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:
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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).
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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.
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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
