Out of curiosity is Niantic Voting actually done by Niantic staff?
The reason I ask is, if this is the case then they are doing a pretty poor job of it. I’ve recently had 2 submissions rejected as Duplicates even though they definitely are not. The rejection reasons in the 1ast place were just typical for this area. (Most submission, unless it is in a city, get rejected either, unsafe access, or duplicate without it actually being a duplicate).
In one of the cases it was rejected as a dupe, and I clearly explained this in the appeal that it was not.
In the second instance, it wasn’t actually rejected as a dupe but was rejected as such by Niantic. Even though again it is not.
To be honest, I’m really losing faith in the whole wayfarer experience. Apart from the ratings issues, wasting a ton of time on submissions just to have them rejected(after 2-3+ months if you don’t have upgrades) then wasting 1 of your 2 appeals and your time appealing them, just to have a clearly wrong rejection from Niantic themselves is disheartening to say the least and no way of discussing an appeal after it’s been decided, added to that the constant risk of losing your account for actually trying to improve the experience is just a beyond disheartening.
I know from the groups I’m in that a lot of people are just fed up with the whole thing and don’t even bother with reviewing or submitting anymore. Maybe this is the why.
Anyway, rant over. Just extremely disappointed with the whole appeals and follow up by Niantic.
To be honest Eli, I’m not bothered. Spent enough time on these submissions as it is. There is no way to communicate after a submission appeal. It wasn’t a removal request and the appeal is now used.
I basically wrote an essay explaining the background to the submission, attached it’s protected structure listing number, gave a full breakdown of ingress points, why it clearly fits criteria etc.
Same as the last one which I can’t do anything about because I can’t edit the photo that was used and led to it being wrongly flagged as a dupe. I clearly explained the situation on that one also but it looks like the explanation wasn’t read. If it was passed I could easily have switched the original photo (which I couldn’t see resembled the one I took at the time of submission because it is in ingress).
It’s just sapping the enthusiasm I had for trying to improve the local area which has plenty to be added. Unfortunately here there seems to be a culture of just rejecting submissions in the false belief it will get a listing in someone else’s local area approved quicker. Which if the they haven’t noticed by now does not work.
It’s the same feeling throughout the local community. Basically they are all of the impression, what’s the point, it’s going to be rejected anyhow.
@elijustrying I appreciate your reply though. Don’t get me wrong. It’s just disheartening. I’ll see how my others fair out. Just feels like a waste of time going to the effort to explain everything on the appeal just to have it rejected for a completely different (wrong) reason than it was originally appealed on. It feels like they are looking for a reason to reject stuff. Also seems like titles and descriptions have no meaning when being decided on as they clearly are describing different things.
Niantic has asked us in the past to please let them know when they got it wrong, and I have seen bad appeal decisions overturned after being posted on the forum. If you really feel it was a bad decision, you should post.
@cyndiepooh I’m going to just redo both submissions, different photos, try to counter all of the previous objections and if they fail then I’m giving up. Is there a way to link multiple photos in supporting? I know I’ve seen it mentioned here before but I’m terrible at finding posts when I need them.
Some people will make a collage for their supporting photo. I am not generally a fan of those but have done it once when I needed to show both the surroundings to prove the location and a close up of the plaque for an art piece.
I have also seen people suggest uploading photos to an external site, then linking to that in the supporting, but idk how likely people are to click the links.
Ya it was the external site one I was going to do. At least the extra photo evidence will be available when it has to be appealed. I’ll try to figure it out. I agree with you on the collage, they don’t look great and I’d probably end up giving another reason to reject for bad photos, even though they would be supporting.
Sorry this just knocked the umpfh out of me. Been trying to improve the area for everyone but it feels like a lot of work for little reward.
I’m not sure submitters or reviewers should be of the mindset that we are entering or judging a photographic competition.
Especially for support which is meant to convey as much info as possible to help the reviewer. I’ve used a collage a few times in support and reviewed a few with collages and I’m grateful for the effort the submitter has put in to make the review easier for me.
As an example this one looks a beehive which I thought reviewers might not like but I didn’t just want to take a close up of the little metal plaque either side of it which explain what it is.
I’ve made a collage of my main picture and support collage I used for you
i guess i should explain that the reason i am not a fan of collages generally is because the smaller pieces are harder to see. here is the one time i mentioned that i did use a collage
@CountKnick i know you said you don’t want to waste more time on these. But i am curious why ML didn’t pick them up, so i would like to see them as well. Probably 80% or more of my recent submissions get approved by ML, (as long as it is working). So when others experience something different, I’m interested in understanding why.
Also to add to some of the comments, one of my wayfarer Poke stop got approved, however it’s been more than a week after approval I still don’t see the new Poke stop that I’ve created! I wonder why is that?!?
I’ve had more of my edits go into Niantic voting as of late, and only 1 was rejected, but I later found that I did submit the wrong info, and the correct info has now been approved by both ML and the community.
I currently have a description edit in Niantic voting for a Wayspot that’s never had a description. I know it can take a few days for a decision to be given, but again, I’ve had no issues.
In fairness, any edits I’ve put through have been pretty straightforward and very little rejections apart from a lag issue where the same submission went through multiple times(obviously after the 1st one was accepted the rest became duplicates and were rightly rejected). Think this was because of bad signal in the area and hasn’t been an issue since.
In a new nomination’s first day or so, “Niantic Voting” could mean ML / AI is looking at it. (For edits, ML happens in the first minute, so you’d never see “Niantic Voting” on an edit.)
After that, it’s going to someone paid my Niantic - maybe staff, but probably a contractor.
In much of the industry, in the U.S., there’s a push for “1 to 8”, meaning for every 1 onshore (U.S.) employee, we have 8 offshore (usually India) contractors. And the way it works is,. Someone onshore trains someone offshore, and that offshore person writes it up. The onshore company gives the contractors documentation. And then going forward the contractors train each other. Occasionally the onshore company contacts the lead contractor with updates, and they train the others.
Hello @Kuch26
You are new to this forum so please do read the guidelines as we try to ensure that all are treated with respect.
Reviewers are fellow wayfinders. Reviewing takes place bearing in mind guidelines that Wayfarer have decided.
@CountKnick sorry to hear about this experience. It sounds really frustrating. One thing I noticed in one of your comments, was that you mentioned Ingress. I don’t play that myself, but I think I have read if you nominate through that, you don’t see any wayspots that are used in other games, but aren’t in Ingress for whatever reason. In PoGo, when you nominate, you are able to see on the map ALL of the existing wayspots in the area.
Is it possible that your nominations might exist in the database, just aren’t in the game? I don’t know if you play PoGo at all to be able to see through that.
I know the admins here can check the full lightship map if you can share the details of even one of them - they could let you know if it is on there already, just not visible to you?
The footbridge is a crossing point over the Longniddry Burn on The John Muir Way, one of Scotland’s Great Trails. At this point on the 135 mile trail it runs along the coast over burns and rivers from the North Sea. Following the trail path is only possible by using these footbridges.
John Muir, the father of the US national parks, was born in Dunbar then emigrated to the US and became one of it’s first environmentalists protecting, conserving and saving forests and wildernesses.
I submitted a title and description edit for the same Wayspot on June 24th, and both went into Niantic Voting. The title didn’t include the city, which is officially in the name of the business, and the original description had been copied word for word from the business’ website (sports/trading card/collectibles store, if wondering), and mentioned Pokémon, which is a no-no. I assumed ML accepted it originally, since this was the first time I saw it, and I was over in the area to nominate a church after seeing signs for it while running errands. Both were resolved and accepted by June 26th, so still no issues from me with Niantic Voting reviews.
Oh, and ML accepted the church within 24 hours. Also can’t complain about that.
