Make a test for nominating portals

Lately I have been receiving a lot of stuff in OPR that is explicitly mentioned as DO NOT SUBMIT as well as candidates which no longer meet the criteria.

I think most of these submissions are due to lack of knowledge, or rather lack of awareness that there actually are criteria to follow.

One should be able to verify that one has read and understood what makes a high quality portal before one may submit candidates. The Prime nomination process can only help so much.


Thoughts on making the current OPR test a requirement for submitting?

Great OPR status for submitting an increased number of candidates? This would give incentives for people to level up to 12 and participate in OPR

Any other proposals?

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Comments

  • I agree with this. I also think those who repeatedly submit invalid portals should lose submitting privileges.

  • Totally agree as we have a couple of local players who keep submitting portals on a military base !! Last one was a MUGA roughly 2 weeks ago and it got accepted 😩

  • HydracyanHydracyan ✭✭✭✭✭

    What's also need is a softban for those who will get many refused submission. Give it a month a month or two of ban if get too many rejected, with extra points if it was marked as abuse or don't meet any criteria.

  • OGMagusOGMagus ✭✭✭

    I'd say there's roughly two sets of quality in everyone's submissions: The L10 ones and the "12+done a few OPR reviews". In a way it's backward that you get to submit before you review. A "fake" sets of reviews as a test is an excellent idea.

  • HydracyanHydracyan ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited June 2019

    What about too many of them? There's a lot of people that just try for fakes and home.


    Sometimes I see the same attempt (or variant) 3 times a day.

  • harkonnnenharkonnnen ✭✭✭✭

    I agree atm it's basically you hit 10 Bam go submit 14 possible POI. On the way to 10 you could get use to interacting with countless portals that would not long be accepted today.

    Personally I have never understood why OPR for example isn't accessible at level 10 and Submissions at 12. It would mean each agent would have weeks/months of experience to understand not only what makes a good POI but the pet hates in OPR (making sure your GPS marker is correct and not e.g. where YOU are standing taking the pic. Access and number of submissions could also be badge tied 2,5,7,10 and 14 for onix. That way everything is connected want to submit alot? Do more OPR and clear the backlog. Poor rating? Maybe take more time with your reviews (admittedly other issues have come it to play sometimes).

    Best part of that to me is there is no real reason it couldn't be implemented (not sure about badge the in, might require to much extra work), but changing the levels could. The only people that would be pissed would be the ones that stopped playing at 10 after they could submit or the few temporarily annoyed as they are at level 11 atm.

  • sisimeonsisimeon ✭✭✭

    Of course, but legitimate candidates are rejected all the time. Some candidates are also impossible to pass OPR, despite being classified as 5* candidates too. Worldwide, the local gems seems to be the hardest ones to pass.

    In my area, trail markers have slowly started to pass, but I'm not going to walk for hours in the woods only to have my stuff rejected and then locked out of submitting

  • sisimeonsisimeon ✭✭✭

    I think the reason it isn't the other way around is that level 12 agents supposedly has more experience and is better at determining what's a good portal and not. Playing the submission lottery, one can see that it isn't really the case.

    The fear of flipping the OPR and submissions is that the quality of the POI database will drop, as less experienced agents will rate poorly, eg accept coal. A better OPR test and follow-up on agents reviewing could alleviate it, but I don't think Niantic wants to spend the resources

  • GlenuendoGlenuendo ✭✭✭✭

    That has never made sense to me either. You should start the reviews at L10 then start submitting as L12.

  • TheFarixTheFarix ✭✭✭✭✭

    If the test for OPR is any example, it would be wasted effort. Most people don't submit trash POIs because they don't know any better. They submit trash POIs because they believe they can get away with it. Requiring a test before submitting isn't going to filter those individuals out.

  • PangarbanPangarban ✭✭✭✭✭

    I agree with the sentiment above, and there's another reason to allow OPR at a lower level than submissions: now that nominations are opening for Pogo players the backlog of portals needed to be reviewed is going to get longer and longer.

  • harkonnnenharkonnnen ✭✭✭✭

    Agreed someone knowing better compared to someone who just wants to roll the dice is there is not much you can do about the 2nd one.

  • SenmanaSenmana ✭✭✭

    Most agents I've encountered, including those who started Ingress to get pokestops, genuinely want to learn to how to do better submissions. We need to keep reaching out to new players, invite them into our chats and get them involved with the community. By the time they hit Level 10 then hopefully more experienced agents will have given them a good idea of what makes a good portal, and explain how things like Photospheres can help. It's not just up to Niantic to ensure new agents understand the portal criteria. I do think a test would be a good idea though.

    As an aside, there are many older agents who don't seem to understand or don't care that the criteria has changed. I've seen some submitting charity/thrift shops with the hashtag #missionsforgood, generic gravestones, items that are PRP etc. Maybe we all need to take the test every 12 months or so to refresh us on guideline changes?

  • rz231rz231 ✭✭✭

    I too have seen quite a lot of "b......t" submission recently. But it's my impression that almost all of this **** was brought in by Pokemon players. These "candidates" are frequently a description like "the next stop is 300m away so we nedd more" - and this for an ordinary street lamp (example).

    So, before asking for a test for Ingress players make Pogo players aware of rules and guidelines for submissions.

    But something like an abuse button would be helpful.

  • rz231rz231 ✭✭✭

    I too have seen quite a lot of crappy submission recently. But it's my impression that almost all of this stuff was brought in by Pokemon players. These "candidates" come frequently with a description like "the next stop is 300m away so we need more" - and this for an ordinary street lamp (example).

    So, before asking for a test for Ingress players make Pogo players aware of rules and guidelines for submissions.

    But something like an abuse button would be helpful.

  • While I agree that PoGo players are contributing to a lot of **** we are seeing, it’s also important to remember some of the early portals before PoGo was even thought of. It took me months to get rid of a portal of some concrete steps at a retail park.

    a test to submit wouldn’t stop all the rubbish we see but I think for some people it would make a difference and even small differences can help a lot with reviewing. The amount of small silly mistakes like a licence plate being in a pic or clearly taken from a car. They are sometimes submitting great things but making silly errors which they could learn from doing a test.

  • QwizicalQwizical ✭✭✭

    One of the telegram OPR groups I'm in is trying to actively encourage use of the abuse option for things like copy paste as well as use of names, deliberate placement of flag (that Downham flag pogo player for starters). Niantic likely won't look at anything manually unless it's abuse.

    The problem is PoGo players will keep claiming Ingress agents are the problem without trying to understand why and what they are doing wrong.

  • QwizicalQwizical ✭✭✭
    edited June 2019

    One of the telegram OPR groups I'm in is trying to actively encourage use of the abuse option for things like copy paste as well as use of names, deliberate placement of flag (that Downham flag pogo player for starters). Niantic likely won't look at anything manually unless it's abuse.

    The problem is PoGo players will keep claiming Ingress agents are the problem without trying to understand why and what they are doing wrong.

  • while its probably true that majority of current bad submissions are Pogo players submitting **** its important to remember the awful subs Ingress players made when they got subs for first time. It took me months to finally get a portal deleted which was just a set of concrete steps in a car park.

    While a submitter test wont solve all the issues it might highlight to new submitters some basic mistakes we see every day for example licence plates in the pic or submission pic being takes

  • OGMagusOGMagus ✭✭✭

    As someone who plays both games, I find it funny and sad that players are blaming each other. There actually isn't that big a difference between players. In reality, we are both being used by Niantic - Ingress for free game engine development, PoGo for profit. Niantic could do so much more to make onboarding to OPR better - but they get quite a lot, without further investment, as it is.

  • CorozardCorozard ✭✭
    edited June 2019

    This so much, anything that raises awareness about criteria is good. If nothing else they should add a mandatory "What criteria does this candidate meet?"-choice which the submitter would have to pick before sending something in.

  • SenmanaSenmana ✭✭✭

    I think a criteria option would help, it would certainly make new submitters think twice about whether something is a worthy candidate.

  • WEZEWWEZEW ✭✭

    I've started putting #testb4subs in the comment box of 1*candidates along with my comment of course. I don't think anyone will ever see it. Just my own way of protesting.

  • I have been submitting Pokestops (yea I play Pokemon Go) and I have been studying how to make stops for over 2 months now and can get around 85% approval rate. But even that I....you can say...follow the rules, there is still some submissions there just get declined on the spot. I even prepair ahead of time and plan out which 21 locations I have to make, what the Titles are gonna be, the descriptions, why the location whould be a stop, make 360 photo on google and check for spelling errors and still stuff like Road Makers, which should be eligible according to Niantic, Café's, Bus transits. But when I try totalt random thing, they get approved.

    Take like Road Makers, I would make like:

    Title: "Place Name" Road Make "Number"

    Description: This is the first road make on the trail through the forrest towards the shelters, located 250m in "Forrest Name".

    Why?: This Road maker help hikers and tourist on the trip through the forrest and to enjoy the nature.

  • TheismanTheisman ✭✭✭✭✭

    Road marker ? Why would a road marker make a valid POI ?

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