You do kinda make a good point. I came from nominations taking 2.5 years without an upgrade, so 6 months would be nothing to me. If you are used to ML overnight accepts, this is probably excruciating.
I don’t understand the reluctance to use upgrades. Is the idea that the community thinks that upgraded nominations are more likely to be rejected? I used to assume I would have to use an upgrade to get a decision. Now between ML decisions and my play area being built out, I am sitting on over 100 of them.
I found it strange that new photos were (in most parts) accepted automatically and it threw me when I first noticed it happening, so it forces me to now take my time taking photos rather than submit and check later. Until ML came along, I was used to my nominations taking upwards of 3 years to get approved, but since one of the Global challenges extended to the UK which cleared my queue, seeing my nominations get approved or rejected quickly is unsettling to be fair.
I’ve pretty much stopped reviewing and only have 1 upgrade available, and am going to save it for a rainy day or an absolute certainity.
May I call your attention to Exhibit A? I got “yelled at” when I described the situation that you are now discovering for yourself. I maintain that Boston is not “broken.” It is experiencing the same issues that all cities are experiencing right now with ML taking the easy nominations and only iffy nominations going through voting. Those iffy nominations take longer to resolve because people don’t agree that they meet criteria. Upgrades are not applied because people from outside Boston review with a much more critical eye.
Do you have data or is that a hypothesis? My own impression (limited to a single Global Challenge during which I didn’t collect any data) is that the community outside Boston is more forgiving. I can only dream of a place far away where people approve community signs.
Thanks again to all those people who have been charitable with their time and effort and swapped bonus locations to Boston - we’re extremely grateful to you for your effort.
One of my concerns has been the overall Wayfarer malaise in Boston. I believe this is twofold: 1) People aren’t reviewing due to the flaws outlined in my original post. 2) People aren’t submitting, often for the same reasons. ML compounds some of these problems, which is both a good and a bad thing. My concern is that there may really not be that much for these generous reviewers to review in Boston, thus the queue remains “broken” while perhaps not being as “broken” as some may believe.
Earlier tonight during a PoGO meetup we ventured into a neighborhood we don’t typically go to while traversing between raid gyms. There were a small handful of valid POIs to submit in an underserved area. While this week is extremely busy with PoGO events and next week is a major holiday in the U.S. I’m not sure if I can get the numbers, but sometime before the end of the month I’d like to get a half dozen or more people to come out, explore, and submit some of these POIs so that they can learn how to submit and hopefully enjoy some of the passion for Wayfarer that we all have had at one point or another.
I’ll update folks if/when I’m able to schedule something, but hopefully we can get some things submitted and have them judged on their merit and this will help give us a better idea if submissions are in a troublesome spot or not.
I’ve been doing a fair amount of reviewing this past week. I’m seeing a lot of Stuff in NH, RI and DE. But VERY little actually in Boston. The POI’s I’ve seen in Massachusetts have been outside of the city limits of Boston. I guess I’m helping out those explorers.
Yep, this is consistent with our problem for the last several years. I really don’t have the time/energy to review anymore and have become part of the problem, but I did 10 reviews last week and got one in Boston. I was elated.
I did another 10 recently and got nothing, and just did another 10 and got 4 from my bonus, 2 from the local review area, maybe 45 miles outside of Boston, and 3 from California, and one in Evansville, Indiana
Thats about what i expect and get when i review myself… in order to get consistent local nominations i need to clear what is seemingly pending upgrades and rural priority, its not until im above 50 reviewed that i start getting more consistent local stuff
To clarify, I do not have much of a problem with this: I got a good amount from my local review area and my bonus location, and if I were to work on the queue I could find stuff. The problem occurs, as it has many times before, when I literally go 1021 reviews without a single review in the city while others have told me they have nominations in the queue.
In the meanwhile, I am reviewing nominations in densely populated regions of Texas, California, Mississippi while my local queue languishes. This has been the crux of the issue.
What is the general feeling on these kinds of nomination?
I would have preferred to consider the restaurants on their own merit rather than the sign for the “plaza”, which the support picture makes look like a car park rather than a meeting place
Your thoughts are more or less how I feel on this example and admit I’m probably not consistent if I saw slight variations across different days.
Is the description not wrong? Are any of those shops or just dining? A mild nitpick but one of those things that feels annoying with these plazas. If it was a pedestrian mall (strıp mall, row of shops you might walk to each from) I’d be more likely to approve.
I’ll be honest, I ended up rejecting it for generic business. I think this plaza (ie carpark) itself isnt a place to meet anyone.
I think the restaurants themselves would make better nominations, and I’d have been happy to accept those with a good writeup
For me, a true plaza is a gathering space, pedestrian, maybe seating, at the centre of something. Not the space outside a row of shops/restaurants.
I suppose for me it comes down to would I go to that sign to do anything? No, I’d want to go inside somewhere, because there’s nowhere to sit at the sign. Thats what it came down to in the end. I may be wrong and thats why I posted it because I wanna find out what the consensus is
Very few individual restaurants seem likely to see approval in the U.S. and there often is no ‘downtown’ or center. Car culture has many people just stopping off at a few widely-separated parking lots such as the one in the nomination which you rejected.
Niantic criteria say that these can be quality nominations. I try to look at what is on offer. A plaza that contains only a Tax Preparer, House Paints, and a Locksmith would be generic or not distinct or fail the holy trinity of socialize, explore, and exercise.
If I see some variety of food, drinks, entertainment, exercise, sports, culture, etc. in the mix I tend to accept.
For what it’s worth, as long as any of these restaurants were nominated without anything ineligible and either the nomination or an easy Google search supported a favorable standing in the community. I’m fine if I’m the minority and wish more people were more approving of dining establishments.
Also adding, this type of plaza rarely exists rurally - they tend to be suburban or urban. But I let consideration come in about what else is located around - in terms of active Wayspots and nearby culture in general.
Yeah I like restaurants as nominations, they are good places to be social, and in suburbs or further out, there isnt as much choice, so they are often popular with local people
I’ve had good luck nominating cafes and restaurants locally, but I dont know if things differ much in the US to here
