Possible Change In Criteria / Reviewing For Anything That Is A Business?
Now that Niantic is opening up opportunities for smaller sponsored locations, I believe it would make sense for Niantic change the way "local hotspots" / "hidden gems" are reviewed. There's a fine line between something actually being portal worthy or not in these instances. It's also an issue of lost business opportunities for Niantic.
It would help to add an option for reviewers to mark all such nominations as businesses. It could be as simple as mark 1* / Business. All nominations marked as this go into manual reviewing.
After that let OPS manually review these nominations. Such a revamped criteria would also feed Niantic with legitimate leads that might be interested in getting a sponsored location - If the players are already interested in the location, Niantic can deliver real business results with ease.
Also, retroactively move out nominations that have been accepted wrongly under this criteria. Eg. the tons of local shops in Bangladesh that are really generic af. This would include adding an option to report stuff as a generic business.
This criteria is a very controversial one that sees a lot of good nominations get rejected and at the same time sees a lot of very unworthy stuff get accepted depending on the reviewers in an area. In India for example. it's currently impossible to get something approved under this criteria.
If the argument is that Niantic is short staffed (been hearing that since 2012), that would be incorrect. When Pokemon Go or Wizards Unite edits are requested via the support, they are manually reviewed by Niantic staff.
Comments
The sponsorship program is only for Pokemon Go. On top of that Ninatic has stated that businesses are eligible wayspots so long as they meet the criteria. Just because you think they are "generic" doesn't mean they are not valid.
Everything that might be a hidden gem or local spot gets rejected anyway.
Everyone's got an opinion. The facts speak for themselves.
https://intel.ingress.com/intel?ll=23.742067,90.409858&z=18&pll=23.742067,90.409858
It is a tough criteria to nominate something under. And even when you do get most things right, you get a rejection 3 times in a row. 🙃
It's really a joke at this point.
On a related note, I was thinking that every rejected generic business email should also come with a link to the new sponsorship program. I do see submissions where the owner submitted it because either they want the traffic or they play themselves. We have GameStop POIs in my area that shouldn't be, and I've seen nominations for 7 elevens and national food chains that also probably would pay.
those game stops were there long before pogo even came about. Also we had a local one off coffee wine bar get approved this week locally. Not all hidden gems are being rejected.
That does not mean you throw the baby out eith the bath water.
I reviewed a coffee wine bar it was a good submission
Urban alchemy?
AMA says that small independent businesses are eligible. Why they keep getting rejected is just lazy I guess players not reviewing correctly.
Not lazy reviewing, just elitist reviewers too eager to 1* ANY business. Too many are in the mindset that it needs to be a tourist trap to qualify.
More like 1-star all businesses because they are more likely to get an agreement that way.
Interesting. Here I thought we should be reviewing based on Niantic's criteria, not how we expect other people to vote.
That's lazy reviewing.
Yes it certainly is and is a negative consequence of the feedback system. I'm not sure how to fix it besides having Niantic itself constantly stress the eligibility of unique local businesses. But it's such a subjective thing that I'm not sure even that will help. Things that used to be controversial like playgrounds were much easier to fix.
See this for me is definitely generic and shouldn't be in like star bucks. If they want in then they become a sponsor. But to be a little book shop not a chain selling truly unique items that cant just be bought from larger bookstores is unique.
They truly are hidden gems. I wouldn't go as far as having every coffee shop as waypoints as there are so many (7 Independent ones on my local high street). But a shop that isn't anywhere and is actually really cool I'd accept any day.
Just a shame old ingress reviewers cant see that.
Old agents get that. The problem is most old agents have quit reviewing a long while back.
I believe hidden gems / hyper local spots that are businesses represent a tough call that Niantic should decide on right now for revenue purposes. It might not make much of a difference in the other games. But in Ingress it would probably help tip the scales and keep things going longer. This is the Ingress community so yeah I am suggesting something that would obviously benefit Ingress more than either of the other games.
On the reviewing side, currently I don't believe there is any region that can find the right balance when it comes to these. Sadly it's either reject all or accept all depending on where you are.
Agreed with the ingress sponsor bit but is it too late in the day. And obviously old ingress players would hate having sponsored portals ( they hate accepting new ones as it is).
People just need to click on most of the titles of what is being reviewed. Google does the hard work and takes them to the relevant websites. Just shows how little attention is taken when reviewing businesses and in general.
I think folk who'd object to sponsored POIs have likely stopped playing so that wouldn't matter anyway.
Nothing is ever too late. :) But yeah Niantic's snail pace & lack of foresight is laughable.
I would differ a bit on the googling a place bit. Firstly it's the nominator's responsibility to give proper information. Most people simply don't unfortunately. Beyond that if you want to verify if the details are accurate, sure it makes sense.