I’m tempted to do something similar. While my rating is great, I notice my agreement rate slowly slipping downward.
Wondering if everyone saw this post:
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I still have doubts whether they can make a “fix” for ratings dropping. Because
it seems to me that with the current review flow having very few candidates that are clearly accept or reject, that there are going to be lots of disagreements even for reviewers applying criteria correctly.
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If the title /description text is poor, but accurate - and not insulting - let it pass (and hope someone will edit to correct it later). For example, if the real name is “First Baptist Church”, and the submitted title is “Church”, that’s not great but it passable. “Trail headquarters” is incorrect. “Where the Devil Lives” is insulting and so maybe abusive.
If the supporting picture has people or license plates, that’s only disqualifying if you think it’s an attempt to sway voters. Like maybe they’ll know the person or dog and vote positively. Or maybe it’s an uninformed mistake.
Finger partially obscuring the lense is probably a good rejection. But I imagine the crop that Niantic showed them at the end of the nomination process. If there’s no way they could have seen the sliver of their finger… I might give it a pass. Especially if it’ll be cropped out in all games.
If the POI is not in the Supporting… sometimes you can verify its location with satellite or streetview. Or the supporting has a landmark (like a billboard, building, distinctive tree) that is also in the primary. I only reject if the supporting leaves me totally confused about what is being nominated or where it is.
Licence plates and faces are a privacy issue, that’s why they’re not allowed. If the face or plate isn’t distinguishable then it’s a maybe, but they shouldn’t be distinguishable at any zoom level.
They are not disallowed in supporting photos. Ad MDV said, only disallowed in an attempt to sway voters.
So weirdly I’m back at “Great” despite my overall agreement rate continuing to decline. Anyone else seeing a bump in ratings?
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I moved back to Good. But only after a slow down in reviews. I am still reviewing the same way. But if I see anything of any doubt I just stop and go do something else. Or if I know I have rated a few in a row as doubtful or a no. I stop reviewing. Rating has stayed at good since.
It seems (and I am most likely wrong) that they still have not build a system that copes wiht AI removing most acceptables from the manual review process, leaving more questionable nominations and all the reviewers who chase rewards. To them it is just numbers not quality/applying criteria appropriately. IT will I suspect take a while to adjust their system to cope.
So I will stick to the guidelines but I will back off how many I review. As a FYI my review rate is about 1,000 a year so not super massive. I probably did more in covid years and less over the last year or so not really pushing that envelope.
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I’m also a victim of this.
I am still on Good.
So I wonder what it will take to get back to great. I know there is a lot of coal coming through right now. And while I was really wary of losing my rating again. I have decided to stick to criteria and not skip or ignore and come back later.
If you write it poorly, don’t support it, take dodgy photos, submit roads, random signs, state survey marks (please please please come back Emily and please please please Niantic make Emily run a get rid of SSMs operation on the old DB (thanks)). Ooops my personal hatred rising to the top there sorry. then I will reject it or down thumb (sounds a weird yoga move) - thumb down
My point being - if you reviewing correctly and for the right reasons you should carry on. IT is the system that is broke not you. The fact the system is glitching at the quality and quantity of nominations and at the quality of some reviewers. Not my fault. I ain’t broke 
I look forward to seeing how my change in attitude will affect my rating. As it is inevitable that I will reject more than I have for the last couple of months as I am reviewing more again
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That seems to be a problem with “crowd sourced” reviews. There’s also a problem with continuity and consistency since different reviewers vote differently at different times.
In effect, the criterion don’t matter much. Popularity is the thing.
I see a substantially similar problem on NextDoor which uses crowd source reviewing for their posts & comments.
License plates in supporting photo shouldn’t matter. Reviewers are the only ones who see that. It’s not public.
Also… we’ve been told that they would automatically obscure faces, license plates, etc. I know some other companies are doing that routinely these days.
Are you saying Niantic said this? I’m sorry, I don’t recall seeing this anywhere… Do you have a source for that?
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It was in the orientation stuff I went through recently. We were encouraged to avoid them but also reassured that they would be obscured if we couldn’t.
What orientation stuff? Are you mixing up scanning and Wayfarer?
Not mixing.
I was required to go through an orientation before the scanner would allow me to submit portals again. I had submitted some WAY back many years ago but had not done so through the wayfarer system. That option didn’t even show in my scanner until I had completed the orientation.
I went through OPR, too, including the old test.
The old criteria specifically showed examples where people could be in the main photo if they were unrecognizable and not the main focus. More recent actions and guides have moved away from that.
Niantic does not use tools or filters to obscure faces and I would reject such obstruction if it met the “obviously doctored” rejection reason.
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