This came up in Ingress discussions and I couldn’t remember if we had a thread about already.
For the Wayfarer-enabled games we have two badges for getting agreements when reviewing on Wayfarer.
Pokémon GO has the Wayfarer badge which tops out at getting 1,500 agreements.
Ingress has the Recon badge which tops out at 10,000 agreements (though you can earn wings on the badge for getting 20,000).
In Ingress, there was a Seer badge which was awarded for getting Portals (back then as they weren’t Wayspots or PokéStops at the time) approved.
Then the badge was suspended “temporarily” in 2014, due to the volume of new Portals being submitted.
Things in Wayfarer aren’t the same as they were in 2014 with ML (when it’s back up and running) taking most things.
Would you want a badge to be added for getting Wayspots approved in Pokémon GO? Would it motivate you to find more things? Would you want the Seer badge reactivated?
Just wanted to have a discussion on it and wonder how aloud how long “temporarily suspended” is.
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A second point I wanted to add separately.
Do the badges you get for earning agreements motivate you to review more?
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Awww, man. I read that as “getting Wayspots removed” and I got all excited.
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No, i will always be against a badge that counts approved Wayspots. While it is a fun thing to track personally, many people would be severely disadvantaged by that kind of badge. Anyone who lives in a place that is already built out with wayspots would be “too late to the party” to participate. Anyone who lives in an area where there just aren’t many things to nominate would feel devalued for the work they are able to do. Anyone who can’t afford to travel would feel underappreciated.
This would highly skew in favor of the people with the money to travel or who have been playing longer.
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They do for me, especially when I see that I’m coming up on the next tier.
Just got this today. Been reviewing pretty heavily the last week or so trying to get there.
As far as resurrecting the Seer badge or similar, I’m not positive. It would be cool (sadly I wasn’t a high enough level to participate when it existed), but @seaprincesshnb makes some excellent points that have me second guessing that it’s return would be good.
It takes time, trouble and sometimes ingenuity to make a submission. It is often inconvenient and may require multiple visits to get a pic without people etc. Often, you may ignore a very valid slam dunk spot with the thought do I / we really need another spot / portal here?
A badge to encourage successful submissions that only counts acceptances. This may lead to better quality nominations. Perhaps 2 points for an acceptance and minus one point for a non acceptance.
A lot to consider. Is an increase in quality nominations needed?
There are disadvantages for some players in all aspects of the games already. Ability, age, income, location etc and valid points have been made. Nevertheless, the games go on regardless.
There always seem to be complaints regarding reviews taking too long and a lack of pogo stops.
A rethink and more encouragement for reviewing would, I think, be a good thing. Get more players branching into this side of the games. Maybe in game goodies as well as badges for agreements.
Similarly, maybe do something to further encourage quality nominations. Discourage crap nominations??
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Yeah we kicked this off in another thread where I commented on increasing the quality of submissions by going on auto hold and making people review their nominations prior to submitting.
To your question. No.
The problem is not that people cannot submit = it was what is being submitted. And why being submitted. And with a system that has few checks and balances for the majority - a randomness to what is accepted and so on then it harder to address quality
The whole question of addressing input of quality needs some thought and risk in solutions. And that also needs some very deep thinking on WHY people nominate and accept those. And HOW they go about it.
Once the appropriate balances for quality kick in then sure why not look at more rewards/recognition.
Personally. I don’t tell go out and say what I have done or how many I have. But that is just me…
But you know as I type this…
the theory that you get a reward for agreed rejections. … may have merit…
Hmmmmmmm
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I’d personally like an Ingress badge for portals discovered, kinda like the old Seer badge. If a player has their stats public, then any other player can see exactly how many portals they’ve discovered, but if stats are private then there are only the badges to go on.
We already have that imbalance, though.
There’s an extreme bias right now in favor of urban areas. Rural areas have many otherwise eligible and historically eligible facilities but they aren’t on “public” land and so don’t qualify. We have to “travel” in order to play at all. I can’t just walk down the road from here. And there aren’t any eligible spots to add portals either. Trust me. I’m trying.
Badges for wayspot approval would correct some of this existing imbalance.
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Me? Nominally, perhaps, but only slightly.
“Agreements” aren’t even a thing in the game aside from the badge.
I never had the chance to work seer. I regret that.
However, I recognize that people flooded the system with submissions. I know there were numerous submissions for the same spots and that Niantic got flooded.
I’m sure wayfarer helps with a small number of submissions. Things are moving now. But I seriously doubt that it could handle the quantity of submissions that would come in if it were a game requirement.
Between the volume and the current lack of transparency or constructive feedback, I think reopening seer, even if it didn’t count towards leveling, would simply alienate too many users. The system isn’t ready for that yet and I’m not sure it ever will be.
So regretfully, I don’t think it’s time for seer.
There are other options!
Niantic could give totals on the nomination page. Then you could try for your own goals, like aiming for number of approvals matching your birth month-day, or birth year.
They could have badges on the Wayfarer site, that only you see (not in PokemonGo OR Ingress).
And a Wayfarer pop-up that says “Congratulations! You earned your 100th Wayspot approval! Thank you for improving the games!”
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I think wayfarere badges are a fine idea. Distinct from any particular game. Cheap. And we already have a page full of progress stats.
I don’t think you comprehend how many approved contributions some people have.
There are quite a few people with over 1,000 approved wayspots, not including any edits, just pure wayspots. Someone living in a rural area will never match that. Also, if there are only 40 things to add in a small town and 5 people who play Niantic games, are they going to become cut-throat with each other in order to get the badge tick for themselves? Everyone denies the submissions from other people so only their own are approved?
This competitive environment does not serve anyone. We already occassionally see Ingress players reject submissions in “territories” belonging to the other faction when in reality the submission may have been made by PGO players who know nothing about faction wars. So, don’t think that people won’t turn the competitive aspect of Wayfarer into something ugly. It’s not the “norm”, but it does happen.
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Or even things like ‘Review Streaks’. You’ve reviewed X days in a row.
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Yep, i personally can’t let streaks drive my behavior to help keep my stress down. But this is definitely something that does not put any particular person at an unfair advantage. Streaks would be a good gamification.
Nope. Without third-party plugins, you only get:
- Total Nominations Reviewed
- Agreements
- Nominations Accepted
- Nominations Rejected
- Nominations Duplicated
Absolutely nothing about Nominations Submitted, Edits In Voting, Photos In Queue, etc. (Or reviewing streak!)
Just knowing these numbers could incentivize. If you have 498 nominations approved, wouldn’t you run out and do 2 more? Or if you have 2023 edits approved - that’s so year-before-last! 
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Another option: in-game reward for accepted Wayspots. Like…
- For every 100 accepted nominations made from Ingress, you get: an extra key capsule to keep keys to portals you created
- For every 100 accepted nominations made from PokemonGo, you get: +100 on the limit of post cards you can hold, to keep PokeStops you created
Neither of which would count on your inventory limits.
You’d still have to juggle for those first 99 tho. So maybe give these out at 50, 150, 250, etc?
@MargariteDVille @teamnoir Ambassador Alum @tehstone created a plug in that will show you - your stats on the Wayfarer page.
Here are mine as of 1/16/2025
This is where it displays on the page.
Thanks!
I just don’t think everyone should have to go to that much trouble, especially for something that would be simple code for Niantic. Most people won’t / can’t / don’t even know third-party plug-ins.
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