More than a few spoof accounts and their “operators” target their actions to consistently and repeatedly benefit one faction over the other. The blanket assertion that they have no faction is sophistry.
What will happen to accounts that took out mountain peaks but haven't been banned so far?
Your inability to ban them so far and the lack of ability to report them for their previous actions leave us with lost durables.
How will you take responsibility for that? I have reported them with support tickets to no avail. Taking a mountain peak at 2 am in the night under a storm weather.
Fair, but why would it matter what faction the TR receiving the report belongs to? Presumably Niantic trusts them to be impartial and unbiased reporters, hence the name.
The previous TR program worked the same. RES agents can report both green and blue spoofers to the RES bot. Same goes for ENL agents to report both green or blue accounts to the ENL bot.
That's not always how it worked in practice, which is one reason I'd like to know why Niantic feels it's important that submitters be the same faction as the TRs going to bat for them.
that still doesnt answer my question. why is the google docs form necessary when that information was aready given to the TRs via the bot? @NianticOfficial
Things get lost in chats, or overlooked. You should know this by now ?. Having it on a sheet mitigates that, and also logs Initial info should resets be required
@NianticOfficial It seems that the new Trusted Reporter system will not help with urban portal Spoofer takedowns.
Unfortunately, both factions have a lot of secure urban portals inaccessible to the other faction which is a regular target for spoofers.
Also, spoofers enjoy the portal density of urban areas to level up their accounts to L7+ so that an ADA/Jarvis can be used to flip any secure portal by spoofing.
How does the new system hope to tackle these? Unfortunately, reporting via the chat bot in the support section has not worked well in the past. It has resulted either in reports which take too long to be processed or in reports which are just closed with obvious spoofer accounts still active or both.
How is having TRs on both sides showing bias? Bias would be picking TRs from.one faction or the majority from one. As far as having TRs that play helping, isn't that way better to have locals for each area helping rather than just ops that is sitting behind a computer, a few thousand miles away who dont know the area where the report came from? Hmmm....
I meant that there are 2 separate ones to not have it biased. Sorry for the misunderstanding.
As far as I remember, TRs that the older agents seek arent from the area as well. hm...
Niantic holds many of the ongoing game play as far we all know? We try our best to report ASAP. Even without showing proof, they could've traced some activity? and there are even times we do send sufficient or exceeding amount of proofs but to only let the violators free.
@NianticOfficial So, just so all of us are clear, reports made while the trusted reporter system was down (reports that are likely over a week old) are not able to used? Even if one were to have kept the necessary conversation IDs?
If they are hard to reach and inaccessible, that fits the criteria. If it is just a Portal at a restaurant that any one can walk up to and hack, that's is not.
Google forms doesn't allow a real time chat if follow up information or questions are needed. There is also no verification ability via forms. Anyone can fill out the form claiming it is you. Requiring both enables both accountability and issue tracking. It is the constraints we have to operate within currently.
Most agents do not understand the amount of reports/bans that happen constantly, they only see that some local troll seems to evade NIA Ops for months and think that the system is broken (and that is a problem that I definitely hope the TRs can help patch, don't get me wrong).
Local to us, a common form of spoofing has been spoofers very clearly picking on individuals, either by taking out their home portals regularly or taking out their fields. The portals tend to be fairly hard to access, but not completely inaccessible. The effect on morale for those individuals targeted can be profound. It can also make the opposing faction lose the will to take down larger fields as they will be outrun by a spoofer from their couch.
I would have thought these types of spoofers were exactly the kind of thing where a trusted reporter would be able to piece together the bigger picture over a longer time frame. Does Niantic have any system or plan to have any system to help deal with this kind of issue?
Great you implement a front end interface but you have no rules or laws about those who intentionally cheat.
I reported an agent who trespassed at the end of a wildlife season. This agent may have gotten a penalty but I was robbed of a portal this agent virus'd. As the fish and wildlife police came around a corner and escorted this agent off the property. The agent was not able to get the other 2 portals.
But the agent was allowed to keep the portal that was stolen from me and my husband.
As a fair playing agent I will not trespass onto these lands.
What it sounds like is that you are institutionalizing a good ol' boys club with women.
Can this information be placed somewhere more permanent? This post is going to get buried beneath other posts in a couple months and agents will have a difficult time finding it again.
Im not sure how its different to just lodging a ticket.
So.. say i contact TR for a remote mountain top portal. Its fairly obvious for the TR to see that its hard to access. But also just as obvious to NIAops.
But what if its urban, or looks accessible, but its not?
The TR has no more way of knowing this than NIAops
And unless its a big coincidence, the TR is unlikely to know the reporting agent, theres no trusted relationship buildup.
Perhaps revamping NIAops would have been better, with forms based submissions. Ign, date, time, portal.
Just some thoughts, don't get me wrong I'm happy for any improvement here.
It Will not help our problems with spoofing. When our spoofers have seen yours answer we today have big problems again and we can’t use it the trusted report. But need to go back to another nia support again. Is not easy and is so say. What does we do then?
Comments
More than a few spoof accounts and their “operators” target their actions to consistently and repeatedly benefit one faction over the other. The blanket assertion that they have no faction is sophistry.
What will happen to accounts that took out mountain peaks but haven't been banned so far?
Your inability to ban them so far and the lack of ability to report them for their previous actions leave us with lost durables.
How will you take responsibility for that? I have reported them with support tickets to no avail. Taking a mountain peak at 2 am in the night under a storm weather.
Fair, but why would it matter what faction the TR receiving the report belongs to? Presumably Niantic trusts them to be impartial and unbiased reporters, hence the name.
The previous TR program worked the same. RES agents can report both green and blue spoofers to the RES bot. Same goes for ENL agents to report both green or blue accounts to the ENL bot.
I understand. I'm referring to the constraint that agents can only submit reports to the TRs of their own faction.
Yes, that was the case with the previous program as well. The only difference being, agents generally only knew how to contact their own faction TRs.
Now at least it's more accessible
@NianticOfficial whats the point of the google docs form if we just gave all of that information to the TRs via the bot?
The reset portal process has several steps, so sometimes one can take a bit longer than expected. It's not just a push button type script.
That's not always how it worked in practice, which is one reason I'd like to know why Niantic feels it's important that submitters be the same faction as the TRs going to bat for them.
The TR program is for mass spoofs or spoofing of remote/hard to get to portals. For other spoofs, use the help form and pray.
that still doesnt answer my question. why is the google docs form necessary when that information was aready given to the TRs via the bot? @NianticOfficial
Things get lost in chats, or overlooked. You should know this by now ?. Having it on a sheet mitigates that, and also logs Initial info should resets be required
No one said I always have a good memory ?
@NianticOfficial It seems that the new Trusted Reporter system will not help with urban portal Spoofer takedowns.
Unfortunately, both factions have a lot of secure urban portals inaccessible to the other faction which is a regular target for spoofers.
Also, spoofers enjoy the portal density of urban areas to level up their accounts to L7+ so that an ADA/Jarvis can be used to flip any secure portal by spoofing.
How does the new system hope to tackle these? Unfortunately, reporting via the chat bot in the support section has not worked well in the past. It has resulted either in reports which take too long to be processed or in reports which are just closed with obvious spoofer accounts still active or both.
I dont get why there are separate for each faction. BIASES. uhuh
and the fact that TRs are needed for the 'support' to actually work is not something to be upheld.
We hope you don't just close tickets without apprehension anymore.
How is having TRs on both sides showing bias? Bias would be picking TRs from.one faction or the majority from one. As far as having TRs that play helping, isn't that way better to have locals for each area helping rather than just ops that is sitting behind a computer, a few thousand miles away who dont know the area where the report came from? Hmmm....
I meant that there are 2 separate ones to not have it biased. Sorry for the misunderstanding.
As far as I remember, TRs that the older agents seek arent from the area as well. hm...
Niantic holds many of the ongoing game play as far we all know? We try our best to report ASAP. Even without showing proof, they could've traced some activity? and there are even times we do send sufficient or exceeding amount of proofs but to only let the violators free.
C'est une très bonne nouvelle ! Bravo !!
Mais je ne parle pas vraiment en anglais et je ne connais pas telegram ... est-ce qu'il va y avoir des agents qui parle français ?
@NianticOfficial So, just so all of us are clear, reports made while the trusted reporter system was down (reports that are likely over a week old) are not able to used? Even if one were to have kept the necessary conversation IDs?
If they are hard to reach and inaccessible, that fits the criteria. If it is just a Portal at a restaurant that any one can walk up to and hack, that's is not.
Google forms doesn't allow a real time chat if follow up information or questions are needed. There is also no verification ability via forms. Anyone can fill out the form claiming it is you. Requiring both enables both accountability and issue tracking. It is the constraints we have to operate within currently.
Most agents do not understand the amount of reports/bans that happen constantly, they only see that some local troll seems to evade NIA Ops for months and think that the system is broken (and that is a problem that I definitely hope the TRs can help patch, don't get me wrong).
Other games release monthly stats of banned accounts (sometimes even partly anonymized lists of banned account names) to the community, as proof that the system works - something like https://lite.pubg.com/2019/11/08/ban-notice-october-30-november-6-2019/
It would be useful to have something like that in Ingress too - even if it's just a throwaway line in Andrew's monthly AMAs.
Local to us, a common form of spoofing has been spoofers very clearly picking on individuals, either by taking out their home portals regularly or taking out their fields. The portals tend to be fairly hard to access, but not completely inaccessible. The effect on morale for those individuals targeted can be profound. It can also make the opposing faction lose the will to take down larger fields as they will be outrun by a spoofer from their couch.
I would have thought these types of spoofers were exactly the kind of thing where a trusted reporter would be able to piece together the bigger picture over a longer time frame. Does Niantic have any system or plan to have any system to help deal with this kind of issue?
Great you implement a front end interface but you have no rules or laws about those who intentionally cheat.
I reported an agent who trespassed at the end of a wildlife season. This agent may have gotten a penalty but I was robbed of a portal this agent virus'd. As the fish and wildlife police came around a corner and escorted this agent off the property. The agent was not able to get the other 2 portals.
But the agent was allowed to keep the portal that was stolen from me and my husband.
As a fair playing agent I will not trespass onto these lands.
What it sounds like is that you are institutionalizing a good ol' boys club with women.
This is a Jury Club of ingress agents
not a trusted reporter program.
What about "we will not discuss it" was hard to understand? :D
Can this information be placed somewhere more permanent? This post is going to get buried beneath other posts in a couple months and agents will have a difficult time finding it again.
So spoofing is ok unless you spoof mountain tops. Can I get help learning how to spoof?
Been thinking about the new TR system
Im not sure how its different to just lodging a ticket.
So.. say i contact TR for a remote mountain top portal. Its fairly obvious for the TR to see that its hard to access. But also just as obvious to NIAops.
But what if its urban, or looks accessible, but its not?
The TR has no more way of knowing this than NIAops
And unless its a big coincidence, the TR is unlikely to know the reporting agent, theres no trusted relationship buildup.
Perhaps revamping NIAops would have been better, with forms based submissions. Ign, date, time, portal.
Just some thoughts, don't get me wrong I'm happy for any improvement here.
@NianticOfficial What groupe on Telegram? Not happend if we send in about cheating on ingress.com/support ?
It Will not help our problems with spoofing. When our spoofers have seen yours answer we today have big problems again and we can’t use it the trusted report. But need to go back to another nia support again. Is not easy and is so say. What does we do then?