Warning received for unjustified reasons in our community

Hello,

Long time lurker making my first post, I’m starting this topic in the hope of finding real answers and even a solution to a problem we’ve been experiencing for some time within our Wayfarer user community.
Recently, some of our municipalities have started creating special street name plates to highlight the role played by the historical figure who gave the street its name, indicating their profession and date of birth/death, to make it easier to identify them and find information about them. In the example below, the street was named in tribute to Judge Falcone, an Italian judge who made history through his fight against crime and was the originator of the “Falcone method” (sorry, English isn’t my primary language, so I don’t know if the term used is the same in English). These plates have the distinction of presenting the street and the person concerned in French but also in Corsican, the official language of the island. This, in addition to the information provided, gives them a cultural touch that, in my opinion, is not insignificant.

Here is the concerned proposal (This isn’t my best supporting info, this I can concede) :

Recently, some Wayfarer users in our small community have started proposing these plates as wayspots, having deemed them to be of educational and cultural interest. Both the Wayfarer reviewers and its team have agreed with us, as several of them have been accepted.
However, we recently encountered a problem with some of them. They have started to be rejected, sometimes by the reviewers, sometimes by the Wayfarer team, for several reasons:

  • Rejections deem these proposals non-permanent (As a reminder, these are street names, which in my opinion are as permanent as any other plate, and a huge number of existing waypoints are plates).

  • Other rejections (often from the Wayfarer team, this reason having come up in 2 appeals for plates rejected for the other two reasons stated) consider that these plates are “mass-produced” and therefore not eligible. As a reminder, these are street name plates with a translation into Corsican language, limiting not only their use to our island, but also to a single street, these plates cannot be found anywhere other than on the street bearing their names and generally only one copy is found on this street. Therefore, considering these plates as mass-produced would amount to applying the same criterion to sports facilities, tree name plates, or others under the pretext that their format is identical, and we all know that this treatment is not correct, otherwise a large number of commonly accepted waypoints would be called into question.

  • The third reason for rejection is, in my opinion, the most serious, and it concerns the example proposal as well as another, which were rejected because “The text or photo contains insults, mockery, or harassment against a specific person or group.” This leads me to believe that the only reason some bad reviewers might have for flagging this proposal for this reason is the presence of words in the Corsican language. These words can be translated quite easily on Google and attest to the absence of insults or other insults (obviously given the installation of these signs by municipalities). The word “Carrughju” is the most common on these signs, meaning “Road” or “crossroads” in Corsican. So, ironically enough, this flag as “harassment against a group” is not only false but also constitutes harassment and discrimination against the Corsican people.

As Wayfarer users, we are accustomed to the occasional misjudgment of certain proposals. We generally endure our troubles, resubmit our proposal, sometimes multiple times, and feel a sense of justice and accomplishment when unfairly rejected proposals are finally approved.
But this time, two users within our community received email warnings about these proposals in the last two days, reminding us of these “reasons” and indicating the risks of being banned in the event of a repeat offense. This is all the more worrying since other proposals are in progress and can no longer be canceled (which we don’t want to do anyway, these proposals being perfectly relevant, as the ones already accepted prove it, but we can’t help but worry about our accounts).

These emails offered to contact the team via a form if we felt this report was abusive, which is what we did today. And if my friend received a response indicating that it was only an email encouraging her to review the Wayfarer criteria, I received a much more aggressive response indicating that an investigation had been carried out on my account and that the proposal in question had “violated the Wayfarer criteria”, and telling me that I should consider this email as my warning, and reminding me again of the risks of ban. Given all the elements presented in my form (the same as in this post), the presence in wayspot of plates of the same type indeed accepted (sometimes even by the Wayfarer team following appeals), the absence of a precise explanation concerning this judgment, and the banal format of the response I received, I consider this response in the best case scenario as negligence or even as an abuse of power on the part of the employee who responded to me. This is all the more frustrating since my friends and I spend a lot of time studying Wayfarer criteria and verifying submissions (we all have the highest Wayfarer rating, which is “Super” in French), so receiving this type of response is extremely demotivating and may even push some of us to abandon Wayfarer if this type of behavior continues or recurs.

I hope this thread can provide us with answers and solutions, both from other users like us and from the Wayfarer team, so that we can all continue to contribute to Wayfarer and the games that use this information and bring us together.

Thank you for reading and have a good evening,
GoldExp2b

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I copped a 90-day ban once for submitting a dozen or so street name signs for streets named after local World War 2 resistance members who died in the extermination camps. I wouldn’t bother with these.

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The full rejection reason is for “Temporary or *not Distinct.” Reviewers were trying to tell you these were just street signs, and not something significant in its environment. Not that they didn’t think it was permanent.

This is how the rejection reason reads when “Abuse” is selected. If reviewers saw these street signs continue to be submitted, they may start marking the nominations as “Abuse.”

I wish the rejection reasons stated on the contribution more accurately reflected what the reviewers selected.

We would need to see what you said in your reply to see why the reply was so harsh if this was about the nomination you shared here.

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Let me add a few more points. When we press the “Report” button at the top of the review screen, this window will appear. “Abuse” should be the result of the selection.

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I agree. We’ve had some ask if these street signs for streets named after historical/cultural figures in the area meet criteria, and it hard to see them meeting so, especially if there are a few of these signs along the street. Here’s one of the most recent discussions: Streetsigns with historical and cultural background. What is the community opinion on this?

@GoldExp2b Here in the US, we have many streets named after historical/cultural figures, and there are several signs along those streets that indicate where you are. MLK Jr has several named after him, and many of these are miles long, not short at all. My hometown has avenues named after important figurers in our state’s history, but none are short, and there are many other towns/cities with streets named after them.

Street signs are a part of infrastructure, and even if the street is named after someone noteworthy, there most likely will be a few of the signs along said street. Infrastructure is usually indistinct, and I don’t find these signs to be distinct at all. It may be best to stop submitting these, as there have been some that have received warnings/bans for submitting these.

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That is my understanding of the community consensus too, these are primarily street name signs and not eligible despite the explanatory text on the sign.

On the other hand, I have seen town squares and similar places named after people accepted as wayspots. A square is a more eligible place for socialisation I guess.

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Hello and welcome to the aspect of posting on the forum :smiling_face_with_sunglasses:

The points you make about the use of 2 languages and being confined to this island are interesting context.
What is under judgement here is whether this is still considered to be a routine street sign or if it has developed into an information sign.
Having a place sign in 2 languages is not unusual. Each line conveys the same information about the street.
If the persons name is incorporated into the name of the street then in effect all that is being added is a simple piece of information. The judgement call is around how much information needs to be added in order to take it beyond a street sign and turn it into more of an item to learn from. In some parts of the world I have seen separate plaques attached that do detail more.
It strikes me from the picture that a minimum has been added so that it doesn’t interfere with its purpose as a street sign. And a street sign is a routine piece of street furniture.

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I would agree with the others who state that these don’t really meet criteria - or at least are quite weak nominations.

However, I don’t agree that these are abusively bad nominations or warrent a ban. Especially given how confusing it is when some of these submissions were accepted, and others were rejected.

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I have learned a lot about the person because of what you have covered in this discussion. By naming a road after a person whose accomplishments we can learn about, we can help people to learn about the person if they notice the name of the road, and those who look it up will remember that person every time they pass by.
However, I do not feel the significance of going to the place directly. We cannot learn more about a person by going to that place. Therefore, I agree with the conclusion that this place is not appropriate for Wayspot.
But I also? iii s opinion, the OP is submitting this location because he recognizes it as an interesting place and has no malicious intent or intention to abuse it. I believe that a degree of educational caution is appropriate, not a warning. in my opinion.

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I think thats what I was feeling too - it’s not malicious or abuse, its just a disagreement on what’s interesting to one person or another. Hence why I think its just something that could be rejected with no further action taken

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Hello everyone,

First of all, thanks to all of you for the feedback, when I made this topic I was afraid that it would be buried with no real answer so I’m really happy to see it’s not the case.
I will do my best to address all points raised, I apologize in advance in case I missed anything.

Wow, a 90-day ban is a lot… had some of these street name signs been accepted prior to that ?

This was the first thing I thought of when I saw this rejection reason, but then I remembered the rejection reason for “lack of historical or cultural significance” and thought that was the “not distinct” aspect of this selection, and that a manual decision was made by the Wayfarer team following a rejection for “Temporary or not Distinct.” to select one of these two causes. If that’s not it, then I guess this rejection reason is the “educational” aspect of the wayspot?

About this one, and as shown in the screen @CrownFeather posted by replying to you (thanks a lot for pointing that !), the “Abuse” selection is supposed to be used specifically for offensive proposals. If I remember correctly, a few years ago there wasn’t such a distinction between “abuse” and “Abuse”, so I can understand that some people are still using this selection based on the old system, but the confirmation message is quite detailed and even indicates to make sure that it is indeed an abuse (which in my opinion implies “as detailed on this selection screen”). It seems unfair to me to receive a warning for abuse/offensive language when the people who made this selection will probably not receive a warning for their misuse of this reporting function.

My response was more or less identical to my post, stating the 3 reasons for refusal that we encountered and expressing my incomprehension at this warning. I would nevertheless like to point out that this response from Wayfarer strongly resembled a standard message/an automatic copy and paste.

@DTrain2002 While I completely understand that my proposal concern a street sign, I must admit that seeing this post would not have dissuaded me from wondering about the possibility that the plaque I proposed would be judged differently. Indeed, we also have a lot of “simple” street signs (like the one in the linked discussion, which if I am not mistaken only indicates the name of the person and the mention “street”? I apologize in advance if a subtlety of information due to the language escapes me regarding this sign) paying homage to historical figures, and it never occurred to us to propose them. However, these signs that we proposed do not just repeat the name of the historical figure with the mention “street”, they also specify their profession as well as their date of birth and death. They are certainly not complete signs with a complete history of the figure, but they are in my opinion more informative than street name signs such as those in the linked discussion.

@shritwod I agree with the socialisation aspect of squares being more important, I however also saw various plates that weren’t squares in the nearby wayspots when reviewing, some of them even without the profession of the historical figure, just their date of birth/death, adding to this those of the same model as mine that were accepted in our city, it indeed is quite confusing :confused:

@elijustrying Thank you for highlighting the question of the amount of information needed for a plate of this type to be considered relevant! This is indeed the point that led my community and me to propose these wayspots, the latter having two more pieces of information than “standard” street signs, and once again, the validation of some of them led us to think that these 3 pieces of information (Name + Profession + Date of birth and death) could make the plate sufficiently educational.

@frealafgb and @CrownFeather Thank you for your support regarding the non-necessity of receiving a warning/ban for this type of proposal! Indeed, once again, I understand that the relevance of these proposals as wayspots varies from one user to another (if all our proposals had been directly refused, we would have simply concluded that this information present on the signs was not relevant enough and would have directly stopped proposing them), but having never received the slightest warning after years of using wayfarer, and proposing wayspots for which the validity was much more vague because never defined by precedents/discussions/AMAs from a few years ago, it is incredibly frustrating to receive one for proposals similar to others yet accepted without problem :confused:

In addition to the information in my initial post, here is an example of one of the signs that went up a few days-weeks before this one, located somewhat further away but probably quite visible in nearby wayspots.

What pains me is that in the end, we can only speculate in regards to what is and isn’t pertinent to propose, and it is especially difficult when contradictory elements can make us doubt, and therefore push us to stop considering potential wayspots that the wayfarer community may judge relevant and for which the gray area sometimes present in the criteria cannot be clearly and officialy delimited :confused: And refusal af these wayspots is one thing, but being unlegitimately reported and risqking a ban for a understandable doubt about their eligibillity is something else…

Thanks a lot again for all your replies, made me feel better, have a good day !

This is what shows up when reviewers select “Generic Business” we think.

then i agree that issuing a warning for this was too harsh. i wonder if staff will confirm whether or not there is a strike on your account, or if this was meant to be an “educational email.”

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Indeed, I was quite sure that there was a more specific reason for rejection corresponding to this in the past, but checking my proposals again I can’t find it, so indeed it’s probably the “Generic Business” result. Thanks a lot for the clarification !

The mail clearly indicated to consider this a warning, and I had a popup that appeared when I logged into Wayfarer, indicating that I had received a warning, and advising me to review the eligibility criteria so as not to repeat this “rules violation” which could lead to a ban. However, for the past hour or two, this message has not appeared. Here is the message in question:

Yes, many of those street name signs were accepted. The Pokestops were then removed shortly after and I got banned for 90 days.

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Did you receive this?


It will popup everytime you login

Its just1 day warning. You can still login to pogo and wayfarer as usual but Its stil 1st strike of abuse ladder system.
If yes, then i suggest you appeal because next strike is 30 days suspension. You wont be able to play pogo and wayfarer for 30days

Hi @GoldExp2b, I have shared details. Please check my DM.

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