Trusted Reporter Program Resumes

13

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  • ToxoplasmollyToxoplasmolly ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited November 2019

    When it was announced, a couple weeks ago, that the v2.0 Trusted Reporters (TRs) and Vanguards (VGs) were testing the new system, I noticed the emphasis on a “firewall” between the TRs and the VGs, and how the VGs don’t know who the TRs are. I started to speculate:

    • It’s reasonable to expect that portal resets will still go through the VGs.
    • It’s unlikely that Niantic is putting a zillion agents under an NDA.
    • It’s likely that Niantic will try to limit the workload on the TRs to manageable levels.
    • It’s likely that the TRs and VGs will be working together, somehow.

    There’s really only one scheme that hits all those points: Contact the TRs/VGs only for incidents involving portals that might plausibly be eligible for a reset. And indeed, that is the vibe from the newly announced program:

    The intention is to mitigate the actions of bad actors that may result in unnecessary hardships for normal Agents to revert. A good example of a situation to report would be a Spoofer that neutralized a mountain top Portal in a remote area.

    The Trusted Reporters are for flagging spoofer activity AND resets that are needed as a result.

    Thus, I see a reasonable path to how the newly resumed program took its shape, even if I might be wrong in some details and missing others. It is a logical path. It is an understandable path. And yet, I’m still saddened at how the program has grown smaller.

    The v1.0 TRs didn’t turn fellow agents away because, “that’s a dense urban area, go recapture it yourself.” I think they understood that spoofing is b.s. and frustrating and hurtful no matter where it occurs, and in an era when NIA OPS seemingly pays little or no attention to the average agent, the TRs were willing to help. They didn’t promise any sort of turnaround time, but they still apologized for being busy and slow to get back to you.

    I actually felt bad and hesitated about reaching out to them for all those incidents where I felt like normal support tickets to NIA OPS should have been enough but in actuality were not. Many of us are grateful for the time and effort of the v1.0 TRs — more time and effort than they originally volunteered for, I’m sure — and for putting in that time and effort without making the rest of us feel like an unwanted burden.

    Now, we have the v2.0 TRs, with a more limited scope, with rules and punishments to ensure that the masses don’t burden them with too many concerns. It is understandable. It is better than no TRs. But it is a shadow of what we had before.

  • WoodenMonkeyzWoodenMonkeyz ✭✭
    edited November 2019

    3 days ago, I tried the TR v2.0 , I don't think it's an upgrade of the old TR. It's seems similar to auto close ticket support system that i usually filled. No spoofer accounts has been banned even with very obvious proof (jump from 4 different island in just 1-2 hours. while it need about more 15-20 hours to go between island by ferry. no flight available). If spoofer with obvious proof like that can get away. I dont know what i must do to spoofers that act in urban area. Some spoofers i know really well because i play together with them on Pokemon Go (we are on the same Whatsapp Group). Some of them obviously use gps software like Ninja, FGL, iSpoofers, Map Walker or VMOS to play.

    By knowing the policy of new TR2.0. Now it's safe for spoofers to play, as long as they don't act on remote or strategic portal. So sad seeing the game is full of spoofers now. But i think it is inevitable. The game is dying.

    Post edited by WoodenMonkeyz on
  • ToxoplasmollyToxoplasmolly ✭✭✭✭✭

    Within 48 hours a Trusted Reporter will review the activity you flagged and inform you via the bot that they will or will not escalate the activity to NIA OPS to review.

    What kind of turnaround time can we normally expect, in practice? At 48 hours, reporting via the TRs would otherwise seem to be no faster than going straight to NIA OPS and https://ingress.com/support.

    My last eleven tickets to NIA OPS were closed in: 2 hours, 3 hours, 8 hours, 9 hours, 11 hours, 17 hours, and 34 hours (x5). So, that’s about one-third of them closed in under 12 hours, one-half of them closed in under 24 hours, and all of them closed in under 48 hours.

  • ShadusShadus ✭✭
    edited November 2019

    Having used the TR program for the first time since it's re-release, I have to say I'm pretty disappointed.

    I submitted the information and got a reply back of, "not low signal, not low density, we don't care." (paraphrased).

    As a player, I was just told, "we don't care about someone spoofing as long as it doesn't effect major ops" which really isn't the message you should be sending... that message should probably be re-worded at the minimum unless you want to encourage players to start spoofing to deal with spoofers you can't concern yourself with. Spoofing destroys any semblance of fair game-play in ingress. All spoofing. Not just spoofing of bgan portals and remote portals.

    Secondarily, I'm not sure what you think the spoofers in rural **** ohio are going to be doing after leveling 1-7 in a couple hours in closed fenced location... but I'll tell ya, they're going to spoof down things that you apparently do care about (low signal portals and remote anchors.)

    Previous TR program-- killed almost 4x the number of spoofers as we've had players since beta in this area... this TR program, "On yer own!"

    Disappointment and frustration doesn't begin to cover it.

    Edit: Don't get me wrong, I have always submitted things to the ticketing system-- over a hundred spoofers banned locally prior to the original TR program... but there's a big difference in the damage a spoofer can cause in a few hours (via old TR) vs the bans that take a week or two from the ticket system (when they're not just auto-closed 2h later.) Glad to have TR back around in some capacity so that 50-400 agents don't have their time wasted on big ops... but, frankly current handling of spoofing and cheating of all kinds in general is beyond the pale and is massively contributing to the reduction in spending on ingress and diminishing agent numbers.

  • I submitted the information and got a reply back of, "not low signal, not low density, we don't care." (paraphrased).

    Well, if you're submitting stuff that's in big cities with easy access, and they're acting in a way that's indistinguishable from a real player, TR's aren't going to be able to spot that anyway. If you can point out a specific case where they go from X to Y in far less than is possible (because they cross rivers, one way streets etc), it seems they'll still look at it.

    Previous TR program-- killed almost 4x the number of spoofers as we've had players since beta in this area... this TR program, "On yer own!"

    Likely you had someone in the TR program locally to you then, or someone that a TR trusted to give them good info. Now we have to all step up our quality of information instead of just tossing it over the fence and hoping. I've had some good successes so far by showing impossible times in urban areas and they still considered it. One in Vegas travelled across a freeway during peak hour faster than you could have run at full pace, and the way round by driving was at least twice as long as they took.

    Without local knowledge, we have to present more specific cases to them. But in those cases they seem to still be able to do it. The "urban" thing is probably just to eliminate the "I was standing here and couldn't see anyone" claims which are usually 50/50 at best.

  • EvilSuperHerosEvilSuperHeros ✭✭✭✭✭

    So you submit a report, then watch said spoofer run around and hit other portals after your report is closed.

    The program has much to be desired. @RedSoloCup

    It doesn't really matter if a portal is in a low signal area or not, it's the issue of spoofers itself. How can you travel 600 odd miles between portals in less than 4 hours? I'm guessing there is no detection for this in the system? No way to flag an account that is traveling much too fast in the system?


    Looks like a 2nd TR ticket submitted for another location this spoofer hit was also closed and the account is still "alive".


    My ticket #RTRR_2019_0165 for reference.

  • a) What makes you think I don't know that? You didn't post any.

    b) In the old program we used to ping suspected spoofers, but we weren't under an NDA. I don't know how they'd be seeing spoofer stats in the new version, if at all. They wouldn't be able to ping or they'd give away their job.

  •  last i checked, the Res TRs required screenshots of the account in question for their reports

    Hmm, ENL one does not ask for that when I submitted my reports.

    it seemed pretty clear that you had no idea how to spot a spoofer based on the stats

    If you mean things like 'zero kms walked' or 'high translator stats' sure. But at least the stuff I'm dealing with, the account stats are not blatantly inaccurate, because they're not scripted bots. They're players manually controlling them and resulting in far more 'normal' stats.

    i dont know of any res TRs from the previous iteration that pinged an account they were reporting, they relied on us to do that for them.

    Sure but in that previous iteration they were taking blind reports with a similar bot when they were explicitly told not to.

    Either way, just looking at stats only tells you about the obvious ones who don't care if they're caught. I know the stuff that I'm currently trying to get banned is far more 'realistic' in their stats and last longer. They might have somewhat hight translator, but not so high it's not reasonable, and they have kms walked because they aren't one shot throwaway accounts that appear, **** something, and then get banned.

    So as I said above, I'm doing far more research to track movements and highlight stuff that is impossible, even in urban areas, and at least so far, I've had some success with it under the new reporting.

  • mortuusmortuus ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited November 2019

    this will **** ingress and prime overall if they dont stop the mass spoofing, legit players will just stop playing and fielding, niantic wants that? Obvious fast travel x hours between portals is a good sign something is very wrong, nobody is superman they must increase the cheating penalty alot and hard.

  • caytcayt ✭✭✭

    So this was unpinned from the forum and the bot has been deleted. When do we get to see TR 3.0? @NianticBrian

  • The bot is still there. Still the same username as well. It was just recreated under different ownership

  • caytcayt ✭✭✭

    It may still be there, but if you have talked to it prior, there is no way to know that, the bot shows up as deleted. And then this post is unpinned with instructions on how to access the program and what it is. And there is no explanation anywhere saying any of this. So I stand by my first post. To the average person, it looks like it has been deleted. Nia REALLY needs to update their information and also not bury stuff like this. @NianticBrian

  • Telegram bots are owned by a specific TG account. I'd imagine @RedSoloCup owned the bots previously, and with his departure, someone else needed to recreate the LiveGram bot so that Niantic had control over it after he left. I just hope they recreated it under a Niantic owned TG account, instead of another employee's.

  • caytcayt ✭✭✭

    Im sure that was the case. HOWEVER that isnt the issue here. The issue is the lack of communication from NIA and the burying of information that shouldnt be buried.

  • I don't think there is any burying of info. Andrew did post in his channel the bot was down temporarily and asked the word be spread. I don't think there is anything of issue here with the TR system. Link to join that chat, however short lived it may be, is here:

    https://t.me/joinchat/DEqMlRFr-nH2lu73mP7_9Q

  • And we're going to miss @RedSoloCup's high speed communication system when he's gone. They didn't even post the TR system on Twitter.

  • Having run many Livegram bots over the past several years, I think the concern is more for whoever is on there other end of the chat than on the agents using the bot. If someone reported something to the bot, just use it again to contact the TRs. If there is a gap in communication, it's easy enough to solve by talking to it.

    Regarding further announcements of it, it really needs to be on support.ingress.com so there is a place to point to when agents ask. Not everything can or should be pinned in perpetuity here on the forum and I don't think unpinning should be viewed as burying info. If posted in the announcements section, that should be good enough for most agents to find. A hashtag could maybe also be created to help agents search. I am guessing there is lots Andrew is doing before he goes so these may need to be raised if its a problem later.

  • When I used it to report spoofers, I got an ENL hashtag ID. If people have that and haven't got a response, I'd ping the bot asking about that ID.

  • fxcfxc ✭✭✭

    the telegram bot is not working


  • EvilSuperHerosEvilSuperHeros ✭✭✭✭✭

    Gosh i wish all those posts from December 2019 had dates on them. Even if they had dates on them, I'd still wish for a time stamp.

  • Hold your mouse over the December 2019, and it shows the date and time.

  • How come that for the last TR period that ended in fall 2019, the spoofing accounts that we reported were only banned when we contacted a TR directly? We reported the same accounts over and over to Niantic support team and nothing happened. So I guess that when a TR forwards a report to OPS, it gets taken more seriously (?). Now, I live in a urban area. And the guy that harassed us with a lot of spoofing accounts last year, now starts all over again with new spoofing accounts since he cannot play himself because of Corona quarantine. The TR answered to me, that my area is too urban and that I have to contact Niantic OPS. But Niantic OPS does nothing. Neither banning the spoofing accounts, nor banning (or at least warning) the guy's main account that we reported a thousand times. So, what can I do now without the direct contact of a trusted reporter?

  • SSSputnikSSSputnik ✭✭✭✭✭

    Agree, fall 2019, identical reports to NIAOps and TR resulted in different outcomes. One got a result and one didn't.

    It got to the point where I never bothered to contact NIAOps.

  • URBANLEGENDDURBANLEGENDD ✭✭
    edited September 2020

    Last night ( 16 June 2020 ) at 11pm IST all my 24 portals are attack by the ENDdsoldier agent. Please note that as well all know the pandemic is going on and my place is in the Containment Zones and this agent is playing in the night at 11 pm which is not possible in these difficult times. This is not the first time that some one has attack and spoof at my place. It's become a trend . Agent make muti ids and spoof with IDs and distroy legit played portals. I request to please look into this matter seriously and ban this players ID asap or else we local player feel disrespected and discouraged. I am sharing all the informations please let me know if you need any more help on the same.

    My agent I'd is Urbanlegendd and my email I'd is [redacted by admin]

    Contact me [redacted by admin].


    Post edited by NianticHilda on
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