Suggestion: Reward Correct Rejections with Upgrade + Trusted Reviewer Status

Review Support
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:pushpin: Title:

Suggestion: Reward Correct Rejections with Upgrade + Trusted Reviewer Status

:speaking_head: Summary:

Wayfarer currently focuses on majority agreement, but this can unfairly penalize honest reviewers who correctly reject ineligible nominations — especially when others abuse or manipulate the system to get invalid Wayspots approved.

I propose that Niantic:

  1. Rewards reviewers who correctly reject invalid nominations

  2. Grants a free Upgrade when their review is later proven correct

  3. Introduces a “Trusted Reviewer” status with extra benefits and review priority or give extra point to highest current level of Reviewer

:warning: The Problem:

Ineligible nominations (like those on K-12 school property) sometimes pass due to mass voting by local groups.

Honest reviewers who flag these correctly end up with a “Disagreement” and see their rating drop.

This discourages fair reviewing and rewards abuse.

:white_check_mark: Suggested Solutions:

  1. Reward Correct Minority Rejections

If a nomination is later removed by Niantic due to abuse, appeal, or audit:

Reviewers who originally rejected it correctly should receive:

:white_check_mark: An Agreement added

:wrapped_gift: 1 free Upgrade per proven correct rejection

  1. Add “Trusted Reviewer” Status

A new reviewer status could be created for those with:

High agreement over time

Proven history of correct abuse reports

Criteria-aligned voting

Trusted Reviewers could receive:

:star: Review priority (their reviews carry more weight)

:fast_up_button: Faster nomination processing

:military_medal: Recognition badge or title

:open_mailbox_with_raised_flag: Access to special feedback/reporting channels

  1. Escalate Abuse with Multiple Flags

If several reviewers mark a nomination with a serious rejection reason (e.g. K-12 school, fake location), the system should:

:police_car_light: Pause the nomination

:detective: Escalate for Niantic staff review before final decision

:bullseye: Why This Matters:

As someone who reviews actively and carefully, I’ve seen nominations that clearly break the rules get approved because of group manipulation — like school students approving their own school court.

When I reject these, I get penalized, even though I followed the rules. That’s discouraging, and it makes honest reviewing feel pointless.

Rewarding reviewers who do the right thing, even when outvoted, would:

Improve the quality and fairness of the map

Reduce abuse and manipulation

Encourage reviewers to stick to the official criteria

:folded_hands: Final Thought:

Please consider rewarding reviewers for making correct, criteria-based rejections — even when they’re in the minority. Giving a free Upgrade and recognizing these reviewers with a Trusted status would go a long way in strengthening the Wayfarer community.

Thank you for reading and for continuing to improve the system!

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I don’t believe that “Voting Rings” are as big as a problem these days as they used to be.

As more and more players are eligible to be Wayfarers the chance that a group of say 20 people getting there own nominations to Vote on diminishes.

I also rarely get Reviews in my “play area”, the vast majority are for surrounding towns and not the town am in reducing even more the chance that a “group” would get enough votes from themselves to change the outcome.

I understand why Niantic should not give out how Voting works but If they did it could confirm this opinion either Yes or No.

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If you notice any voting ring,you can report them in abuse form

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Hello and welcome @DazdingGlow

Thanks for taking your time to write up your thoughts and ideas about this.
I would be interested to learn more about what parameters you would use to assess if someone was reviewing correctly. When we review we should assess carefully but there are always cases that could go one way or another where it is a judgement call. It’s not “wrong” that one person comes down in favour and another against in these balanced scenarios. You will see plenty topics on this forum with differences of opinion expressed.
And wayfarer has a lot decisions that are in the grey area.

You have mentioned wayspots on schools - do report these - but are there other types of wayspots that you are finding problematic?

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The timing of this post, which I believe is expressing frustration over reviewers accepting everything, with the timing of another post, Do people just reject stuff to be nasty?, expressing frustration over reviewers rejecting everything, is very interesting to me. I love that both extremes of the spectrum are illustrated.

I do believe that the majority of people who volunteer their time to Wayfarer are trying to be as accurate as they can in an activity that doesn’t always have yes or no answers. I don’t think that a correct rejection should be rewarded any more than a correct acceptance. We do have a Wayfarer rating, and it is possible this rating already affects the weight of their reviews from comments made in the past.

I also believe that flags may already send a nomination into Niantic staff Review, because we have had people ask here why they can’t upgrade their nomination and staff have replied that it was flagged for internal review. But I think that if it is flagged then we can’t earn an agreement on that one. I don’t know.

I do agree that more education is needed to prevent people from submitting and reviewing against criteria. That is one of the AMA questions I voted for. I also voted for one about how hard it is to get something removed from the game map that should not have been accepted. Those are also frustrations for me.

I love seeing your thoughts! Welcome to the forum!

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Yes, absolutely.

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Thank you my friend! As of now, no, and I actually not that strict with my review especially in rural area, but if nominator is sneakingly take picture of sport court which is inside of high school area, i definitely would not accept it. And report.

I don’t intent to push on this idea of mine actually, suddenly struck cool idea i think maybe it worth to share in forum. This is my first ever forum i share by the way.

THANK YOU and ADIOS!

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Hello Cyndiepooh! Thank you for your warm welcome!

Really? What a coincidence XD
I actually just have this idea and want to share, and I hope that highschool or primary/secondary school should not be nominate, but who knows maybe there are group of students thinking that ‘why not we take picture of basketball or badminton court as pokestop in our school’

Luckily, in my area there are no such case of school become pokestop, i only see that in nomination review.

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I think it would be interesting if marking a submission as a certain category e.g. school, bench, hiking trail etc. would link to the corresponding clarification on here so people could easily check the guidelines while reviewing

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That would be a great use of the categories imo. A lot of the categories are things that are not eligible, and the link could explain this. Idk if this could be implemented since the categories seem to be separate from Wayfarer.

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As it’s been stated that the categories are not really used I would say they should be removed.

A better use for eMiLy would be if it could try to work out what you are reviewing and give advice on criteria.

“This looks like a Play Park, only 1 waypoint should be accepted for the whole Play Park”
“This looks like a Bench, Should be Rejected unless …”

etc.

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That sounds like an awesome use of the AI, but I do think categories could be helpful for doing this, to help Emily link relevant info if the image recognition fails

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That would rely on submitters selecting the correct categories.