree that instinctively something feels odd about what has happened so far with your nominations.
Go review,get upgrade , put it,in vote nomination …
Below my profile , use all my upgrades
That does feel like an abrupt change! Hopefully your nominations are resolved soon, if they’re too much longer, the Niantic review team might resolve them. I don’t think we’d know if something changed, but I wonder if anyone else has noticed anything similar? So far for me things still resolve within a few days. (Edit for clarity- I’m in a large town within the review area for London, so not the same kind of location)
Y’all @niktero understands the Wayfarer processes better than I ever will. Please reply here if you have other examples of it taking a long time for less dense population areas, and if you noticed the slow down beginning in February.
Pure speculation, but I thinl they changed how nominations are pushed out to reviewers, where, and how quickly.
I’m thinking so too. I remember people complaining about reaching "come back later " after a short number of reviews each day. After February I haven’t seen any more complaints. Also pure speculation but I think maybe all nominations got tossed in the "rural priority " box. To test, I would need someone who had multiple nominations voted on in march or April to DM me thier USA city. I’d check my records and see if I had voted on thier non upgraded nomination outside my local review area.
I had 12 in April and 23 in March approved without counting upgrades or appeals… a few more that were denied or appealed, if that helps. Don’t know how to DM. I do not mind saying that they were all in San Diego County, California (in the city or the southern and eastern suburbs).
All were resolved in… roughly a week or less, I think one might have been eight or nine days?
Hmm. I guess only mods can DM. Well I think I’ve removed all the location data. I only had 4 in San Diego or SE of there. Any of these look familiar?
72 days and counting. Meanwhile 3 more submissions in a neighboring voting cell spent 2 days in queue and 1 day in voting before decided.
Hi,
Is there anything unusual about this submission compared to the others?
You have said it’s a different cell- what cell size are you referring to?
Is there anything about the specific location?
Just trying to figure this out 
Its the voting area size cells which are s2 lv6. I’m concerned because the area is remote SW USA. There are not many reviewers here but that is what the rural priority voting is for. Previously submissions in low voting areas would eventually get pushed out to the whole nation so that excessive review times weren’t an issue. The average voting time was really abruptly changed from under a week, to multiple months, in late February.
Update: Last night the wayfarer team pulled my oldest nominations into internal review. All the oldest ones from March 1st were resolved including one that has spent this whole time in queue due to to proximity block. Hopefully they are looking into what caused this abrupt backlog. My current oldest nomination is now 52 days old. Let’s see if it ages out or if regular reviewers decide on it.
