Niantic and Pokemon/ingress etc. should really find a way to reward reviewers and nomatatinees more in games . Because reviews should not take 2 Weeks. If people are more prompt to do it. I am it can be something stupid like stardust or a 50 coins for reviewing an x amount of reviews. Or more global challenges for scanning PokeStop and reviewing.
Feel like the complaining to much about the backlog but not prompting people/ players to catch up on it.
There are some rewards for the OPR Live events, for example:
In Ingress you can earn a badge for both normal reviews and OPR Live events, there isn’t an equivalent in PoGo and I’m not sure how you’d show it off either.
So a few more OPR Live events (and maybe better rewards for PoGo players) would be cool.
As for submissions, there used to be a Seer badge in the early days of Ingress for 10, 50, 200, 500 and 5000 (!!) new portals submitted. It would be good to have something like that back.
I moved this to general discussion. Its a good topic, but it wasn’t right for the Basics category. That category is to educate new Wayfinders on how the system currently works. Suggested changes are more appropriate for General Discussion.
Thanks!
I do feel that we could do with some better rewards to encourage more people.
Upgrades for many are increasingly devalued, I don’t review any more and I still have a stash I’ll likely never use.
Game specific items have been used as motivators for the Wayfarer events so we know this is a possibility. expanding that, I’d like to see some sort of points system that could be traded in for whatever an individual wanted.
E.g. 100 points could buy you an upgrade or extra appeal , Pogo players could trade that in for so much stardust, a lucky egg or an incubator, in ingress 100 might get you a kinetic capsule or apex and so on. As many options to attract a variety of people from different games at different levels.
Competitive elements and badges are good motivators for some also. I fear badges for number submitted would encourage people to spam coal, I suspect that may be why the seer badge was removed?
A badge in Pokemon Go for accepted submissions would be really cool! Not something too onerous, but something to encourage people to engage in the wayfarer system.
We do have a badge for wayfarer agreements in Pokemon Go. I think you have to have a good rating to get any progress though. Which is fine (I’m platinum on it, didnt seem like tonnes of work either vs some of the badges)
That table of rewards is wow, a single incubator for one of the tiers? I buy incubators by the hundred 
I guess in PoGo, items of clothing are often earned for certain tasks, so a Wayfinder T-shirt or backback might be cool items to have.
With the Seer badge I think it was simply that all new portals had to be reviewed by Niantic staff and the system broke down. When Wayfarer came in to replace it, it also cleared the old backlog so some people still earned Seer badges later.
Incidentally, I don’t know how many wayspots there are, but they look something like this…
The number of portals discovered is still recorded as a stat in Ingress but there are no plans to revive the seer badge.
The seer badge was retired because it indirectly encouraged a lot of coal, which overwhelmed the internal review process at the time. Since badge tiers are important in getting past level 8 and there weren’t many different badges back then.
In game rewards in Ingress are given out if a wayspot you discovered goes live as a portal. You get a key to said portal and 1,000 AP.
The likely equivalent for PoGo would probably be a postcard and some small amount of XP if the wayspot becomes a pokestop/gym. Anything of monetary value like coins is likely off the table.
lol at whoever wants in game items for doing reviews…
Why?
Anything that encourages people to contribute to the system is surely a positive? They already provide in-game items for participation in events and these seem to be quite successful motivators.
ok wait… so some people claim they spend quite a significant amount of time reviewing nominations. And a bunch of those people want to be paid for their volunteer work… And they are so willing to self validate their effort, that they’re willing to take anything they get in game…
I can tell none of you have ever been involved with negotiating. In this post covid, “gimme gimme gimme” type of society we are stuck in right now. People are willing to fight for things that will forever cheapen their effort and worth… Asking for a few in game items/ coins lets niantic/ pogo jus how cheap you’re willing to work, jus how low you value your own time…
In game avatar items should be the absolute most anyone gets for in game rewards for volunteering to do reviews/ edits…
The thing is nothing niantic gives us as a “reward” “payment” or “thank you” is worth it… esp lately.
Upgrades are useless now. And those were the most desired “reward” for reviewers to acquire. The review pool is filled with so much garbage right now it’s more of a chore than anything else. Upgraded nominations jus sit in queues as of late. Not to mention, there are countless reviewers who have so many upgrades jus sitting around, never going to be used… jus goes to show you how much they/ the community really values those precious “upgrades”.
The worst part of all this is, changes wont get made till there are enough people complaining about it/ enough people stop reviewing where is starts causing another back log… Niantic, you guys should really be WAY more proactive about all this.
There have been a lot of positive things done/ changed in the past few months, Accepting a few items for hours worth of reviewing will never be worth it. I would be insulted if i was offered that kinda garbage.
These are your current rewards for reviewing from the games.
As well as being able to earn Upgrades. Some would also say the reward for nominating/reviewing is providing Wayspots to the map for yourself and other players to use.
We have seen in Pokémon GO that avatar items can be linked to badge progress.
So it is possible to do, but I would think needs lots of cross team agreement.
Would avatar items be enough of a reward? For me, I would love a Wayfarer Pin avatar in Ingress. I think for some of players, no reward beyond Coins/CMU would be good enough so it’s hard to please all.
A weird comment. The queue being filled with trash is such a red herring. That’s thinking your submission is more important when it’s the same zeros and ones of data in the flow. The flow of the queue isn’t by amount of submissions or even S2 cells from what’s been seen for years.
The issue is more of Niantic’s coding for this queue and whenever it decides a nomination is done with voting. Whatever is stuck for months in there in the past have been submissions that are definite winners or rejections. I can definitely say it’s been better though because the longest review time recently has been 2 months for some items. I just don’t expect them to be instant, more that they will eventually be online. Is it frustrating? Sure is but it will be reviewed.
There are two slightly different things here, one is a reward for doing reviews and the other is a reward for doing submissions.
For reviews, yes there are some badges and that’s not a bad thing. As I mentioned, OPR Live has some (scant) rewards too.
For submissions, one of the main motivations to submit a wayspot is so you can use it in-game. But by the time you’ve got to hundreds of submissions (and you’ve become addicted to it) then you are really helping to expand the network. I’ve been to locations where there have been zero wayspots, and found half a dozen or so to encourage players. I think some recognition is lacking, even if it is an in-game T-shirt 
Thank you for sharing your thoughts.
However, it seems that my previous response may have missed the core of your argument. I am advocating for a rewards-based system, suggesting that incentives like a distant lucky trade with a friend—which can be coordinated via Campfire—could replace the current stacked upgrades.
Your perspective is that my comment came across as too personal. The issue at hand is the lack of motivation within the community. Also, a need for openness to innovative ideas. For instance, the concept of earning an in-game “T-shirt” for contributing reviews is intriguing.
Indeed, Niantic is striving to improve and sift through the less desirable submissions. A system where reviewers know they could gain or lose something based on the quality of their submissions might reduce the number of low-quality contributions.
There are numerous viable and cost-effective methods to enhance the processes of reviewing, scanning, and submitting.
Personally, I invest significant effort into reviewing and scanning because of the potential rewards, such as the chance to receive a 2D postcard that could eventually evolve into a 360° experience.
I’m one of those sitting on several unused upgrades, mostly because my local area has long had a quite speedy turnaround. I agree that the value of upgrades has diminished somewhat, and would be interested in seeing an alternative reward for reviews - but would prefer those to be Wayfarer-only, like Upgrades are. For nominating, the only change I’d like to see is maybe getting a gift from an accepted Wayspot submitted through Pokemon Go, similar to how we get a Key in Ingress - it would be great to have that keepsake from my vacation nominations if I ran out of Ingress nomination slots!
I agree that rewards may need to be looked at. I am one that does more reviewing and edits than nominating, so I have banked up a good amount of upgrades. Where I live most new eligible POIs get Wayspots quickly, especially from those that live/work in that neighborhood.
I think one thing that would help would be if edits were finally added to Contribution Management, and we were allowed to use upgrades on those. Especially if you are someone that lives in an area where it can take months for an edit to go through community review, an upgrade would help increase the number of people that can reivew it, which would reduce the time edits get decided on.
Also, maybe the next global challenge can be worldwide, since admins have said that there aren’t any queues in certain areas that are really backed up right now. I love getting those in-game rewards, so it’s possible that there may be a change needed there.
No one wants to put stops in because there all rejected every time . Then you expect us to review outher peoples stuff . I will not review because everything i put pokemon stops in is rejected im done i will not do either put in spots for review or review any one else’s . Good luck maping the hole content on your own nianticlabs. This player will not contribute anything any more. FYI YOU HAVE A LOT OF WORNG STOPS IN YOUR GAME NOT CORRECT LOCATIONS AND COMPLETELY MISSING ONES ALSO INACCESSIBLE STOPS ONE IN THE MIDDLE OF A DAM LAKE IS A GYM BUT MINE ON A BRAND NEW BOARD WALK IN PORT ST LUCIE IS REJECTED STUPIDEST thing I EVER SEEN NO WERE NOT SWIMMING TO A GYM .
Wow, that sounds frustrating! I understand how that would make you feel like it’s not worth submitting more stops. Have you tried asking for feedback on your nominations in the Nomination Support category yet?
Nomination Support
I’m new at all this and the more experienced folks have given me some good advice on how to phrase my descriptions and supporting info, and having spent time reviewing also taught me a lot about what NOT to do. I’ve only had three stops approved so far but I’m feeling more confident now. I don’t know anything about how to edit or get stops removed but I think the one in the middle of the water can be reported in the game. Good luck.
I agree 100% with this, but I think as a community. We’d first need to determine what we’d be motivated by and in turn, what Niantic would be willing to use as a reward.
Most people here are saying “it’s not upgrades”. Ok, then what would it be? I don’t think it would be poke coins. Because what about Ingress players? How would that translate?
I hope one of the Niantic employees reads this and jumps in the conversation. I’m not advocating for a hand out, but I think Niantic could increase usage by thinking up a new fair way to continue to incentive Explorers for both adding to the Lightship map and reviewing new POI’s.
