The problem with an 'Edit's challenge'

Challenges
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I would like to express the problems from an edits challenge and would like to ask to not organize on of these anymore. Today I received a formal warning regarding my contributions (which I appealed).

Regarding the warning, this was based on a location edit. I started my challenge late, because I missed the memo from this challenge. I had to make sure to do all 15 edits every day. In the beginning things wend smooth, because I knew some points in my area, that could use improvement. Later in the challenge things wend tough and I was adviced to use the activity feed from COM. This was more complex, because I didn’t really know most portals there. I had to stick to correcting titles that would be missing a first capital, or description that were missing text, capitals op punctuation’s. Most of these were accepted by ML within days, so that was a good thing.

The location edits were a bit of a long shot outside of my area. Not alone it was a whole new area I wasn’t familiar with, but also the waypoint network within my direct community is already very accurate due to active players that really want to make sure the information and locations are accurate. In a way this accurate network punishes players that would want to do the challenge around here.

I tried to solve my lack of location edits to edit playgrounds. I really took the time to pinpoint them at the best location, however most edits were already at their best. I did have some edits that were 98% or 99% accurate and just gave this little tweak to improve it over this last 1%. Sadly this was flagged as abuse and got me a formal warning.

This is more than just the following warning. There is also an issue with a title edit from a waypoint with a accurate name, which got a new title which could be considered offensive by a minority within my own town. I entered the old name as a title edit during the challenge, but it’s still pending. If it is rejected I will appeal this and expecting to resolve this, but the fact a challenge like this moves people to do incorrect edits is a real problem if you ask me.

My experiences with this challenge were stressful and moved me to do things I would not have done in other circumstances. It was especially rewarding in areas where people provided a mess of a waypoint network (inaccurate locations, titles, etc).

The original challenges, where you just would have to accept wayspots within a certain area / country are more fair for all participants and should have been the main focus if you ask me. I hope this was the last edits challenge, and the next one is a old fashioned Wayfarer challenge again.

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Hello @kenbeimer

Thank you for posting your reflections about the challenge.
It was a new idea to try and look at editing wayspots so it is worth thinking about how it went. There are a lot a wayspots that need amending

So this was a great collective attempt to improve.

It did have negatives.
When reviewing the work flow comes to you no matter where you are.
The edits challenge was not like that.
To get photos you need to go there.
There was a marked difference between Pokemon Go and Ingress as to how you could do text and location edits as Ingress has a large distance which you could do it from whereas Pokémon Go you had to be essentially be there.

I spent hours and clocked up a large distance walking, going from place to place to take better pictures and check out that actual wayspot. I was concerned that some Ingress players may well be editing wayspots they had no direct knowledge of. In the extreme they may have been editing something that didn’t exist any more.

You say


It is a challenge there is no compulsion to take part. I understand the fear of missing out but you were not forced to do things you wouldn’t otherwise do.

The hard truth is you chose to take those actions. As part of that you were editing places you didn’t know. You say these areas appeared to be a mess but it sounds as though the end result was that your changes were not actually cleaning up the mess.
The rewards for completing the challenge are good and the badge tick in Ingress is a much wanted prize. But sometimes our circumstances mean we can’t get to that end goal. You should just accept it’s not going to be possible rather than make a decision to take risks that you know may be wrong.

When we make decisions we need to take responsibility for them.

You have made an appeal and it will be looked at. Hopefully that appeal is based on something more solid and is therefore accepted.

Your reflections I hope will remind fellow wayfinders that if you accept a challenge you accept everything that goes with it.

4 Likes
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I don’t think it’s fair to categorize this under ‘fear of missing out’. If there is something organized with rewards it’s obvious you would want to participate. Like I stated in my post, areas with a poor waypoint network are rewarded with a lot of possibilities, while the areas where agents already did this challenge without getting rewarded for it are now punished with limited possibilities.

What stings the most is that location edits that were not false, but maybe not necessary are flagged as abuse, while title edits that decrease the value, or even create offensive titles are accepted, and not adressed at all.

Your reply gives me a strong “good for you, but you’re wrong” vibe. Therefor I would like to request one more time to actually consider the points given in my point of view to be evaluated, and hopefully discontinue the idea of an edits challenge.

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I’ve been looking to find the wayspot in general that got me a warning. While the warning is technically correct, I don’t think it’s fair given the circumstances.

It was a playground that was pinned under trees, while there was a clearly visible playground sandspot right next to it. I moved the pin towards the sand, because I genuinely thought the playground in question was on the sand.

Wayspot in general was the climbing part from the playground and not the whole playground as one. The picture didn’t contain the rest from the playground and editing a portal via Ingress doesn’t provide a streetview option to double check. If there wasn’t a challenge, I would never have made this edit, but I was advised by ambassadors back then to find other portals via COM. Mistakes like these I actually feared, wish I kept it to edits in my own area / edits within candidates I knew.

gps
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[https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/_s4igAwMCKe9sA0vYIpgx0damijmsRANZg6UNrGaPjZvmvHpkgD1QLW5JVe2BajHKSsFVPj21U4EIl_3YEje2zv4Abnc]

(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/_s4igAwMCKe9sA0vYIpgx0damijmsRANZg6UNrGaPjZvmvHpkgD1QLW5JVe2BajHKSsFVPj21U4EIl_3YEje2zv4Abnc)

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sarcasm on:
is there any ambassador available to ask him to give me 100 euro :slight_smile:
Sarcasm off:

everyone is still responsible for own actions / edits despite what has been said.

2 Likes
6

This could get you 5 OPR live ticks back when it was part of anomalies :stuck_out_tongue: