Rumors that the TRs are going away?
I'm hearing rumors that the Trusted Reports program will be modified so that tickets won't be fast tracked. That's has been instrumental in trying to limit spoofers effect on the game.
If that is the case is Niantic simply giving up and letting the spoofers win after this big battle with sellers of inventory? Kinda sad if that is the case.
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Krug says on his TG:
"So let's address the rumors. The Trusted Reporter program is not ending. The current iteration is. From time to time we evaluate our programs and make changes where needed. We've done this with the Vanguards, POCs, Embedded Reporters, Beta Testers, etc. The goal is to have the next version of the program up and running late next week or the week after at the latest with more clarity and ability to address issues at a larger scale."
I sure hope that is the case. If feels like the spoofers are winning and it's not even close.
At least it sounds like they are not sitting idle.
This is one of the most political formulated comments by Krug in the past months. It is not ending, but it is.... and we are rushing, since it will be ending less than a week from now. 😉
The Trusted Reporters indeed do a lot more that just "putting extreme cases of spoofing on top of the pile of support tickets", the initial scope of their role. Their influence within Niantic seems limited, but their influence on informing, deescalating, getting the right info to Niantic and to the community, etc etc etc is large. Plus their scope became broad: there is so much more than just blatant spoofing that they handle, directly or indirectly.
I understand Niantic is not happy with the way the program 'grew', and the role that TR's currently have. They have volunteers doing an employees job, With a close to employees time investment in some cases. This is a hard model to manage, however there are examples of companies who do this well.
I really hope that Niantic is aware that the Trusted Reporter programma in its current evolved form, is a SYMPTOM. It is a symptom of a badly functioning support & information system. If Niantic would educate their support employees better and not just serve the community with faulty, incorrect or 'canned' responses, plus make support employees understand which kind of tickets are urgent, why would a TR be needed to put tickets on top of the pile?
The TR program is a great program, and in it current form, we cannot miss it.... If this plan to change the TR system is new / suddenly came up, Niantic will not be able to address the underlying problem within a week, and find different solutions to bridge the gap between the community and Niantic on the most severe cases: spoofers ruining ops and ruining in-game defences.
I really hope there is a long term planning somewhere to address the way support functions, and not just take away the aspirine (TR's) helping the community to cope with the symptoms of the underlying problem.
(Btw TR's: great work, highly appreciated!! Thank you for all the time and effort and love you put into this role ❤️)
@ChiisaiKuma , that is the same feeling in the local groups I'm in. I have to say you put into words what I believe far better than I could have.
So, how's the spoofing going on in your area now?
No increase that I’ve noticed, actually. That could change any time and I don’t watch intel as closely as I used to, mind you.
A couple months ago we couldn’t get a clear spoofer banned because hey, he could have taken a private jet between those portals. I suspect the old days were different but these days I’m not sure we got much out of TRs except the warm fuzzy of talking to a person.
Strong. Tickets reporting an agent that took 16 minutes to go from a village to the highest mountain peak in the region (~2400m) are closed in a few hours with the usual message.
"The goal is to have the next version of the program up and running late next week or the week after at the latest"
This was... a month ago.
On September 6, it became : "We are still working on ironing out all the details to make the program scaleable and more efficient. As a result, it's taking longer than anticipated. Getting the new program up and running is a high priority for me and the Ingress team."
Any update? Any chance it will be operational before the shards event end, or before the anomaly series begin?