The more I stick to the guidelines, the faster my rating drops

Hi Community,
at first, I rated things based on my personal judgment and gave many positive ratings. As a result, my rating quickly rose to “Great”. However, as I became more familiar with the guidelines, I started rejecting more suggestions, which caused my rating to drop just as quickly.

It seems that not only is it difficult for some players to choose a good title and an appropriate description, but it also often happens that the submitted images show identifiable people, license plates, or pets of the submitter. Additionally, sometimes a finger partially obscures the lens. Moreover, the described wayspot is often not visible in the surrounding photo.

I don’t even want to start discussing road signs…

How do you handle such submissions?
For my part, I have started to only directly reject suggestions that are clearly not a wayspot. If a suggestion is actually worthy of rejection, but I know it would pass under the given circumstances, I use the ‘I don’t know’ button. This can’t really be the intended way… can it? I can’t skip all the bad suggestions, because then I would have to stop reviewing after just 5 minutes because my skips would be used up.

Thanks for your inputs and best regards

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Hey there, if you think that this is your issue then posting the submissions you review asking for feedback might be a good idea

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Thanks for your reply.
I’m a little afraid that this could be seen as spam, because I often face this problem. Maybe I’m just being too picky?

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This does sound frustrating. I’m new to this so it’s good to read this and know that’s what might happen.

May I ask, as a new user, what are the advantages of having a high score and the disadvantages of a low one?

Thanks in advance.

Your votes carry more weight the higher your rating is. Additionally, any agreements you earn whilst you’re in Good or Great standing as a reviewer count towards your Wayfarer medal in Pokémon Go and Ingress.

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Thanks @hankwolfman but why the sudden drop. It seems there is less interesting material coming through and sticking to the process is seeing ratings drop. Not saying we should not be tested on what is coming through but with zero indication as to why it drops - then you are left scratching your head…Well I am scratching. !

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I always tried to find a way to accept.

In a similar fashion as I learnt more from this site I became more prone to not accept. I have always used skip and don’t know a fair bit.

I believe the change in guidelines over swimming pools in apartment / accommodation complexes has destroyed my rating. By accepting them as per advice my rating has dived.

Doing few reviews now.

I now think it is about guessing correctly how the other reviewers in your pool will vote. We are judged on agreements not on adherence to the guidelines.

You are not alone @Paddel6952

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I have the same problem, since Emily has been more active most of the ones I see in manual review are not eligible under my interpretation of the guidelines, so I mostly reject them. Rating has dropped from Great to Good before and then back to Great, but recently it dropped to Good again.

The sort of thing I’m talking about are unremarkable memorial benches, generic footpath markers that aren’t part of a walking trail, generic businesses, slanted or simply bad photographs, badly spelled titles and descriptions.

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You think posting these here would be spam? No, it wouldn’t be

Im in the same boat with my rating, was always great before this year’s edit challenge and since then its been going between good and great as if I’m right on the border

I definitely agree that with the ML taking the obvious stuff, there’s just less agreement available on what’s left - the awful stuff and the best stuff is all gone, so no more easy agreements and lots of middling stuff

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This could serve as a good example.
The title is inaccurate: The sign is about the historic building “Gasthaus Post” and mentions that Goethe stayed there. The description is also very poor.
The photo of the surroundings at least includes the building, but there is a license plate on it.
I don’t feel comfortable accepting this suggestion, but I know it will pass, so I have to vote in a way that doesn’t affect my rating, or hit skip.


I can’t read this, but given its a plaque at a hotel, I think this is the kind of thing that often would be accepted. How inaccurate is the title? Is it really bad, or just not ideal?

The license plate in the supporting photo is fine - its only the main photo that can’t have license plates and faces in it. With the support photo its often unavavoidable.

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good to know that there may be plates on the supporting photo. thanks for the info.

The sign says something like This is the old building “Gasthof Post” where Goethe slept in 1970 on his travel to Venice.

It’s just very inaccurate and the name has probably chosen to focus on Goethe instead of an old Guest House which might be not accepted by many people, although the wayspot is about the sign and not the building.

:eyes:

I do.

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Okay, for me that’s not a title that Id reject, because it talks about something interesting linked to the location

But I can see what youre saying

This would be one of the stronger nominations I get to see :laughing:

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So if the nomination is focussed on the sign then you are reviewing the sign and not what is around it.
Is the sign and the information it contains, in a safe location, is it distinct is it permanent etc.
Is it interesting? Would you want to stop and read it?

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If the title, description, and photo all feature the sign, then the nomination IS the sign. Make your judgement about the sign. I would consider this a historical marker and accept it

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Same here. Sometimes I just think people in my area are not reading the guidelines at all or the community are just abusing and that’s it. For now I am just skipping bad nominations that I already saw similar Pokéstops in game and just rejecting the ones that are really absurd.

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The sign is totally about Goethe. Just look at the size of the letters and how much detail it gives about him vs the gasthof. The title isn’t interesting or informative but it’s not inaccurate at all.

In the US “Washington slept here” or maybe Lincoln used to be a common thing to lend a little historical interest to an old building. There’s even a play/movie by that name.

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I’m currently at Fair and it’s been dropping after being at great. My own personal submissions have been featured three times in the last couple months. So I assume I kind of know what a good wayspot should look like. But after doing 20 reviews of memorial plaques on the east coast. 25 reviews of athletic fields in the Midwest. It gets pretty boring pretty quick but that’s when my rating goes up.

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