Incorrect Reviewing In Belgium During Challenge

[TheGBench]

The 2025 Review Challenge offered the possibility to review anywhere to receive rewards. This, in my opinion, caused many players to review very incorrectly just to receive those rewards.

This kind of behavior should not be rewarded and needs to be addressed. The problem is that many people are doing it in my area causing overall incorrect decisions about POIs. I believe this aspect of Wayfarer challenges should be reviewed and fixed. A lot of people who have no clue what they are doing are jumping in to review solely for the promise of a lucky trinket and other in-game rewards.

This causes people who actually spend time on Wayfarer to submit and/or review more trouble than good, especially in my area. This morning, I woke up with 30 decisions about my nominations, something I’d never experienced before. However, my excitement quickly faded when I started opening the emails. About 12 POIs were not accepted, and at least 8-9 of them were rejected completely unfairly. I will post some pictures below this post just to prove the point.

#1: Eligible named trailmarker ‘Gapersroute’

• Rejection criteria: doesn’t match the pictures or the map and misses originality/cultural meaning

This is just plain nonsense. The pictures were taken on site and submitted immediatly. Also these kind of trailmarkers have been confirmed multiple times as eligible POI.

#2: Eligible named trailmarker ‘Westtoer’

• Rejection criteria: Faces/Body parts and nominator is identifiable

A part of my shadow is visible? This has never caused any rejections before. This is a perfect example of reviewers looking for a reason to reject as opposed to looking for a reason to accept.

#3: Eligible named trailmarker ‘Biking Westtoer’

• Rejection criteria: spelling mistake and missed originality/cultural meaning.

No spelling mistakes were made when submitting, I double and triple checked because I was so confused. And again: this is an eligible POI so second rejection criteria is incorrect also.

#4: Eligible named trailmarker ‘Tiegemberg’

• Rejection criteria: doesn’t match the pictures or the map and misses originality/cultural meaning

Already covered this with #1, but this is just plain wrong.

#5: Eligible named trailmarker ‘Gapersroute’

• Rejection criteria: temporary and missed originality and cultural meaning

This a official biking/walking route of the city (so not temporary) it is in and again an eligible POI.

#6: Eligible named trailmaker ‘Vlaamse Ardennen’

• Rejection criteria: spelling mistake and misses originality /cultural meaning

Again a rejection for spelling mistake, without any present. And again this is an eligible POI…

#7: Soccer field (just to prove it isn’t just trailmarker haters)

• Rejection criteria: Multiple ones (?!) but the community didn’t decide for the main reason.

This one blew my mind. A brand new soccer field around me and it wasn’t accepted? Crazy…

#8: Eligible named trailmarker ‘Mountainbike’

• Rejection criteria: temporary and doesn’t match the pictures and/or map.

I understand that the colors are a bit faded, but doesn’t this just go to prove that it isn’t temporary? And again: submitted at the moment itself on the correct location with the right photo.

I don’t want to just make a post complaining about my rejected stops, rather I want to bring attention to a problem that is rampant with these wayfarer challenges: people reviewing as quickly as possible i.e. rejecting POIs for incorrect reasons just for in game rewards.

I personally preferred the lack of in game rewards and just having extra upgrades. This caused only actual reviewers to review more as opposed to randoms who don’t have a clue about what they are doing.

I don’t want to just make a post complaining about my rejected stops; rather, I want to bring attention to a problem that is rampant with these Wayfarer challenges: people reviewing as quickly as possible, i.e., rejecting POIs for incorrect reasons just for in-game rewards.

I personally preferred the lack of in-game rewards and just having extra upgrades. This caused only actual reviewers to review more, as opposed to randoms who don’t have a clue about what they are doing.

I am a loyal Wayfarer contributor with close to 15,000 reviews and over 1,000 nominations. This, however, just gives me, as a Wayfarer contributor, more work. I will have to drive/bike back to all of these locations often to just submit one stop out of 20 that were regularly approved.

And I do not have the appeals to contest every stop that was rejected, lol. These were just a couple of the 12 rejections I received this morning due to the Wayfarer challenge. All the people who didn’t review according to the criteria should simply not receive any in-game rewards and should have restricted access to Wayfarer. This is basically abuse. Please bring attention to this!

My apologies for my English, as you can see from my submissions, it isn’t my first language.

TLDR: People are purposfully rejecting eligible POIs just to get the in game rewards for the wayfarer challenge. In my opinion the wayfarer challenge concept with in game rewards should be revisited and tweaked to prevent this behavior.

[Martinni93]

Ik heb enkele van uw recensie gezien. Veel vind je niet terug via Google maps. Of onduidelijkheid waar de exacte locatie is.

Als je via Google open doet. Zie je enkel een huis. Niet de object dat je hebt aangevraagd. Dus veel mensen denken dat een foutieve locatie of zelf foutieve aanvraag is.

[TheGBench]

Zal veel te maken hebben met de ouderdom van Google Maps in de omgeving, maar normaal kan je dan nog altijd de plaats van de trailmarkers terugvinden zoals de palen waarop ze zich bevinden.

Uiteindelijk zou je het dan nog altijd moeten goedkeuren als je de correctie locatie terugvindt op google maps zelf, zelfs al hangen de trailmarkers er dan nog niet… Zeker rekening houdende met de ouderdom van de streetview hier.

Dat gezegd zijnde, veel van bovenstaande POIs zijn niet (enkel) afgekeurd wegens deze reden. Veel mensen zoeken incorrect een afkeurreden zonder de werkelijke stop zelf in rekening te brengen.

[Toadeggs]

Geen idee hoe jij reviewt @Martinni93, maar ik kan perfect alle trailmarkers zien op Google Streetview/Google Maps.
Alle locaties zijn zeer duidelijk en met misschien een lichte uitzondering van het MTB-trail zeer gemakkelijk weer te vinden.
Ik treed @TheGBench bij, dit is een belachelijk voorval.

English now:
I’ve personally noticed the same thing happening. This morning I received a couple of mails notifying me of unaccepted POI’s. Amongst them some trail markers but also a basketball field and a Chappel.
I made sure that each nomination was visible on Google Maps and/or Street View but most were rejected and I also received some questionable reasons. For example the basketball field was rejected for “Private property” whilst it was in the middle of a park. If this is indeed the result of the current Wayfarer Challenge then there needs to be some check in place to keep people from abusing it for the sake of the in-game rewards.

[Martinni93]

@Toadeggs ik zeg niet dat ik ze niet heb gevonden. Ik heb moeite daarvoor moeten doen.

Maar veel van de revieuws doen geen moeite en skippen direct. Dus dat wil ik aankaarten met wat ik hierboven heb gezegd.

[TheGBench]

@Martinni93
Ik ben blij dat we samen tot een conclusie zijn gekomen. De huidige influx van reviewers die gewoon reviewen voor in-game rewards zijn het probleem.

Ze doen geen moeite om een nominatie te vinden desondanks het feit dat de meeste wel te vinden zijn op google maps. Opnieuw heeft dit te maken van de verouderde natuur van streetview in mijn contreien.

Ik maakte deze post dus om de “luiheid” als het ware even aan te kaarten. Alle mensen die gewoon komen reviewen om de rewards te claimen en hier geen moeite voor willen doen zijn het probleem en ik hoop dat hier oprecht iets aan kan gedaan worden. Het kan onmogelijk de bedoeling zijn dat elke deftige submitter na een review challenge zijn toer opnieuw mag doen omdat een bende profiteurs in-game rewards willen.

Ze genieten van de stops die we aanmaken, maar saboteren ons onmiddellijk gewoon voor de belofte van in-game rewards.

[Toadeggs]

Mijn verontschuldigingen.

Dat bewijst daarentegen ook wat GBench zegt, dergelijke “challenges” bevorderen het reviewen niet maar werken het tegen.

[Martinni93]

Ik snap de frustratie zeker.

Ik denk dat ik er vandaag +20 mails heb gehad over men stops. Veel zijn afgekeurd met reden privé terrein, lossen object en etc. Een trailmarker is een vast object. Nog wordt het geweigerd wegens los product? Snap wie het snappen wilt.

Een speelplein wordt dan geweigerd wegens privé terrein.

Ik heb gewoon vandaag alles opnieuw ingediend.

[TjoeMi]

Same i also got rejection of playground because SFPRP.

[EONloveu]

Same here in Taiwan.

Received a dozen rejected nominations this morning.
Contents: Memorial decorations in historic hotels, Beautiful carvings in the temple, Local Church,
Roll-up door mural*2, Buddhist temples, Art installations in the community..etc

But, there is one thing to say
I also received 31 approval notifications yesterday (and 14 rejections)
The censorship is so lax that it seems like there are no standards at all.

[PinkGigaRaichu]

Same here in Germany. Viable Wayspots get rejected for no reason. I guess it is cause rejecting get more upgrades than accepting. Perhaps bots are around.

[DTrain2002]

Wayfarer takes issues like this quite seriously, so it may not be because of others just rejecting to get upgrades or bots. Staff would be alerted to patterns like this, and would most likely do an investigation.

Keep in mind that for those not familiar with the areas they are reviewing, or they have never reviewed in those area before, may not fully know what they are looking at as being eligible. For me, since I’m in the northern US, I’ve been staying in English speaking areas mainly that are more similar to where I’m from. I’ve done global challenges before in places where English may not be the main language used, and so there could also be some language barriers; this is why having a translator handy is important for reviewing during challenges.

Another thing, as this has been mentioned by others that reviewed the OP’s nominations is that they didn’t prove that the Wayspot is where they say it is. The burden of proof is always on the submitter, not the reviewer, to prove that what is being nominated exists where one says it does. This is why supporting photos showing the POIs WITH the surrounding area, not just the surrounding area, are important, as well as any additional info in the supporting info, such as links, like one to a trail map, for example.

[PinkGigaRaichu]

Niantic declared that hiking trails are viable Wayspots. I had various other threads for this topic. And even with the right url appended as a source my nomination often get rejected. Most people agreed with me. I often appeal, mostly Wayspots got accepted then but even then there is no real consistency.

[DTrain2002]

This may be because there have been fake Wayspots created in certain parts of Europe, including Belgium, for hiking/biking trails in the past, many of which Wayfarer have removed. It certainly isn’t a good thing when those abuse the system like this, as it hurts those that submit real trail markers and put in the work to prove them.

[PinkGigaRaichu]

Maybe you are right and i don‘t want to go too deep in this topic but I always append the url of the hiking trail. You can see the sign and route there and i got rejections. That should not be.

[TheGBench]

The post that I created was not made just for complaining and to try to justify why my POIs should have been accepted. I mostly tried to highlight the two points that I wanted to make:

1. These wayfarer challenges are flawed in concept
2. People need to be monitored more closely whilst doing these reviews.

You have said yourself that the language (not to mention the culture) barrier is large for certain areas which cause reviewers to judge poorly without knowing the context or the language. That is why these challenges are flawed in concept because you are expecting people who know nothing about the area, language and culture to make apt decisions about these POIs.

If that were just the only issue, I wouldn’t be making a post about this. I find the second part much worse. Too many new and/or lazy reviewers take part in these challenges solely for the material gain of some in-game items. I would suggest a system where newer/returning reviewers should take a test like in the old times to refresh the requirements for POI and the lazy reviewers should be filtered out. This could easily be done by hand reviewing some POIs, re-entering them in voting (honey pots) and giving warnings to people who misjudge them.

Fact of the matter is that the core concept of wayfarer gets lost in these challenges solely for the chase of these rewards. That’s why I suggested to bring back the upgrade rewards . It still gives people incentive to review, but won’t interest the regular player enough to abuse the system.

As for the abuse mentioned in your later post, this was in one specific part of Belgium, not the entire country. Reviewing more harshly for the actions of one kid (!) in a completely different part of the country, seems discriminatory. Ironically the bots that were rampant in the Netherlands were more accurate at reviewing POIs then most of the foreign reviewers during this challenge LOL.

I sincerely hope the concept gets changed or stronger rules/punishments get implemented the next time(s) around. This is honestly demotivitating especially for someone who only tries to make the gameboard more accurate and fun for all the rural players in my surrounding towns. Fact of the matter is before the challenge I had an acceptance rate of about 85%, during the challenge this immediatly dropped to about 60%. This should be concerning…

[DTrain2002]

I don’t know where you are getting that I am complaining. Yes, others are, but I’m not. If I was complaining, you’d most likely not get a response that wasn’t that civil. Personally, I’m not even chasing after the rewards; I want to help get the queue down and make the map the best it can be. I just wouldn’t go around accusing others of certain things that aren’t proven to be true; I’m just stating what may be some issues with the challenge.

Also, your agreement rate only counts nominations, not edits. If you are doing a lot of edits, you will see your agreement rate drop.

[TheGBench]

I never said you were complaining. Just that my original post wasn’t made for that goal.

Also I never meant to accuse you of anything. Some things might have gotten lost in translation - as explained before, English is not my first language. On the contrary even, seeing as how you take the time to peruse the wayfarer fora, you must be one of the good ones.

I just want to raise awareness about the way the challenge is going. Too many rejections are happening in my honest opinion. The posted approval rate was just nominations and is something I calculated myself.

I only want what is best for the long term health of the game(s) and wayfarer. And for that, I am pretty sure these challenges need adjustments. I for one am pretty demotivated to return to all the areas and resubmit these same POIs…

[DTrain2002]

Here in the forums though, you will find that the topic of a thread can change, and may not always follow what the OP’s original intention is. So, by you talking about nominations that were rejected during the challenge, this invited others to do the same, and complain about the process. Anyone can post anything here, as long as it’s Wayfarer related and meet forum guidelines.

If you no longer want people to post in this thread, you can either mute it (switch is at bottom of the thread), or ask a mod to close this.

[TheGBench]

I don’t mind people complaining however. It just wasn’t my original goal.

Whatever gets the point across I guess…