Quick general question when reviewing:
When rejecting based on accuracy, you can choose a reason under “abuse”. Is this the same as the “report” button on the top? I’m assuming they carry the same weight.
I ask because the “report” button also comes with a harsh disclaimer “Note that by submitting you certify that you are reporting this nomination as abuse. Misuse of this functionality will result in punishment, potentially including banning access to your game account.”
Also, why can’t they add an explanation section under “report abuse” to let you explain why you’re reporting this nomination for abuse.
We don’t know for sure how each of these works, but yes there are multiple routes and yes it’s quite confusing. There is a fourth route you haven’t mentioned/found yet and it’s the help chat.
As you note, the one that lets you add extensive detail and bring proof is the “Report abuse” external form which will start an email ticket and allow you to follow the thread, reply to it with attached evidence if you need and subsequently send you an answer, so that’s the one I tend to use for maximal visibility. Similar with help chat except there are no email follow-ups.
I don’t know if rejecting for “Fake nomination” is the same as reporting for abuse via the review flow but to me it looks more like a rejection reason than an abuse report.
If you need to write a comment when rejecting something for accuracy (that is what “abuse” is under) you can always use the “Enter other reason” checkbox. It’s below “Inaccurate location” and not shown in your screenshot.
Ah yes, the help chat. I’m stuck on a ticket and I’m kinda locked out of that at the moment so I didn’t mention it. Funny how chat algorithms work sometimes
Oh does the external form report not illicit a response/update email subsequent to the confirmation of receipt email? Would have loved to hear what happened to those fake noms.
Yea I was hoping it had the same gravitas and would be flagged to Niantic staff. But it just seems a bit half-assed in the way you submit it to the point where I think you may be right in that it just causes a rejection message rather than flagging it with humans. Well, that’s gonna be an extra bit of work, sending in a report on an external form.
Ah yea I forgot to scroll down in that pop-up menu for the screenshot. 150 characters is not a whole lot though for one to say their piece. Now if only the report button at the top had space for text
With all the improvements Niantic has brought to the wayfarer system over the years, I think the report abuse system could do with some improvement, what with the rise of AI-assisted noms.
Maybe I wasn’t clear, sorry - out of the cited routes, the “Reporting Abuse in Wayfarer” form is the only one that generates email exchanges (including for the response).
Help chat will also give you a ticket number and feedback later on, but this doesn’t sync across devices, and there are no email notifications. Those local exchanges are also frequently lost when browsers clear data.
Years ago, staff had implied that a rejection through voting (Accuracy > Abuse) triggered a rejection akin to typical reviewing and not a staff review. To ensure staff gets eyes on it, they suggested the “Report” feature. I’m sure, though, that if a review of a person’s candidates becomes necessary, staff can easily review anything that had previously been rejected.
This information is very dated - old Wayforum - and may no longer be accurate to how it is handled. To me, it makes sense to be handled this way, though. It wouldn’t be hard to put some sort of staff feedback loop for rejections but would seemingly require special attention to coding detail that would easily have been missed.
