I miss Wayfarer challenges, but they do not seem as important anymore since the backlog is not bad like it used to be.
I still think it would be cool to have another challenge in the future. I can see the backlog starting to get bigger now that we received significantly more nominations now.
To be fair, the challenges are the only thing that gets me reviewing again.
to be fair, there isnt much need for us to review anymore. They somehow managed to get the backlog worked off, and that is a plus.
There isnt much need for a challenge that involves reviewing - Niantic should think of a way to get people out there and make more noms. But Niantic also already has done their homework (with help of the ̶A̶̶v̶̶e̶̶n̶̶g̶̶e̶̶r̶̶s̶ Ambassadors.
So guess thats a goodbye to challenges. What other challenge would be the communithe´s Idea?
It’s probably difficult to run another review‑focused challenge when you look at how small the current backlog is.
But a different kind of challenge could work — one that awards points for nominations, edits, and removals.
Everyone already knows this, but many of the old Ingress‑era wayspots have no description, and their pin locations are often just “where the photo was taken.”
Imported Power‑spots are even worse: pins placed in completely wrong locations, multiple duplicates of the same spot, no photos, and blank descriptions.
I have no idea how the Wayfarer team views these issues, but if we were allowed to fix them properly, there’s a huge amount that could be reported — enough to make an event fully viable.
And depending on how it’s structured, reviewing these reports might even make a review challenge possible again, something that hasn’t been feasible lately.
To make this work, they’d need to temporarily remove limits on the number of reports, the allowed edit distance, and how far pins can be moved.
They’d also need to allow edits through the web.
If they did that, the benefits would outweigh the drawbacks, and Wayfarer would gain a high‑quality map.
For example, something like this could work:
Nomination: 1 point (+3 points when approved)
Edit: 1 point (+3 points when approved)
Removal: 1 point (+3 points when approved)
Nomination/Edit/Removal Challenge: Aug 3 – Aug 30 (PST)
Review Challenge: Aug 31 – Sep 27 (PST)
Running both events at the same time wouldn’t be a problem.
Honestly, I think it is likely the backlog is going to increase again. A lot of players can submit 320 nominations now and get a daily accrual of 10 more nominations a day. Personally for me, I have been submitting a lot more recently. I just submitted 70 nominations yesterday, in addition to the 60 that I submitted the previous Sunday.
I also do not think as many people are reviewing as they used to.
I agree with your idea of a challenge for points. That would be cool.
Wayfarer have done an edit challenge before.
You can fix Powerspots. I have fixed plenty in the past. I do not usually bother to add photo or descriptions on them though.