What makes me understand that our votes count is the fact that Niantic created the system where we can cast our votes. It would be silly of them to create this system and then not make our votes count.
Yes, one of the things I am talking about is making those broad strokes less broad and put them in one place.
Yes, ability to correct grammatical and spelling errors would be great.
We don’t need Additional Info area. We already have Supporting Info where submitters can explain why their nomination is important. And again, I doubt that “This nomination is important because we will have one more Pokestop” is the information Niantic is looking for.
Supporting Info section is not for voting on it, it’s about helping reviewers evaluate the nomination (it clearly states that at least in Ingress). Here is some supporting info I put for my nominations, which besides explaining why I think this nomination is cool also assist reviewers with evaluating them:
“Newly painted utility box on SE corner of Fulton and Magnolia. If not on street view just yet, please check instagram for letspaintshermanoaks - it shows the box and its location.” - this would help reviewers to confirm that the box is really painted and that I am not submitting photoshopped photos.
“A 3D map and a miniature copy of a museum inside the museum itself. This one is located closer to Entrance Hall, under a walkway so can’t be seen on satellite view, but you can see on supporting photo that it aligns with the skylight next to it, and skylight is on satellite.” - assist reviewers with confirming the location of the nomination.
“A fountain at a newly-redesigned business plaza. The Konami fountain is now gone, and instead they placed trees and chairs and other things, and also this fountain.” - this helps to understand why the satellite view would show different picture.
Not every supporting info I write is like that. Most are “This is a newly painted utility box” or “This is a picnic area at a park”. But I never thought of putting “We need more portals here”. In fact, I just checked Ingress and did a test nomination. Absolutely every screen says “Portal” instead of “Wayspot”, just like in PoGo it says “Pokestop”. Yet for most nominations that had “We need more X here”, X was Pokestop or Gym. There were just 2 or 3 nominations that I remember that mentioned Ingress and Portals. It’s mostly PoGo and Pokestops.
As Winston Churchill once said, “democracy is the worst form of government – except for all the others that have been tried”. The system here it’s not perfect, but it doesn’t mean we can’t make it better. Regarding that first Counties wayspot, not one person said, “Yeah, it’s incorrect. Would be great if we could avoid such things”. Most comments are to the tune of “So what’s the big deal? It’s not THAT bad. Just edit it!”
Hi @Itsutsume
My last thought on it: you show us some of your possible (helpful!) supporting texts. Sometimes you write “newly”, maybe it would be more future safe, if you would use something like “painted in spring of 2024”. In 10 years nothing of that is new
This isn’t an example of a low quality Wayspot, I would say above average. Much better than the featured Wayspot I see when I open the page which has has six spelling mistakes in two sentences (almost impressive). I think most people here would accept it. Yes, it depicts mountain ranges in California, but it’s also written Sherman Oaks on the box. Sherman Oaks is a county in California. You could perhaps argue that it would be better with ‘County of California box’ since it only has the name of one county. But maybe it’s part of a series of boxes, that could justify the use of plural
This is from supporting information, not wayspot description.
Sherman Oaks is also NOT a county. It’s a neighborhood in the city of Los Angeles. And it doesn’t have Sherman Oaks written on it. It has @ShermanOaksChamber. If you search online for “Sherman Oaks Chamber”, you could find this - About Us - Sherman Oaks/Encino Chamber. And if you search for “@ShermanOaksChamber utility box designs”, you could find this - Utility Boxes - Let's Paint Sherman Oaks. And in its About section - About - Let's Paint Sherman Oaks - you could learn this:
This could lead you to an idea that maybe this utility box was painted with support of local neighborhood government - Sherman Oaks Chamber of Commerce.
“New” is one of my pet peeves in the text. Although I hear it is a signifier that it may not appear in Streetview due to being outdated. “New” is definitely easier to write and read than “Streetview is outdated and the object may not be seen in it” but is open to consideration for not being accurate in perpetuity. I would not reject such for a simple error.
The gap between experienced Wayfarers and casuals is high. I’d give a large margin of error when it comes to frivolous text, especially when the submission instructions from the app is still very flawed and portal/pokestop leaning.
I take zero tolerance with text like these though.
Sherman Oaks is also NOT NOT a county. The error in the title is at best miniscule. Posting this under the supposition that it probably should not be accepted is at best far fetched. Even though you know it’s also a neighborhood, I also know it’s a neighborhood, it’s still no reason for rejection
Double negative means positive. Are you saying that Sherman Oaks IS a county?
It is a neighborhood, should be ‘Neighborhood of California box’ one off on the administrative level
I hope nobody takes my cat hostage
Those are good examples of how to use the supporting text opportunity to help with confirmation of the location. I would also recommend that a something like May 2024 is used rather than new. I say this as the area I mainly submit in used to have a natural resolution time of over 2 years, and of course tools such as streetview can have updated. So although it might resolve very quickly I try to keep in the habit of rough dates.
Personally I wish that when the text appears for us to read a basic spell check was in place showing potential misspelling. We could then accept or deny the changes. A relatively simple thing and from the Wayfarer Team side it could have high degree of confidence that any change was appropriate and not malicious. But that’s my dream
Part of the discussions in this thread has been around your interpretation of what is meant by an inappropriate request requiring action on your part. When submitters do make references to game features they are doing the same - interpreting a prompt in a particular way mainly because of the context in which that prompt sits. And yes the majority are Pokémon Go references, but then the majority of submissions come from Pokémon Go players.
Throughout I have not commented on the specific example at the start as I am trying to look at approaches that go beyond one example. In addition I don’t like commenting on an actual wayspot on what I might have done if reviewing it as I don’t have the supplementary text and I have no idea if it has been edited since review.
Well, two off. It’s county, then city, then neighborhood. And also should be single, not plural. But hey, at least you agree with me that it’s not Counties of CA
In Ingress, I have spell check in the field where I type. Don’t know about PoGo.
How do you know that majority of submissions come from PoGo players?
There are more PoGo players than Ingress players
And sadly, Pokemon Go doesn’t have a spell check inside of the submission section, so it’s very easy to make a typo or misspelling
Submitting with a wet screen is a special kind of hell
Pokémon Go players in general out number Ingress by a large amount.
It was very notable on the old forum where you saw whether an account was PGO or ING and again those from Pokemon Go dominated.
I like to check text once it appears in the contribution page as I can see it more clearly - my phone screen is small and I make lots of typing errors as my manual dexterity is not perfect. Also it can be difficult to do all the precision aspects with a wet screen a common situation for me.
Many wayfinders are unaware of the ability to edit as they don’t go to the contributions page. Going to that page and checking your submission is something I would like to promote. Perhaps by defaulting to hold.
Ah 2 U.K. wayfinders complaining about wet screens
Yeah most people I have spoken to think this is an in-app only thing, they have no idea that the website or forum exists
With a decent amount of rain, I’m lucky to type anything that even half way translates into English, the rain will swap apps for me, delete all my text, select letters or punctuation marks etc etc If it wasnt for the samsung game tuner app where I can disable the app swap buttons I’d have no chance in wet weather
I think you can also get umbrellas for your phone… but… I’d like to look somewhat normal
Too late, you’re a weirdo taking photos of playgrounds and postboxes. Normal is long gone.