With all the conversations on Ratings tanking. Myself included.
I am wondering - has there been any formal response to this? Why is it happening? What has changed? What is the impact for reviewers? Should I even care and I just carry on reviewing as I have following the criteria Niantic has set out?
It is just weird… Just saying
I haven’t had any issues with my rating as of late; it’s at Great, and has been for awhile. The only other people I’ve seen say they have a bad rating are mainly new reviewers that need to take a better look at the criteria and wait for agreements to come in, as well as someone who was rejecting everything using Accuracy so they could leave a comment, and that’s not the best way to reject every nomination that doesn’t meet criteria.
There was an issue with ratings earlier this year, but that was resolved back in July, and confirmed here:
Now, the issue earlier this year has caused some to stop reviewing entirely, so there have been less reviewers in general, thus fewer agreements and disagreements coming in, which your rating is based on. So, a new reviewer may mention that their rating is Poor after doing 200 reviews, but they may only have 15 agreements currently. When we have encouraged them to take another look at criteria, as well as wait for more decisions to be made on what they have reviewed to come in, they do tend to see their rating improve.
I will note that I’m lucky these days if I get 1 upgrade every 2 weeks; I used to get about 1 upgrade per week. There is a large number of edits in queue right now due to the edits challenge, and those don’t could towards agreements, so there could be a slowdown on agreements for awhile.
I’m still following the criteria, making my best judgment, and not rushing my decisions, and yes, I’m at Great. I really haven’t changed how I review, and for most who have been reviewing for awhile, I haven’t heard any issues since the fix in July.
Hi @DTrain2002
I am not happy with your answer.
You mentioned several times that you’re great, we all know that.
But can there only be an issue if you’re personally effected?
In the last weeks we could read that extrem experienced wayfarer as @frealafgb or @cyndiepooh also dropped.
Please, and you know I’m not the offensive type, be respectful against user experiences.
Did you not read this:
I don’t know about some of our longtime users having issues; I have only seen those that are new to reviewing and those that are not doing the best job.
Also, I think people need to settle down about a rating going from Great to Good. It’s very trivial; I’ve had it happen a few times since the fix in July, but it really doesn’t bother me at all.
I’ve dropped to good several times after the fix to ratings following the last review challenge where I reached fair, but was fixed back to great.
Being only “good” does bother me, because its a marker that I did a lot of wrong decisions to drop a level. Similar to getting a B on an exam would bother me because its not an A, and I was brought up to feel like any grade that can be improved is therefore not good enough.
Many posts about rating are from newer reviewers, but I have seen quite a number from others who have always been great and have dropped to good or lower. I always want to do a good job, without mistakes, and I worry every time it drops about what I did wrong and how to fix it
And you think that is respectful?
Need more coffee 
Our societies put way too much emphasis on having the best grades, the best ratings, etc; we’re even told what makes someone good looking and what makes someone ugly. I was hardly ever on honor roll in school, but I still finished with an above B average. I also knew what subjects were my strengths, such as social studies, whereas I knew others who struggled with those classes but excelled in math, for instance.
You may have a favortie restaurant that you make sure to eat at once a week You might notice that they only have 3 out of 5 stars on Google or Yelp, and find it hard to understand what others don’t see the restaurant in the way that you do: grate food, great service, great atmosphere, etc. Sometimes someone just has a bad experience there, and they have to let the entire world know about it.
Niantic hasn’t said there is an issue with ratings, so again, I do think some are getting a little too wrapped up in them going from Great to Good, then back again to Great, back to Good, etc. Our societies have trained us to put this pressure on ourselves, and it’s pressure that is not needed.
It’s also the worry about is it going to continue to drop further and then I go to fair and everything becomes pointless - no medal progress, downweighted for decision process, general feeling of doing a worthless job because if my medal doesnt increase and my opinion barely counts then it genuinely is worthless.
I have actually done more reviews in the last week or so than I’ve done in ages - because I changed my bonus to Boston to help and eanted to actually try to help them, so did more reviews than I felt comfortable with, telling myself I’d stop if I hit good again
Boston’s nominations feel more varied, with low and high quality both present, and less in that middling “not quite sure” level that we get a lot in the UK.
Since adding Boston as my bonus, I’ve been able to review more and have remained great. I do wonder if that is evidence about submission quality (or rather, variety of quality) affecting ratings
hmm… maybe i should change. i have my bonus in california, and today i saw this:
https://www.reddit.com/r/NianticWayfarer/s/Kbw9k18sUe
i wonder if somehow my agreements are being reversed 
i am definitely not in a voting ring.
Ooh possibly it has had an effect? If you were rejecting things that the ring was approving, possibly?
but changing now after they are fixing it? idk
Yeah, unsure really. Its all so unclear and I think thats a lot of the frustration with the ratings!!
it’s a pretty well known phenomenon that most people who experience an issue will simply disappear quietly.
someone’s bothered to make a post, why jump to dismissing them?
Thank you for bringing this up. Remember, posts like this help provide reading for Niantic. Many of the issues uncovered (and and eventually fixed) by Niantic don’t get attention of until people talk about them.
Can you remember when you had an experience similar to the OP? How did you feel about it then? I’d imagine that you were pretty upset.
How did you feel about the responses that you received? Were you happiest when you heard that somebody was unaffected by the issue, when they said it was trivial and you shouldn’t worry yourself about it?
It probably felt best to learn that you were not alone, and not lumped in with n00bs who didn’t know how things worked, and not dismissed by staff as a random outlier.
I think it is important to consider how a response affects the flow of discussion.
The OP here has had a personal experience, and has already seen multiple threads on the same topic, and really wants to know if Niantic has heard and responded. Should those whose ratings drop take a sabbatical? Has the staff promised to restore lost rating points?
Barring these direct answers, they are going to want help in bringing the issue to Niantic, and keeping it on the front burner until an appropriate response is made.
What OP doesn’t want or need is for their branch to die-off without bearing fruit.
Several long-time reviewers have been describing issues very recently. It’s up to each one to decide if the change is worth being bothered or not.
Thats how mine was going for a few weeks, tedious and stressful
