Greetings from NianticThia
NianticThia
Niantic › admin
Thank you @NianticBrian, @NianticPooja, and everyone for the welcome! I’m really excited to be here and look forward to working with you to enjoy Ingress and our community together. I wanted to post something separately for those interested.
A bit more about me…
- I have a background in production, all the managements (product/project/program), events, operations, and community but it will take some time adjusting to how Niantic works.
- I love to travel - I didn’t start until way later in life but I’ve seen a lot of Europe (Austria, Croatia, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Iceland, Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland - not in that order) and look forward to getting back out there just as much as many of you.
- I take a lot of bad selfies - hence the stuffed animal proxies.
- While I play ENL hard, both factions are needed and important - I think I’m pretty xfac friendly/neutral but I’m sure my locals will call me out if they think otherwise ;).
- I have a sarcastic/dry (and inappropriate 😬) sense of humor. It is who I am and I will do my best to keep this in check because I know that it can be misinterpreted - especially for non-native English speakers - and it can be hard to infer intent and tone in text. My go-to is to crack a joke or make light of a situation to make people laugh and I realize that as passionate players, we may not always take things that way. (I know that when I’m having a Bad Day™, I don’t always read things the way they were intended.)
- Because I have worked with global communities for the last decade, I’m cognizant of seeming US-focused and will do my best to think globally. I will rely on our global Ingress team and our Vanguards, XMAs, and Trusted Reporters to help me with this and to consider things that I may not be aware of.
- Likes
- Mountains, water, hiking, camping
- Some sportsball
- Travel
- 80s music, cheesy movies
- Cherry Pepsi but regular Coke
- But Pepsi with grenadine? 🤤
- Also, Code Red Mountain Dew > all
- Cherry/Fruit Punch Starburst, Fruit Punch Frootsies
- Mexican and Italian foods
- Long walks off short cliffs; wait…
Things I’m working on in the short term:
- A LOT OF LEARNING.
- Distributed Mission Days and NL-1331 prep (as well as learning about other Live Event Things™).
- Plans for community engagement.
- Learn all the things!
- Things that I’m eager to investigate once I’m settled (in no particular order and this is NOT what’s been given to me by NIA, it is a select few of my own personal interests to talk to the team about and is not a promise of anything):
- Missions/Banners: What is the status of the authoring tool? How does the approval process work?
- Live Events: Where is it safe to do them? What can we do to support those who can’t be there?
- Welcoming New Players: How do we recruit? How can we keep them around? How do we help them get a foundation?
- Spoofing/Anti-Cheat: This is a big one; I know spoofing and anti-cheat efforts are a big concern in many areas (heck, one of my portals was just spoofed down recently) and I want to dig in and learn more about what we’re doing now, what we want to do, and what role I play in these efforts. In areas with spoofing problems, agents’ ability to enjoy the game is negatively impacted and that sucks.
- I plan to keep my NIA and personal channels separate because of previously stated humor disclaimer and so that when I’m playing, I can enjoy playing. (When I’m fielding or uniquing or bannering, I’m fielding, uniquing, or bannering!) See below for my NIA channels and I’ll link the main ones in my forum signature. Feel free to reach out to one I’ve listed to verify if concerned!
- Did I mention there are a lot of things to learn and wrap my head around?
FAQs
- I read the forums and have read recent top threads.
- Once I have my bearings, I will do my best to be transparent and proactive. If I mess up, I will eat my words and I hope (expect) to provide new, fun TMs for us to use together (in a Good Way™).
- My official channels:
- Telegram: @TOASTYthia (adventures)
- Twitter: @NianticThia
- Instagram: @NianticThia
- TikTok: @NianticThia (if I use this, we’re all in for a treat 😅…)
Comments
There aren't forum signatures 😅
... but there could be 😉
For reference: https://open.vanillaforums.com/addon/signatures-plugin
Welcome and I hope it stays as fun as possible
I have the trust placed in Thia! 💪😎
Welcome and remember to always have fun!
Welcome again and i like the part of "thinking globally". 😊
Welcome to your first official work day. Don’t let that stack of files and paperwork scare you that kept piling up after @RedSoloCup left. 🤣
As with many Agents here, we all hope to work with and engage with you making Ingress better in the long run. I’m glad that you got to meet and chat with my counterpart of the Southern California Cross Faction team in San Diego recently. @TMoneyistheOne is a doll isn’t she! You’ve got some big shoes to fill and it seems that you’re up for the task. Good luck and I hope to meet you soon at a live event! 😃👍
Oh, please no.
Yay! Congratulations again - I'm so excited about you and your intro is perfect! I love the realistic/human approach, and you are such an amazing person and will be great in this position!
It was so nice to meet you last week. I don't think they could have picked a more sincere person as community manager.
We all want to know more about distributed mission days and the NL1331 van!
Stay Toasty!
Welcome aboard and congrats on the new position! I look forward to seeing what you bring to the game and the community!
Congrats, and it sounds like you've got your hands full right from the start; once you poke your head into the morass of the erratic mission approval process, in particular, you may never recover...
Aaay conga rats
Thank you for this!
New TMs? Like NIANTICTHIA learned SURF? (Pokemon reference - okay, Surf was technically a HM, but you get the point XD)
Top tier intro! A very impressive background and set of priorities. There are many opportunities and challenges right now but it’s great to hear that you are so focused on things that many players will really benefit from.
A toast to your many successes!
My account got banned, how is it?
Never stop learning, great!
Welcome and I'll patiently look forward to seeing what changes with your arrival. I hope we'll see more of such thing as Communication™ from Niantic side from now on.
I'm worried about distributed Mission Days and NL events thingy. No way I would settle with just the distributed events - especially of this kind - even after the end of the pandemic. I'm ok if they will be of limited quantity just until the end of the pandemic, but if no - I think they should be counted towards separate badges, etc, to differ them from those where people actually need to travel to live events.
Good to have you here! I look forward to Live events/ Distributed Mission Days format. I think its a good way to start off more events except fs@home and its safe to do missions usually.
Welcome and congratulations for new position
"Welcome to the most difficult job in the world." -- Chief of Naval Operations Ernest King to Rear Admiral Chester Nimitz
As the most obvious conduit of information from a notoriously non-communicative game to it's information starved player base, I don't envy you your new position...and I wish you all the best.
As an example (and I know you touched on this in the things you were working on short term): once the new round of in-person events were announced I was eager to hear more information about them...I am an avid chaser of NL-1331 and was considering flying out to Oakland (from Ohio) to see it once more on its way. But...we don't know anything about its possible itinerary: just the one appearance the weekend on July 9? More than that, with a few additional appearances elsewhere on the West Coast? We don't even know which day it will appear in Oakland on that weekend.
I know you already know this, but there is an element of Ingress' more avid fan base that likes to travel to events for this game...but even we like to know what we're getting ourselves into before we travel. Advance information (more than just a week in advance, I'm afraid) is vital to making plans: should I fly in for the weekend, or should I stay for a couple of weeks and chase NL-1331 around? Mission Days...Anomalies...NL-1331...the Hexathlons when they were still a thing...much of the disruption of our "normal lives" in the past year and a half can be laid at the feet of the COVID pandemic...the lack of communication surrounding Ingress events sadly pre-dates these unfortunate times...by years.
I did really like your introduction...I don't post here often (ever? 😆) but I wanted to poke my head in and say welcome...
"We need you." -- Phil Coulson
"Yeah, more than you know." -- Tony Stark
"Not that much." --Phil Coulson
Looking forward to better days with you as CM.
Welcome and Congratulations! I can't wait to see what all is in store for the community in the future!
Can you please address the lack of replies to important forum posts and the fragmented nature (if any) from Niantic Ingress staff.
acc not found ??
back to @12tyTri11ion, for some reason
Surf hasn’t been a HM for a while now. It’s been a TM and is now a TR.
Pokémon corrections aside, it seems like you have a good grip on things thus far NianticThia. (It’s telling that my phone wanted to type NianticGiffard there from Wayfarer forum gripes)
I am sure nobody is expecting miracles (at least not right away) as there’s a lot to catch up on.
Can you add a little bit of dark humor? That would be fun....
We are having hard time, humor is one spark that give us more energy.
Welcome...
Personally I hope for Ingress as a comeback as the "we-game" it used to be where faction cooperation is needed and rewarded instead of just another "me-game" where everyone plays strong in their own bubble.
Community is Ingress -Ingress is community?
Shutting off public comm, shutting off fields and banning LTP without warning so they loose years of Sojourner streak for one reported comm comment -does not sound like Ingress to me. Community and cooperation should be the answer.
But we do need help with spoofers and multi account users! And xfaction chat comments could be hidden automatically after 24 hours in the scanner.
Niantic, personally I think great ideas have already been used with success in the game:
Recruiter badge/reward for an expanding playerbase in combination with the Verified badge/sms to mitigate registration of multiple accounts and misuse of Recruiter?
Less mule accounts might even increase CORE subscriptions?
My two cents...
Welcome! Added you up on the socials. Looking forward to your new adventures as part of the team!
I very much appreciate the human element and enjoyed your intro. I am also extremely excited to hear that you personally want to figure out if there is any sort of update to missions and mission authoring coming down the pipe as well as being concerned about player recruitment.
Congrats on the position and best wishes!
PS: Also, don't let winter scare the van away. I'd chip in for winter tires on the van if it came north one day. #canada