Oh, so am I, I am just starting to have doubt about the amount of influence we actually have on the final outcome 
I have applied an upgrade in the past and have it almost immediately reach a decision. But this was done with a nomination that had been in voting for a very long time. I figured when I had an extra upgrade and I used it, it went to one more person who either approved or denied and then the email got sent. Back in the days when things seem to have gotten lost “in voting”
I have learned a lot from you contributors to this site over the last few months.
ok … as a newer wayfarer my experience:
I had been warned repeatedly that it could be a nightmare so my expectations were low.
Made my first nominations in May this year & my first stop appeared within 48 hours
So having the ML do the straight forward ones and getting a quick result seems good to me.
In queue … I have developed a system whereby … if its in the queue for more than several days (depends how often I check) – I change the nomination name and look to make other wording changes … if it will improve the submission . (Picking up new ideas all the time from this site)
I know nothing … so my theory was that it is in queue until a reviewer submits a response. As a reviewer, I often spend time checking nominations … you know … it could be ten minutes looking for ways it qualifies. Sometimes it’s a good nom but cannot find enough evidence. Not enough to accept but not enough to reject … so after spending that time I skip.
I have found that editing a queued nom’s name and other content seems to get it into voting — could be a coincidence, of course.
I feel I am working for free … to improve the product of a private company so am unlikely to appeal or upgrade.
I agree that the secrecy can be very annoying.
The wayfarer problem that I see is that to prove the existence of a spot can take years if waiting on maps to catch up with new installations, suburbs etc. Having local reviewers obviously helps. But I … and I presume all of us … can be deciding on nominations at places we have never visited. Even on local noms I have skipped … making a mental note to check that location etc next time I drive past. Local skipped ones do seem to come back to me within a week or so.
But maybe other reviewers reject on the basis of no evidence because it is too new ???
With name, location and photo edits … all I can say is … can someone please make a system that is far clearer in what it aims to achieve.
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Thanks for that perspective @Dadcaesar
It’s good to read some reflections of someone who has only done Wayfarer in the time of Emily.
It is a big difference. No, make that huge, massive, game changing 
And there are knock on effects.
If Emily approves your nomination you are getting a better experience.
It encourages you to do more.
If Emily wrongly rejects it still feels rubbish.
The community review experience has changed. The pool of reviews is different.
As a Wayfinder in an area where it took easily in excess of 2 years to get a result, I absolutely needed to review to get upgrades. Not any more. Reviewing has become more of a slog as the quicker rejects have gone and I don’t get to see those really interesting and inspiring objects and places that made me go that’s amazing.
So more than ever I think we do need to think very critically about our nominations and make them as easy as possible for the reviewer to vote and vote in a positive way. We always think it’s good ……you wouldn’t press submit otherwise would you? We need to think could I make iIt better, and think more about the reviewer and what they need to see.
This is very true, so reviewing gets repetitive and also more difficult - as all the easy rejects and accepts are done already.
This leaves reviewers with a lot of the middle ground stuff and my experience is that my rating is now suffering because getting agreements on things that aren’t such strong (or terrible) nominations is much more difficult.
The ML makes submitting a much, much better experience, because rather than waiting months or even years for a decision, its now only minutes up to a week or so, but for me it makes reviewing pretty dull and unrewarding at the same time
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Submitting is now just about using the “correct” words and avoiding the “bad” ones (like cemetery - even though a historical cemetery with all 50+ yr old gravesites could meet acceptance criteria just fine and even more than that, it could be a terrific place to explore).
AI can’t “review”. AI can’t think and compare location markers to what could realistically be there. AI can’t understand supporting information.
Bringing down response time and/or clearing backlogs is a very noble cause but this simply is not the way. All this will do is open the whole system up for even more Abuse. As in a LOT.
While it’s nice to have your nominations and edits resolved (like, 2021 ones and up), we need to have a credible, fair and professional system. AI is none of these things.
If Wayfarer does not respect the Wayfarer idea, why should we? If Wayfarer does not need reviewing, who should we do it?
One of the things that motivated me was having Featured nominations on the front page Showcase from time to time. I know that may be silly, but it kept me going. I also liked arguing my case with a nomination, to help explain why this and that nomination would be awesome and people should go visit.
Now it’s just… Bla bla. Playground/art/whatever word that triggers the AI.
The magic is gone.
It’s fair enough with difference in opinions about this I suppose, but I feel many people here don’t see the harm AI is doing to Wayfarer. I get why sometimes you have to make the best of things and that negativity in itself does not move any mountains, but toxic positivity is not fruitful either.
“Change is upon us”, someone wrote when I commented on this new forced forum that was not announced properly by email to users. It had laugh emoji reactions from staff members.
I care about Wayfarer (when it was actually Wayfarer) so I’m more concerned about all this than amused.
Sometimes you don’t have to swallow a bitter pill, just because it seems to be the only option.
I know for a fact that I am far from alone in being very disillusioned about this. Far from all Wayfarer users are active here on the forum, and I understand why. That does not mean they support the changes, on the contrary. Many just feel very powerless and discouraged.
We’ve seen plenty of hooraying about AI here, so I think there should be room for this perspective as well.
I am aware it’s not going back from here though. Let’s lean back and watch the Wayfarer Abuse run amok together, shall we? 
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We need an option to allow us to request human reviewing in a similar way to upgrades to avoid ML rejections. Walks away quietly
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From my accepted submissions recently I have a feeling Emily is not paying much heed to pictures and locations.
If I had a second account I could test it to see how blasé Emily is.
My experience with Niantic is get it working, ignore the faults, attempt to fix it later which inevitably causes more problems then ignore it some more.
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Gasp someone said 2nd accounts. hyperventalates
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I am fairly certain that this is correct. I have seen something in reviewing with a typo that I was pretty sure who submitted, and pinged them on discord. It was still showing as in queue for them, and they were able to correct the typo.
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You can review noms that are in queue?
Is that normal?
I had not submitted my review yet and I must have been the first reviewer to get it.
Interesting 
This has been a thing for a while. “In voting” doesn’t directly mean “in voting,” it means “a vote has been cast.”
You mean “in voting” means not “in voting” and Cyndie says “in queue” means not “in queue”, that’s curious isn’t it?
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At the point “in queue,” no votes have been cast. For the submission owner, it still reflects that they can modify the text. If the reviewer skips, it remains in queue.
I don’t think it’s necessarily clear but it isn’t the biggest thing I’d find curious.
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I know this is beside the point OP is making, but given the increased number of nominations we can submit, and the volume of rejections we get as a result, I think a possible improvement to the appeal system would be to have the 20 day wait period only if your appeal gets rejected, kinda like hawkeye calls work for tennis players. Of course keeping a maximum of 2 appeals at a time for wayfinder, otherwise there would just be another endless backlog
I believe this is to keep the appeals team from being overwhelmed and allow them to stay caught up. I can wait 20 days if it means my appeal will be looked at in a timely manner when I can make it.
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I guess that’s fair. On one hand I always feel like I’m short on appeals, but on the other the ones I send out always get sorted out in 2-3 days tops.
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If there was something Niantic could do to teach their dumb bot about compound words and what they look like in Danish, that would be great. Since the subject is appeals.
I get correct versions of Danish rejected all the times when I try to make edits on bad grammar/language Wayspot texts.
This is not what I want to spend my few appeals on. Sometimes I decide to anyway, but it’s such a waste.
Maybe upgrade the AI or something. Please.
(Just got a rejection from “our team” on trying to correct a ‘street bane’ into a ‘streetbane’ - the correct way to write it in Danish. I was able to try again, but this is wasting everyone’s time…)