As many of you know, if you listen to the Wayspotters Podcast, I live in what I call a “Black Hole” where approval times can take many months to get a resolution. Sometimes 4 to 6 to 8 months.
Well, I guess many of you who live and nominate in bigger cities may struggle from this also. I just whine a lot. Ask @Glawhantojar … he’ll tell you.
However, I’ve noticed the queue moving much faster and some of my most recent nominations be approved in less than 30 hours from submission. I quite honestly don’t know how to handle myself.
Stats:
I nominated 6 POI’s on April 30, 2024. 5 of 6 we’re accepted on May 1, 2024
I nominated 7 POI’s on May 4, 2024. All 7 were accepted on May 5, 2024
We all come here and hold Niantic’s feet to the fire when we perceive something to be wrong, but I want to be a man of my word and come here to give Niantic their flowers when something goes well and they get it right.
I am very pleased with the direction Wayfarer is going and I want to thank eMiLy. @NianticTintino, @NianticAaron, @NianticThibs and anyone else making decisons recently.
A sincere thank you from BlameJamal of the Wayspotters Podcast.
Now, please carry on with your normal shenanigans.
Even though I live in a larger area, we don’t have that many reviewers, so it can take a few months for non-upgraded nominations to get approved. With the weather being warmer right now, I do believe those submitting nominations in my area are also reviewing to get upgrades, but during the colder months, not so much.
I did have 1 edit out of 4 I submitted on the same day accepted by ML, which I really appreciated, especially since it was a descriptioh edit for a Wayspot that’s never had one. I do hope ML keeps learning about who participates in different areas, not just rural ones.
I’ve noticed this as well. While I still have 4 from December in voting, 9 from January in voting, and another 3 from January in queue, I’ve had the pleasant surprise of having had 17 Wayspots approved by the ML since mid-April, including one I submitted on this past Saturday afternoon which was live by Sunday night (last night). This has encouraged me to explore tremendously! When I got the approval email on Sunday morning for a spot I submitted at 2pm Saturday, that changed the trajectory of my day. Instead of staying home and bumming around I went to a park I’d never gone to before and was able to find four new POI, submit updated photos, submit necessary edits and really try to clean up the gameboard there. And getting the pics and name updates approved quickly by the ML encouraged me further! I ended up wandering down a street I’d never bothered to explore before and found seven murals, none of which are Wayspots. I would not have gone on a walk yesterday (or at least not in that area of the city) if I hadn’t seen any results in months.
It’s a fantastic feeling and I have to give kudos to Niantic for allowing the ML to handle some of the more obvious nominations. Voting here takes a long time. The only things I’ve had approved by the community have been through upgrades. Waiting six months for anything to progress is discouraging, so I’m absolutely loving what’s happening now… And I think my locals are pretty happy too since I see the new portals being captured and pokestops being lured up all the time. So yeah, kudos to Niantic!
Yes I think we ought to give bunches of roses when they are due. I have had some fast turn rounds from Emily which as a submitter is great, and gives me a boost to submit more.
In fact I have been encouraged to submit some that are lightship only - good wayspots that were low on on my priority list, woukd not appear in a game and as I live in a black hole I didn’t want to clog up the system with. But if Emily can quickly approve they don’t slow down the main system.
Personally my experience has been quite the opposite. While before, in early November through late January, my nominations used to be resolved within days, and usually no less than a week.
On the other hand, since February, the time it took for my nominations to be resolved has slowly fallen. I’ve still got two nominations from late January that are still in voting, and there’s one nomination from mid February that’s still in the queue. I do live in area of London though so I’m not particularly surprised, and at the end of the day there isn’t much more that I can do than patiently wait.
Even with all the frustrations and headaches that Emily gives (can YOU get a GR postbox past the emily AI?!) I’m still glad it’s there. I’ve had a few nominations auto-accepted and it’s really pleasant to see them show up in-game so quickly. Plus, waiting for photo reviews is basically a thing of the past now, I don’t think I’ve submitted a photo that wasn’t immediately accepted ever since Emily started reviewing them!
Having been wayfarering since OPR first opened up in 2017 … Many frustrating experiences with wayfarer have been had both at the poi decision level and with the processes of wayfarer… Many rage quits… Even deleted my queue of outstanding pois at one point …
The last few months have been remarkable.
Pois are dealt with quickly and mostly fairly.
It’s really feels like a case of “what are you this thing calling itself wayfarer? And what have you done with the real wayfarer”
Ironically, my area seems to have slowed right down, but it seems to be like this each year, january and february waypoints usually take a week, but come april/may time, things i submitted at the end of february still sit there, usually coming through mid june/july
I went away for the weekend and nominated some sculptures, tennis courts and playgrounds around the hotel we were staying at. All of them were approved within 24 hours, except the one I applied an upgrade to
I also had a GREAT experience with the faster turnaround recently! I went on vacation to a resort in Mexico. There were 4 gyms in the resort, and one stop close to my room. I got out on the first day and found a series of nature signs around the resort, as well as some beautiful murals that were not currently on the map. I started with the ones closest to my room, and got some nominations in quickly. With Emily grabbing and approving most of these nominations, I quickly was able to create a number of new stops near my room and triggered 3 more gyms in the resort in time for me to spin the stops and capture the new gyms. I even got enough berries to power feed one of those brand new gyms to get it gold! It was really amazing having such an instant gratification for that work!
To be honest I didn’t find that Emily is helping the turnover in our community. Or is that there just not POI being submitted?Could someone help me out here.
Plus, waiting for photo reviews is basically a thing of the past now, I don’t think I’ve submitted a photo that wasn’t immediately accepted ever since Emily started reviewing them!
I recently got a waypoint approved but was unhappy with the photo I took, so I went to the waypoint yesterday and took 2 photos, one in portrait for pogo and one in landscape for ingress.
Submitted them in pogo, then spent literally about a minute faffing around with the new AR camera update by the waypoint, then decided to check the photos on the waypoint. They were both ALREADY THERE!
