First Offense - Request for review of permanent ban

General Discussion
1

Hello Niantic Team and Wayfarer Community,

I am writing to ask for a reconsideration of my permanent Wayfarer ban for my account “kelbin69”.

The stated reasons were:
• A Wayspot nomination placed in the wrong location (about 10-20 meters off).
• Use of more than one account.

I admit these mistakes. The wrong location was completely unintentional, I did not realize such a small distance could still be treated as abuse. Regarding the multiple accounts, one of them actually belonged to my friend, but I sometimes logged in on it without understanding that this also violated the rules.

If, for example, two people live together and play together, and sometimes one person submits a nomination while the other reviews it, would this also be considered a violation? I did not clearly understand how the rule applies in such cases, but I now see how this could be a problem and will avoid it entirely in the future.

This is my very first offense. I have never received any prior warnings or temporary suspensions. After reading the guidelines again, I now fully understand the seriousness of these violations. I take full responsibility for my actions and will strictly follow all rules from now on, using only my own account and double-checking every nomination before submitting.

What makes me feel disheartened is that I have seen other players with first offenses receiving temporary bans (e.g., 30 days) for similar or even more serious mistakes. I understand rules must be enforced, but I hope penalties can be proportional to the situation and the player’s history.

Wayfarer and this game are very important to me, and I have contributed with genuine effort to submit quality nominations. I kindly ask Niantic to consider reducing my permanent ban to a temporary suspension, so I can have a second chance to prove that I can be a positive member of the community.

If possible, I am willing to accept a 30-day suspension from the game, and after that, you may continue to restrict my Wayfarer access if necessary. My main hope is simply to be able to return to the game to play with my friends.

Thank you for reading and for any understanding from both Niantic staff and fellow community members.

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2

:thinking:

Moreover, we have already discussed and settled this issue.

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This is my account and the person you talked to yesterday is my friend. if possible can we take a photo together to prove it?

4

Hello and welcome @Elapid68

Now that you have had the suspension and the consequences of what you have done are hitting home perhaps take some time to reflect on the entirety of what you have done and consider the terms of service.

The route forward is to follow the appeal procedure as laid out on the email sent to your other account……. Having another account is against the ToS, perhaps consider that carefully first.

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We have conclusive and irrefutable evidence to support our action.

Moreover, sharing accounts is a violation of our policies as well.

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Complete termination of your account is normal if you have multiple accounts or share accounts, I also learned this the hard way with a good conversation with @NianticAaron. (Thank you again Aaron for being understanding with me during that conversation)

I had to move on from this and accept what I did.

I hope you learned from your mistake.

Have a nice day.

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Whilst you note this is your first offense, Wayfarer do state that steps can be skipped.

This policy may provide offenders with disciplinary actions proportional to the severity of the offenses they perform. This means that a first time offender can be punished with any of the disciplinary actions listed below depending on how severe their offense was.

So a first offense can result in any of the actions being taken by Wayfarer from the ladder.

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I missed out on addressing this part.

No, that will not be a problem. And we do not take action for that.

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We are just friends playing together on two different accounts. Please understand it’s innocent, and we can provide any proof if needed. We sincerely ask for your leniency

10

You’re now contradicting yourself. In your original post, you claimed, “sometimes logged in on it”. Niantic has conclusive evidence as Aaron says.

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11

Sometimes we log into each other’s accounts, and we often review each other’s nominations. We never expected this would be seen as “abuse,” and the punishment feels too harsh

12

Not knowing is not an excuse. You should have known. Sharing accounts is prohibited in Niantic’s T&S.

By acknowledging to sharing accounts, you’re putting the other account in jeopardy if that hasn’t been banned already.

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13

Understanding that you didn’t know, you know now. You’ve said multiple times that you did it, and someone from the Wayfarer team has responded.

I hate to say at this point, the Wayfarer team is probably going to consider the matter closed.

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Niantic/Scopely has a great community.

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Wow, where is the compassion. Reactions like this make me sad, just like most reactions to this post.

Wayfarers already have a bad reputation, and reactions like this confirm this.

On subreddits like Wayfarer, but also the main subreddit Pokemon Go, you will see that there are many people warning to either submit or review nominations, if they don’t want to loose their account.

It may very well be that my believe system is different, but I was raised that it is always good to give people a second chance, and forgiving is a virtue.

I’m deeply disappointed by the lack of compassion by the members of this forum.

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16

I am sorry to hear this, since staff ald give judgement i dont think i need to give more comment. I also dont know exactly how much abuse done that warrant permanent ban on 1st strike.

17

People going onto forums and saying you’ll lose your account if you submit or review nominations are being economical with the truth.

You /can/ lose your account through submitting or reviewing if you are deliberately, knowingly and blatantly abusing the system. You can then do this and post onto forums, while leaving out that you knew you were being abusive.

Some people come on here and do the same thing - they leave out key information about what they actually did and cover up their offenses, just complaining about a seemingly small offense that didn’t deserve punishment. This makes it seem like the “system” is unfair, when it is the wayfarer that tried to cheat.

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I have no issues with the fact that measures are taken against people who broke the rules. However I do take issue with the fact that a lot of forum members, who also don’t know the facts, judge other people instead of trying to help.

I don’t know if the punishment fits the crime, but the forum members don’t seem to care, they just assume it is correct, and that is disappointing.

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19

The terms of service are quite clear. Sadly only a handful of people ever seem to read them, and local communities have such a high rate of cheating that it becomes normalised, so anyone who fails to read the terms of service will be led to thinking that having multiple accounts, sharing accounts and wayfarer abuse are normal, expected, and encouraged.

I have been ridiculed by local players for only having one account so many times. They are never punished (probably because they don’t engage with wayfarer) and continue to encourage everyone to have at least 2 accounts. I am considered unpleasant and annoying rather than helpful for saying that having 2 accounts is against the terms of service and risks a suspension or ban.

My thoughts on this ban is that it’s not that the punishment here was unduly harsh, its that it comes across as inconsistent with all the Go players who don’t abuse wayfarer and therefore get away with their relentless cheating for years. I think more should be done to educate (maybe in game popups to tell people the rules, link to the ToS?) so that they get first hand knowledge rather than trusting their local communities with 2nd hand information that is incorrect?

That’s my thoughts anyway. Doesn’t help this person, but could help people in future.

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OK, I can see where you are coming from with that. I see things a little differently, fairly obviously. The forum members are very caring and do a lot to help people out when they have been punished for something and need to appeal. You will see a lot of advice about how to present the appeal and how to actually appeal.

When it is clear that the transgression is real and deliberate, it is natural for some of that compassion to get lost. Sometimes, it is obvious to some people but not to others. If you see just one person being harsh, that’s very different to when every long-standing wayfarer is saying the same thing.

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