Explorer after explorer - including myself - whom I know to submit excellent photos are getting hit with warnings for having submitted spam. If you check WDD (the Wayfarer Discussion Discord), you will see that we pride ourselves on submitting photos that improve a Wayspot. If you don’t know how the proportions display differently in different games, I can understand thinking a similar photo cropped different ways is spam, but there is a reason for it.
This has never been discussed as something not to do previously. It is unfair to submitters to suddenly decide that multiple photos are spam, and to decide this after a challenge to submit edits. And the wasted man hours spent on Niantic reviewers going through and picking which photos to remove is mind-boggling. Even photos that went into Niantic review during the challenge and accepted. And even photos I submitted months ago were removed.
I am thoroughly disgusted right now. I even commented that I was upset that we couldn’t get an update because of all the spam, and turns out I was doing something they considered an issue:
I thought it was fun - it was a flooded football goal, vs the original picture which was not flooded but so far off that the goals were hard to make out.
I’m not sure it was inappropriate enough for removal! And it certainly wasn’t the same image or even close
If you look back through my history, you will see that this is what I always do. When I submit photos, I submit ones that I feel add value to the Wayspot in some way. Even if it is just a better crop so that it does not get distorted on the gift in Pokemon Go. Who wants to collect ugly Postcards in that game? I did not spam to clear tiers, and you can keep all the rewards as far as I care.
…
Wait, what? I went to take a screenshot of the nearest Pokestop to me to illustrate my point, and it appears they have returned the photos they had removed and included the one that was “Not accepted” - I am so confused.
Absolutely agree, once again the communication and clarity is awful, it just causes so much unnecessary confusion and distress. Thank you for highlighting yet another issue with this ridiculous flawed system.
What we see on the forums here is only a small representation all all those players and wayfarers that these things affect. How many others have received these warnings and have been put off from risking participating in future challenges or have been put off engaging with the system entirely?
Personally I have stopped reviewing entirely at this point, I thought I would try out this challenge as it didn’t involve doing reviews and I could help improve my local wayspots. But I’m now worried myself about getting some threatening email for some unknown reason, I may well not participate in future at all. I shall have to check if any of my perfectly legitimate and properly accepted submissions have been affected.
They don’t even have the decency to explain what you have done wrong, so there is no way to defend yourself or improve behaviours in future, it’s just ridiculous. The very least we deserve is an apology and proper explanation about what went wrong and what is being done to prevent it continuing.
Yes! I was going to show how great the photo looks on the Ingress portal, and saw that all the photos were there now. Then I went back to the Pokestop and saw they are all there!
And as I said, I can see how the thumbnails make it look like they are very similar, but the dimensions and the distance away varies. I had no idea that trying to get the photo that looks the best would be considered spam.
Edit: linking to my other post so folks can see that the photos had been removed. And they even added in the one that they had rejected.
This is something positive at least. Did you ever get proper confirmation that it was definitely these submissions that triggered the warning? I really hope we get some proper clarity from the team on this ASAP.
I can’t speak for location edits, but minor grammar and spelling issues are a very large percentage of the edits I submit, at times just changing the capitalization of a single letter. I’ve never received any sort of educational email or warning in the past, and haven’t seen one since the challenge so far.
However, I will say that this scenario does make me a bit nervous that my edits could someday be deemed abusive or spam.
Same here with many of my text edits, along with adding descriptions to Wayspots that don’t have anything. Most times, ML approves these, but so many during the challenge weren’t. Could take awhile in my area for resolution. Not to mention the bad edits I’ve been reviewing that really don’t add any value to the descriptions.
I think spam is also mainly an English term, as many non-English Wayfarers seemed quite confusef by the term. Yes, someone could have been submitting the same meme image to several different Wayspots, which is abuse, but also clogging up the system with junk. Spam comes from the meat product created in Austin, MN, USA, but I don’t think Spam sushi is big in Japan as it is in the US.
I have no issue with submitting multiple images of the same Wayspot, each croppef different for different games. Now, whether or not players in each game upvote the better looking photo depends on whether they care to or not, but I don’t see any issue with the multiple photo submissions.
Online, SPAM isn’t the tinned meat, but an acronym from the old UseNet News Groups. It stood for ‘Same Post Across Multiple’ newsgroups, and referred to the actions of an individual who would paste the same old thing everywhere, rather than writing and responding to others individually.
Yes, but it does still come from the canned meat, thanks to a Monty Python bit featuring Vikings singing about Spam. Spam was invented in Minnesota, a state with a large Scandinavian American population. Here’s what Microsoft even says about the term spam email:
Using the word “spam” to describe pesky messages came from the TV show Monty Python’s Flying Circus. A sketch in one of the episodes featured Vikings who passionately chant about Spam, the brand name for canned, processed meat. Their chants in the sketch became so loud and repetitive that they muted any other conversations.1 Eventually, this sketch became synonymous with annoying messages, and “spam mail” was born.
It wasn’t until after spam email started to be called such that the acronym came about. When it was first used on USENET, it was for a unsolicited message posted over 200 times, and people began making jokes about it, with one terming it to be spam, as in the sketch.
Yes, and regardless of all of this, Niantic needs to explain what they mean by spam when they are actively soliciting contributions.
I could understand them saying that people keep spamming scans of their feet to collect AR mapping rewards. I don’t believe that @cyndiepooh was spamming photos before, during or after the recent challenge.
Niantic could help by stating what they want vs. what they don’t want, and by explaining why.
What the team considered as “spam” edits in the context of the edits challenge is as follow. On the given timeframe of the challenge and for a wayspot that is at a given state (was not modified by someone else during this period):
more than 2 identical Title edits on the same wayspot
more than 2 identical Description edits on the same wayspot
more than 2 Location edits on the same wayspot
more than 4 identical/similar photos submitted on the same wayspot (excluding images cropped)
Clarifications on photos:
When submitting photos to a wayspot, it is not necessary for you to have prior knowledge or review the existing pictures of that location. Your visit to the location at a different time and date is sufficient for you to submit new photos of the wayspot. The consideration below should be considered if you are planning to submit multiple photos of the same wayspot while at the location on a given visit.
Identical photos: images that are exact duplicates of each other, with no discernible differences in pixels, composition, or lighting.
Similar photos: images that are taken from the same general location and angle, but may have slight differences in composition, lighting, or zoom level. Provide examples of what would be considered similar photos, such as:
Photos taken from the same spot a few seconds apart with no significant change in perspective or composition.
Photos taken from a slightly different angle or zoom level, but still capturing the same subject matter.
Not similar photos:
Photos taken by a different person, at a different time of day or under different lighting conditions.
Photos taken from a significantly different angle or zoom level, providing a new perspective on the subject matter.
Photos that capture different aspects or details of the subject matter, providing additional context or diversity.
We will update our photo guidelines to include these clarifications.
If you think that you have received an unwarranted warning or suspension from activity related to spam edits in the challenge, you can always appeal to our team and we will review it.
We hope this clarifies the situation, but note that as our systems change and abusive behaviors shift, those clarification are subject to change over time.
Thank you for this definition. I did not submit any spam photos, and my warning was rescinded, so whoever reviewed my case must have agreed. I am glad this will be posted, but am still unhappy for people who got caught up after the fact.
