I would really like to see Niantic add additional map sources to the Wayfarer review page.
Last year, I made my own plug-in which adds map tiles from Bing, Esri and OpenStreetMap to the Wayfarer review page, allowing you to switch between tiles.
Having this has proven extremely beneficial to me, particularly for judging new reviews and edits in newly-developed areas where there is no current Google imagery.
While having this plug-in helps me with my reviewing, it is disappointing that more people don’t have access to tools like this. It would assist others with reviewing, and help ensure the accuracy placement of Wayspots. For this reason, it would be much better if access to alternative map tiles was built into the base product rather than rely on external tools. (I’d even love the Niantic staff reviewing my location > 10m edits to have this, for example, as it might lead to less rejected tickets!)
Sharing this as a point of discussion.
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This is interesting to me. I do many things to try and insure accuracy of the nomination location. This does look to add information for folks to make decisions.
My concern is that Niantic has strong ties to Google. (If I remember correctly they we originally part of Google back in the early days of Ingress). So I’m not sure if they’d welcome an association with Bing or Esri. OSM might be a different story though…
To add one of my favorite current features is that I can just tap on the name of the submission and it does a Google search for me. This is very helpful to start some of my own research on a nomination. If more options were given for the maps - so moving away from just Google, would that change the current search feature?
I really do like your idea!
This was part of Niantic’s 2009 class-action suit settlement. But was never implemented - except to allow third-party plug-ins to bring in other maps.
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Oh I didn’t know about that!
“Including but not limited to”, is not the strongest language though. They are not required to themselves include other mapping options. But as noted, it doesn’t preclude plugin options.
I may be wrong, but I assume they need to pay for using Google features (search, map). If true, they would need licenses with any other mapping vendor to include additional map features.
Looking for talented folks to tell us that Bing, OSM, etc., have free plugins or API’s that Wayfarer could leverage additional mapping choices!
Those tools would be handy! This morning I reviewed a good submittal with a bad location. The submitter put their memorial in the middle of a parking lot (the pictures clearly showed that it wasn’t there) and it was a rural area with sparse Google coverage. I was finally able to place the location of the memorial using the pictures from three other nearby stops. Your plugin would have likely saved a lot of time and effort.
In retrospect, considering the apparent backlog of stops awaiting review, I probably should have rejected based on location and cleared a dozen more cut-and-dry submissions, but it was an otherwise good submission.
