The amount of junk being submitted AND APPROVED is insane
SoylentGrien
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Empty fields, trees, animals, people, food, schools (not just things on school grounds but actual schools), private residential property, McDonald's, literal garbage and Photoshopped fakes.
When outright fake and abusive submissions are reported through the chat bot, the response is just 1 star them. But some of them are actually getting through and reporting them as invalid gets the generic "does not meet our criteria for removal".
The criteria for removal MUST be expanded to include "junk that should never have been approved in the first place".
Opening up Wayfarer has to be reviewed PDQ. This is devaluing Niantic's biggest asset. There are things on private residential property slipping through the cracks which could make the last class action lawsuit look like a parking ticket.
Comments
I haven't been seeing much garbage locally, but reviewing has been insane across the country. I was hoping PoGoers would show all the skeptics they were wrong, but the abuse clearly indicates we need a better qualifier than being level 40.
The thing is that there are people deliberately submitting in trash just because they can. And I'm sure they are reviewing the same way as well.
Exactly. Having PoGoers on Wayfarer, I hope, will settle down once all the idiots are sifted out. At the same time, the people who want stops everywhere being in charge of reviewing them (if the irresponsible outweigh the responsible) is a recipe for abuse.
Niantic should consider (if they didn't secretly already) putting select area Ingress players as a TR-similar role for reporting abusively erroneous nominations that make it through, which could trigger evaluations of those who passed the portals, even if only temporarily. A couple in each size 9 s2 cell should be plenty.
Niantic just wanted to increase the free workers in order to make an even bigger data base to sell events for profit, everywhere and achieved that by giving millions of pogo accounts the ability to approve every single piece of junk, as you called it. It's all about the money nowadays... quantity>quality.
Junk submissions are getting through despite people who follow the guidelines giving 1 star. This affects your rating and boosts the ratings of those who gave it 5 stars but shouldn't. And it sends the message that submitting junk is okay.
They knew what they were doing. Ultimately it's their product and it's their choice. We can't and shouldn't care more than they do. It's just futile. Maybe the flood of trash will lock down submissions and PoGo players (I am one) will see consequences for their actions but I honestly wouldn't hold my breath.
Like others I'm starting to question whether I should keep reviewing. My rating has dropped to yellow for the first time ever.
This is what happens when you let masses of people with no idea what they are doing or a complete disregard for the POI network (who are simply chasing more stops or gyms) all review at the same time. They hold the balance of power within the ratings system due to sheer numbers and therefore established reviewers who are following the guidelines are penalised. The new reviewers think they are doing a good job due to their green ratings and continue to accept dog waste bins and garden gnomes. It should have been a phased introduction to reviewing for Pokemon players based on something other than Level 40 (which every man/woman/dog and their multiple accounts seem to be). There should have also been new rules implemented to withhold their influence on the system until they had a strong and consistent alignment with current reviewers. Very reckless and a kick in the face for those that have dedicated time and effort to follow the process correctly. Sad times. RIP POI network.
As a PoGo player, I called this exact issue. The phrase I used to describe this was its like telling someone for everything you approve ill give you a dollar and for everything you deny I wont give you anything. So even if its bad whats their incentive to reject? Its always a win to approve, that means more Stops/Gyms. I really wished they put in higher level caps, actual rewards for PoGo doing the right thing, and used a Geofence system to determine requirements based on density.
Everything could've been avoided by just giving a completely separate system for PoGo. Far less rubbish submissions for those pesky stuckup Ingress players, no interference from them to getting every rock and can on the road to become a portal for the (average) PoGo players. The only victims would be PoGo players with an ounce of integrity but hey, they are victims like this anyway and at least only one game would be polluted.
I feel like it's not just everyone blanket accepting everything but that the things they are rejecting are incorrect. IE not understanding PRP, pedestrian access, I was reading a reddit thread where people asked how a fountain fits criteria etc
Fountains are quite unusual to see in my experience, I know of one in thousands of portals around here, so for new reviewers they might seem a difficult case.
Was that not what I was saying? Things Ingress players have known to be acceptable (through the Candidate Action Guide or AMAs) are being rejected by new reviewers who don't know.
My original long post about it. I also advocated for a better more comprehensive test, a rewrite of the criteria, and better training too. I think its all very multifaceted.
I've had some experience with this also. The new reviewers mean well, but there are some gaps in knowledge that really just come from keeping up with the AMAs as well as the years of experience doing this.
This morning in my local Discord I had to convince a guy that pedestrian access =/= public access -- he was rejecting anything on private multi-residence or corporate property, thinking it didn't have pedestrian access.
This is the main thing I've been seeing when poking through reddit threads. I feel like this one is not Niantics fault. Pedestrian access is pretty clear and much of the test I took to review was catered to it.
First off some of the mc donalds passing are a mural or playgrounds that were in the queue before they changed the guide to no on the playgrounds now if the sign is getting approved yank it. I have seen valid murals in mc donalds about local attractions or culture objects.
This must be a region by region issue and if you have agents and trainers voting honestly. I have yet to see any really true coal pass yet. I mean we do have at least 50-100 reviewers in my major metro and people are taking their time reading up the rules. They are passing around obvious couches as to what not to do etc. Maybe my area is an exception to what is going on but the communities are actually trying to bring in guideline objects online. I keep seeing that dumb car dealership flag or lake fountain and people are rejecting them.
I worked out why this seemed so familiar. November 2019 is September 1993. Ingress is every university and college. Wayfarer is Usenet. PoGo is AOL.
Partly, yes. I've seen some PoGo player go on about how submissions not in English should be in English regardless of the country where they are from. He gave a bunch of completely valid nominations 1 star for name/description just for, say, being Italian in Italy, Slovenian in Slovenia etc. We told him not to and he might not have continued on - but he may not be the only one. People are trying to educate, but how do you do that when some people (and I definitely am NOT saying that the guy in the first example didn't learn or change his mind) refuse to do that and (re)organize themselves - "**** those idiots, we are right" style. In some regions, it's almost a cultural/societal thing...
We'll see in a month or two. Maybe "everyone" gets their shitty couch stop through and things get back to "normal". Maybe we as a community manage to educate most of the rest of our communities. Who knows.
Some are trying to educate but some don't want to know. Locally we've had anecdotal reports of PoGo players being told they will be excluded from raids if they reject anything.
It's getting worse. Not just junk but things explicitly listed as ineligible.
I haven't been the most dedicated OPR user, but I've reviewed nearly 8,000 and had about 5,550 agreements, so I think I'm pretty tuned in as to what makes a valid Wayspot. I've also had 547 portal discoveries, most of which I'm very proud of (hardly a gazebo or pole mural in the whole lot)
But lately there has been so much rubbish coming through and because I can't bring myself to approve or just skip the bad nominations, some of which are absolutely appalling, I must vote them down and leave an honest and frank reason as to why I don't think the nom should be a wayspot, So because of my honesty in rating, and so many other new reviewers see things differently, for the first time ever, my rating has dropped below Great, or from Green to yellow.
Niantic have really broken OPR, it's the bad Nominators that should be getting the bad ratings, not the poor souls that are tasked with rating their rubbish Nominations. I hope you fix this soon, or I will just withdraw from Wayfarer altogether.
I really miss the "doesn't meet criteria" checkbox in reporting a wayspot as ineligible.
Do you mean this?
Or are you talking about reporting invalid portals/etc. in the relevant app?
In the game. Like, when you're reporting something that was (somehow) approved that shouldn't have been.
I am watching intel like a hawk. Not seeing much get passed voting still that is invalid to be honest approvals have dropped and things have stagnated already. I did hear someone get a neighborhood entrance sign approved with the name "Park" in it rolls eyes and a memorial bench got approved locally. I have yet to see a true couch approved. Somethings are actually have to be resubmitted like trail markers and pedestrian bridges along paths. So there is some disagreements against the guides but what is coming online? Mostly parks, apartment pools, dog parks, local eateries with some sort of art along with murals and other places that are in guidelines. Like maybe 1 or 2 here and there not in guide but I am not seeing a wave of coal getting past voters. Maybe local to Dallas-Fort Worth and people are following the guide. I think it might be people in my area are helping others learn how do to do it properly.
I haven't seen any new approvals that are worse than what's already got approved years ago.
For instance, we have some 'angel statue' portals that are just close-ups of tiny thrift-store statuettes, placed in random public places (with maximum zoom, to make them look huge). ...never could get those deleted, despite photospheres clearly showing that there's no statues in the area.
I have seen an increase in the number of trash submissions being recieved but not in being accepted.
Sure some bad POI's will get thorough (some always get through some how) but haven't seen any of the ones that the Wayfarer discussion group im in and have shared with each other, have actually been accepted.
Eternal September v2.0: Electric PoGo Boogaloo?