Thanks; I'll pass along the thing about reverting the maps version to my friend who uses an Android. Maybe it will help!
I've been very, very lucky with the things that have made it through OPR without the photospheres that were either rejected by Maps after multiple attempts or that were removed for no obvious reason. Hopefully the luck will hold.
Edit "submission statements" are by no means the end all and be all, but there are cases where they might help. I named a couple of submissions after the wrong apartment complex, for example, and it would be nice to explain that to the reviewers, perhaps 0% of whom would know otherwise, but at least would then have a starting point for verification.
I don't do a lot of location edits, but they are all substantive (moving PoIs from from what I'd consider to an objectively wrong to an objectively better place) and I try to include a photosphere for any that might be ambiguous. The trouble is that I don't think a lot of reviewers know that you can use the peg man for reviews (I was several months into OPR before that occurred to me to try) and so never even see the photospheres. I also rarely see them myself, even in cases where they are sorely needed. (Plus at least one important PS for a move was arbitrarily removed by Google at some point in October or November. :( )
Hence I suggested that we be able to provide a supporting statement and photo. The idea of this thread, and the forums, is to make suggestions to Niantic to CHANGE their policies and procedures because the current system is, frankly, broken. But even typing in a box can help explain the reason for the change. For example "Moving Wayspot to south side of fire station since emergency doors are on the east" Knowing the reason and explanation from the people on the ground would be very helpful to let reviewers make an educated decision about the edits, just like we do with new portal submissions.
Thankfully, the likelyhood of moves messing up pending submissions has been reduced due to the faster turnaround time with more reviewers. These extra reviewers are also helping to get location edits through so there is far less clogging in the system. I am glad that you do consider pogo factors when submitting, but I also see a large number of ingress players who contradict themselves saying that location edits that would help one game are "trivial", while at the same time they resist allowing players to make legit corrections because it *might* impact the other game. This is contradictory. Chose one or the other. Either we are trying to make an accurate database of Wayspots with no regard to any game, OR we should expect a balance between database quality and impact on all games equally.
My own issue with photospheres is the motion sensor not functioning correctly. I've tried it on 3 different phones, 2 different models of Samsung in either orientation, and when I turn around to take the photos it either senses too little movement and takes too many photos or senses too much movement and takes too few. Either case results in photospheres that I would be too embarrassed to even try to post. They're stitched so badly there are gaps, fuzzy areas, trees sprouting in mid-air. Even if google approved them, they would not really help people verify locations. When I googled the issue and tried rolling back to an older version (something well above the capabilities of many phone users since it requires turning off updates and using apk from sites usually ridden with trick links to viruses) I ended up with older versions that still had the same issue. I suspect there is an older version that could work, but I haven't found the right one yet.
Sounds more like a hardware issue than a software one. You can get the Sensor Kinetics app (for Android) and see how your movement sensors are doing. Or Samsungs stuff throws weird info to the app. Oh well, can get a 40 bucks cheapphone from some no name brand.
I'm happy that my 98€ chinese-russian cheap phone works almost perfect. Only problem I have with Google View is that the cam starts drifting if I dare to move during the first pic. So I actually would have to carry a tripod around. Too lazy though, so I need like 15 tries sometimes.
As a workaround: Just do a normal 360°C pic, throw it onto imgur or whatever and the link into the additional info box. Or do a gallery folder with extra pics.
Those workarounds won't help without a supporting statement on location edits. And I've got 3 different models of phones since I have kept old ones when I upgraded. Unfortunately I've been having the same issues on each of them. They are all Samsung, however I really don't feel it's sensible to buy ANOTHER phone just to take photospheres.
Ingress players don't like location edits because they break links etc, well it would be nice if they would not make unnecessary adjustments to Wayspot placement during the initial review process. For the second time I've had a village hall placement adjusted during initial acceptance in such a way that it results in no Pokéstop. Both times the proposed locations were on the buildings in question. If it's on the building leave it the duck alone. Further proof of the existence of Operation Pokéstop Refusal.
I've still never seen one of my own, but a traveling friend got this. She thought it was "genius" to do. Several other Ingress players don't believe me when I say it's abuse, either.
A recent club locally made it into Ingress, but the Pogo submitter managed to put the gps pin one building to the left. An easy enough fix, I thought, especially with how fast edit turnarounds are lately.
Nope.
Edit rejected. It isn't going to show up in Pogo either way, whether it stays in its incorrect spot or gets moved. All I can do is try, try again. Sigh.
I've received resposes for every single edit that I've made, dozens of them. `Portal Edit Review Complete`.
I'm not getting any notifications about duplicates: thought that I had over dozen old nominations still pending, until I checked the list and saw that they've been marked as dupes. But no such problem with edits.
@TheFarix speaking for my own region, I get edit responses in about 2 weeks, since the opening of Wayfarer. During OPR it took years. So, yay PoGO reviewers. My edits now go faster than upgrades...
If there's one I especially want to get moved, and is clearly incorrect/unsafe, I just use PoGO Support website. It gets closed out in a matter of hours or days and you get 1 on 1 email response.
@NianticCasey or @NianticBrian Something needs to be looked into because portal/waypoint edits are simply not getting done in southern West Virginia and southwestern Virginia areas.
People have been bugging Niantic about edits never finish reviewing ever since they got moved to OPR. Niantic doesn’t care that it can take years, or that they never will finish reviewing.
In addition to some way to communicate the intent of waypoint edits, there should be a class of trusted reviewers who can edit the network without even sending it in for approval. For real, I can edit Google’s maps which are a much more valuable property than Niantic’s network, and I don’t have to wait for 20 people who have no idea what the edit means to vote on it.
Hasn't Niantic already been down that path? It is a horrible idea to give any single person too much power in a game. Little minds are easily turned into green monsters when they have the ability to pick and chose things that effect many other people at will.
I honestly don't think it's a bad idea for minor changes. Title/description edits that only change a few characters. Capitalization fixes. I am inclined not to let anyone just go in and change locations which has a game impact without approval, but the risk of damage done compared to the certainty of good with letting people who have a very high reviewer rating correct spelling mistakes and case would be very low. And any such privilege would be easily and permanently revoked at the first sign of any abuse making reviewers think long and hard before they risk their ability that came from hundreds of hours reviewing on a single prank change.
I just, today, got back my first ever submitted edit. It was over a year old and was correcting the info on a mural that had been painted over so long ago that the NEW mural is starting to chip and fade.
I really can't get behind calling something abuse which is the attempt of some players who are doing free work to improve the network to find a workaround for a poor system that is not working? Had a chat today in which agents all had some story of a portal that was badly misplaced, often dangerously so, and the attempts to edit them went nowhere for years. It's just messed up to have a system where it is so easy to make a mistake at the beginning and then never be able to correct it!
I did, finally, after 6 months find a link posted to an old version of streetview that actually works (mostly) on my phone. I still get some alignment errors, occasional blank patches, but at least my photospheres are now recognizable, and if I am willing to make 3-5 attempt I can generally get one that's usable. However I still feel it is unreasonable to expect people to put in 20 minutes of effort, probably from multiple locations to triangulate, and turn off updates on their phone, after spending months looking for an old version of an app, just in the HOPES that people will see and act based on the photosphere... There's got to be a better way.
I hate when they move my submissions. I have never had someone move one of my submissions in a way that was actually helpful. The one in the middle of the woods that I mis-placed... of course nobody knew to move it. The one I carefully placed so that it would be on the community building, but on the side more accessible from the sidewalk... they moved to the far side of the building where people might get asked awkward questions if they try to access.
Location edits should request additional optional picture, so well intented agents can submit a photo that helps identify the location. Text will lead to "pls left one so more pokestop".
I've tried to do photospheres on my phone. It wasn't working well and it took forever to just cover a portion of the full 360 view, which apparently is likely to bug out anyway. There's no way I'm doing that in a public place. Photospheres are non-viable, and are way beyond the point of any of this free work still feeling worth it. I say this as somebody who has spent hundreds or thousands of hours submitting, researching, and reviewing, not to mention drawing Open Street Maps. Photospheres are a whole different level of crazy beyond the already-rare level.
It's 10pm and I'm the only person who has any activity in the area on Ingress Intel, when I dropped like 5 resonators while walking for pokemon. Ingress link breaking etc seems irrelevant in any practical discussion, the player base continues to shrink and it's only being funded by paying Pokemon players anyway.
Niantic already has systems in place for image uploads and showing them in reviews, it's not a stretch to attach them to edits.
Niantic didn't even have supporting images in submissions until recently, it's not a stretch that they might be added to edits too.
Every act by submitters is an attempt to influence reviewers, and make the most convincing case. It doesn't make sense to talk about that as a bad thing, it's literally the only thing taking place in the process. That people are making a mess of things in the current system trying to effectively communicate doesn't reflect badly on them, it reflects badly on the system in place. Wikipedia pages have entire discussion histories from the editors and change discussions for each entry. I'd trust Wikipedia's accuracy over Niantic's less-complex POI database, with that difference in methods.
Regarding photospeheres: Since in 99% of all cases in germany are no speheres present, people mostly won't try to look if one is there. It would be really helpful if Wayfarer would show one in that extra window at the top if one is there at the location you clicked. I mean, what other purpose has this extra window anyway? I need to abuse the description field to tell people there are speheres for once which I really don't like.
Comments
@Kliffington
Thanks; I'll pass along the thing about reverting the maps version to my friend who uses an Android. Maybe it will help!
I've been very, very lucky with the things that have made it through OPR without the photospheres that were either rejected by Maps after multiple attempts or that were removed for no obvious reason. Hopefully the luck will hold.
Edit "submission statements" are by no means the end all and be all, but there are cases where they might help. I named a couple of submissions after the wrong apartment complex, for example, and it would be nice to explain that to the reviewers, perhaps 0% of whom would know otherwise, but at least would then have a starting point for verification.
I don't do a lot of location edits, but they are all substantive (moving PoIs from from what I'd consider to an objectively wrong to an objectively better place) and I try to include a photosphere for any that might be ambiguous. The trouble is that I don't think a lot of reviewers know that you can use the peg man for reviews (I was several months into OPR before that occurred to me to try) and so never even see the photospheres. I also rarely see them myself, even in cases where they are sorely needed. (Plus at least one important PS for a move was arbitrarily removed by Google at some point in October or November. :( )
Hence I suggested that we be able to provide a supporting statement and photo. The idea of this thread, and the forums, is to make suggestions to Niantic to CHANGE their policies and procedures because the current system is, frankly, broken. But even typing in a box can help explain the reason for the change. For example "Moving Wayspot to south side of fire station since emergency doors are on the east" Knowing the reason and explanation from the people on the ground would be very helpful to let reviewers make an educated decision about the edits, just like we do with new portal submissions.
Thankfully, the likelyhood of moves messing up pending submissions has been reduced due to the faster turnaround time with more reviewers. These extra reviewers are also helping to get location edits through so there is far less clogging in the system. I am glad that you do consider pogo factors when submitting, but I also see a large number of ingress players who contradict themselves saying that location edits that would help one game are "trivial", while at the same time they resist allowing players to make legit corrections because it *might* impact the other game. This is contradictory. Chose one or the other. Either we are trying to make an accurate database of Wayspots with no regard to any game, OR we should expect a balance between database quality and impact on all games equally.
My own issue with photospheres is the motion sensor not functioning correctly. I've tried it on 3 different phones, 2 different models of Samsung in either orientation, and when I turn around to take the photos it either senses too little movement and takes too many photos or senses too much movement and takes too few. Either case results in photospheres that I would be too embarrassed to even try to post. They're stitched so badly there are gaps, fuzzy areas, trees sprouting in mid-air. Even if google approved them, they would not really help people verify locations. When I googled the issue and tried rolling back to an older version (something well above the capabilities of many phone users since it requires turning off updates and using apk from sites usually ridden with trick links to viruses) I ended up with older versions that still had the same issue. I suspect there is an older version that could work, but I haven't found the right one yet.
Sounds more like a hardware issue than a software one. You can get the Sensor Kinetics app (for Android) and see how your movement sensors are doing. Or Samsungs stuff throws weird info to the app. Oh well, can get a 40 bucks cheapphone from some no name brand.
I'm happy that my 98€ chinese-russian cheap phone works almost perfect. Only problem I have with Google View is that the cam starts drifting if I dare to move during the first pic. So I actually would have to carry a tripod around. Too lazy though, so I need like 15 tries sometimes.
As a workaround: Just do a normal 360°C pic, throw it onto imgur or whatever and the link into the additional info box. Or do a gallery folder with extra pics.
Those workarounds won't help without a supporting statement on location edits. And I've got 3 different models of phones since I have kept old ones when I upgraded. Unfortunately I've been having the same issues on each of them. They are all Samsung, however I really don't feel it's sensible to buy ANOTHER phone just to take photospheres.
Yeah, probably. But eventually someone else has one left they don't need anymore someday.
Ingress players don't like location edits because they break links etc, well it would be nice if they would not make unnecessary adjustments to Wayspot placement during the initial review process. For the second time I've had a village hall placement adjusted during initial acceptance in such a way that it results in no Pokéstop. Both times the proposed locations were on the buildings in question. If it's on the building leave it the duck alone. Further proof of the existence of Operation Pokéstop Refusal.
I've still never seen one of my own, but a traveling friend got this. She thought it was "genius" to do. Several other Ingress players don't believe me when I say it's abuse, either.
A recent club locally made it into Ingress, but the Pogo submitter managed to put the gps pin one building to the left. An easy enough fix, I thought, especially with how fast edit turnarounds are lately.
Nope.
Edit rejected. It isn't going to show up in Pogo either way, whether it stays in its incorrect spot or gets moved. All I can do is try, try again. Sigh.
You get edit responses? I haven't gotten a single edit response in 3+ years.
Edits are reviewed "locally" only, not country-wide like nominations.
I've received resposes for every single edit that I've made, dozens of them. `Portal Edit Review Complete`.
I'm not getting any notifications about duplicates: thought that I had over dozen old nominations still pending, until I checked the list and saw that they've been marked as dupes. But no such problem with edits.
@TheFarix speaking for my own region, I get edit responses in about 2 weeks, since the opening of Wayfarer. During OPR it took years. So, yay PoGO reviewers. My edits now go faster than upgrades...
If there's one I especially want to get moved, and is clearly incorrect/unsafe, I just use PoGO Support website. It gets closed out in a matter of hours or days and you get 1 on 1 email response.
@NianticCasey or @NianticBrian Something needs to be looked into because portal/waypoint edits are simply not getting done in southern West Virginia and southwestern Virginia areas.
People have been bugging Niantic about edits never finish reviewing ever since they got moved to OPR. Niantic doesn’t care that it can take years, or that they never will finish reviewing.
Ingress reviewers hate edits but are too lazy to move them into the right place when reviewing. Sums it all up really if u ask me.
Definitely need edit statements and photos
So your solution is “it works for me”?
In addition to some way to communicate the intent of waypoint edits, there should be a class of trusted reviewers who can edit the network without even sending it in for approval. For real, I can edit Google’s maps which are a much more valuable property than Niantic’s network, and I don’t have to wait for 20 people who have no idea what the edit means to vote on it.
So your solution is “it works for me”?
Also:
https://www.reddit.com/r/NianticWayfarer/comments/ejtiai/edit_submissions_should_have_a_supporting/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf
And nobody realizes that there is a photosphere without a supporting statement.
I get Russian edits in Finland.
Hasn't Niantic already been down that path? It is a horrible idea to give any single person too much power in a game. Little minds are easily turned into green monsters when they have the ability to pick and chose things that effect many other people at will.
I honestly don't think it's a bad idea for minor changes. Title/description edits that only change a few characters. Capitalization fixes. I am inclined not to let anyone just go in and change locations which has a game impact without approval, but the risk of damage done compared to the certainty of good with letting people who have a very high reviewer rating correct spelling mistakes and case would be very low. And any such privilege would be easily and permanently revoked at the first sign of any abuse making reviewers think long and hard before they risk their ability that came from hundreds of hours reviewing on a single prank change.
I just, today, got back my first ever submitted edit. It was over a year old and was correcting the info on a mural that had been painted over so long ago that the NEW mural is starting to chip and fade.
I really can't get behind calling something abuse which is the attempt of some players who are doing free work to improve the network to find a workaround for a poor system that is not working? Had a chat today in which agents all had some story of a portal that was badly misplaced, often dangerously so, and the attempts to edit them went nowhere for years. It's just messed up to have a system where it is so easy to make a mistake at the beginning and then never be able to correct it!
I did, finally, after 6 months find a link posted to an old version of streetview that actually works (mostly) on my phone. I still get some alignment errors, occasional blank patches, but at least my photospheres are now recognizable, and if I am willing to make 3-5 attempt I can generally get one that's usable. However I still feel it is unreasonable to expect people to put in 20 minutes of effort, probably from multiple locations to triangulate, and turn off updates on their phone, after spending months looking for an old version of an app, just in the HOPES that people will see and act based on the photosphere... There's got to be a better way.
I hate when they move my submissions. I have never had someone move one of my submissions in a way that was actually helpful. The one in the middle of the woods that I mis-placed... of course nobody knew to move it. The one I carefully placed so that it would be on the community building, but on the side more accessible from the sidewalk... they moved to the far side of the building where people might get asked awkward questions if they try to access.
Location edits should request additional optional picture, so well intented agents can submit a photo that helps identify the location. Text will lead to "pls left one so more pokestop".
A few thoughts:
I've tried to do photospheres on my phone. It wasn't working well and it took forever to just cover a portion of the full 360 view, which apparently is likely to bug out anyway. There's no way I'm doing that in a public place. Photospheres are non-viable, and are way beyond the point of any of this free work still feeling worth it. I say this as somebody who has spent hundreds or thousands of hours submitting, researching, and reviewing, not to mention drawing Open Street Maps. Photospheres are a whole different level of crazy beyond the already-rare level.
It's 10pm and I'm the only person who has any activity in the area on Ingress Intel, when I dropped like 5 resonators while walking for pokemon. Ingress link breaking etc seems irrelevant in any practical discussion, the player base continues to shrink and it's only being funded by paying Pokemon players anyway.
Niantic already has systems in place for image uploads and showing them in reviews, it's not a stretch to attach them to edits.
Niantic didn't even have supporting images in submissions until recently, it's not a stretch that they might be added to edits too.
Every act by submitters is an attempt to influence reviewers, and make the most convincing case. It doesn't make sense to talk about that as a bad thing, it's literally the only thing taking place in the process. That people are making a mess of things in the current system trying to effectively communicate doesn't reflect badly on them, it reflects badly on the system in place. Wikipedia pages have entire discussion histories from the editors and change discussions for each entry. I'd trust Wikipedia's accuracy over Niantic's less-complex POI database, with that difference in methods.
I hope we get a box for edits soon~ish.
Regarding photospeheres: Since in 99% of all cases in germany are no speheres present, people mostly won't try to look if one is there. It would be really helpful if Wayfarer would show one in that extra window at the top if one is there at the location you clicked. I mean, what other purpose has this extra window anyway? I need to abuse the description field to tell people there are speheres for once which I really don't like.