Warning Against Influencing Reviewers

I've just received an email from Niantic support telling me they've decided that I've been trying to influence other reviewers to vote on my nominations in a specific way.

This is wrong.

I never mention my nominations to other reviewers, so it's simply not possible that I've been trying to influence them. I let my nominations stand or fall based solely on merit.

I also don't use the title, description or supporting info to try to tell other reviewers how to vote.I know this is true because I've just checked every single one of my nominations and I haven't done anything even close to influencin reviewers in any of them.

Is this a glitch in the system, because it seems to me I'm being accused of as crime I haven't committed.

Am I the victim of malicious reporting?

Comments

  • What's especially scary is that I'm being threatened with the deletion of my ingress account even though I've done nothing wrong.

    I've just checked all of my nominations. None of them contain anything that could be construed as trying to influence reviewers.

    The only thing I can think of, is the common practice of editing the portal description when making a name/location edit, to provide supporting info about why the name/location edit is needed. Thing is, that's not attempting to influence reviewers, it's just providing supporting info.

    Niantic won't actually tell me what they think I've done that has violated their policies. So I'm left clutching at straws, but this is the only explanation I can think of.

    To avoid other agents falling foul of this, can I politely ask Niantic to add a supporting information field to portal edits, so that agents have a way of describing why the edit is needed.

    We have supporting information for subs, it makes no sense that it's not available for edits.

  • I think that's the crime I stand accused of. It's weird that supporting info is encouraged when submitting, but discouraged when editing.

    Why should edits stand on their own when nominations don't?

    Frankly I think adding stuff like "X is the right location, but you can't tell on the map because it's hidden by trees" is helpful.

    Needless to say, I don't want to have my account deleted so I won't attempt to be helpful in this way again.

    I do hope that someone from Niantic sees this post and ponders why there is a discrepancy between nominations and edits when it comes to supporting info.

  • AzhreiaAzhreia ✭✭✭✭✭

    The description field is not meant to be used for edits to inform reviewers. It's the waypoint description, and should be left as such.

    The reason there isn't a supporting info field for edits is because ALL edits on a waypoint are served up at the same when the waypoint is presented for review. Thus, you could have multiple location edits, title edits or description edits, and supporting info for all of these just won't fit anywhere currently.

  • Supporting info doesn't currently fit anywhere for edits, but that doesn't mean that it shouldn't or couldn't be changed.

  • AzhreiaAzhreia ✭✭✭✭✭

    I agree, it would be nice to have.

    But until it does, don't use the waypoint description as a means to justify your edit. That's not its purpose.

  • TheFarixTheFarix ✭✭✭✭✭

    The reason it is abuse is because description edits aren't used to fix problems with the description, but to influence reviewers into ignore Niantic's guidelines in order to move a Wayspot to an inaccurate location, either so they can more easily reach the Wayspot from the road or to create a new Pokestop or gym.

  • Not mine. Every edit I made was completely correct to the best of my knowledge.

  • Indeed. I made this post partly as a warning to others that try to be helpful in this way, by providing accurate information in that field.

    Don't do it. You'l end up banned.

  • TheFarixTheFarix ✭✭✭✭✭

    100 people use the description edit to influence reviewers. 98 of them use it to tell the reviewers why they should accept the less accurate location edit. The remaining 2 may use to to explain why the new location is the more accurate one. Niantic isn't going to spend the time to seperate the extreme minority of "good influences" from the majority of "bad influences".

  • I've done plenty of reviews and I've yet to see more than 3 simultaneous edits in wayfarer on a single attribute. I don't think exaggerating helps your point at all.

    Niantic is clearly spending time policing the system already. If they weren't then I wouldn't have just received that warning.

  • TheFarixTheFarix ✭✭✭✭✭

    Niantic isn't actively looking for "influancers". Instead, they wait for reviewers to report influencing attempts and then further examining the account's activities.

  • HydracyanHydracyan ✭✭✭✭✭

    Edits are to suggest a new title/description. If whatever you're putting there isn't compatible as a valid title/description, that's the wrong use of the tool, and reportable. Sorry, but just stop doing that. If your suggestion got denied you can appeal on the community.wayfarer and explain why yours is the best. If even that fail, just try again.


    Now just out of curiosity, did you just got an warning or loose access to edits?

  • Just a warning so far.

    I'm not invested enough to put more than the minimum level of effort into edits. If the reviewers decide I'm wrong I'll just leave the portals in the wrong place, with the wrong name or whatever.

    Long experience of Ingress has left me a little jaded about every implementation of portal reviewing.

  • Hi everyone,

    I have received the same or a very similar message that BaldFeegle received:

    "We have confirmed that you had previously tried to influence other reviewers to vote on your nominations in a specific way. As a result of this violation, your Wayfarer account has been suspended for 30 days."

    The message also includes a frightening ultimatum that warns me to stop doing this unless I my account will be definitively banned.

    As InvestigateXM pinpointed in march 2020, that the most probable reason for this type of suspension would come from repeatedly editing information on a nomination, I can assume that would fit to the situation. In fact I am very often a perfectionist in this matter, so when I reread my nomination I often correct it by adding more information for the reviewer that I don't have at the moment I create the nomination (very often I provide a link that can help during the evaluation. I also change sentences to make clearer explanations).

    Concerning this matter, and since the threat is really pressuring me, I would like to ask for a clarification wether or not this message concerns editing texts of an in-queue nomination.

    If that would be the case, I would like to ask about where can I find the maximum number of edits of in-queue nominations so I to know, because for me every since a nomination is in-queue, edits can be freely and countless applied, and mainly to avoid the worst case scenario of being forever suspended.

    If that wouldn't be the case, I would like to understand the real reason for this serious suspension otherwise, and despite my will of contiously taking part in wayfarer reviews and events, such as the one India for instance, I will restrain myself from any wayfarer activity to avoid any further risk of being suspended permanently.

    I finally would like to ask for the cancellation of my present suspension and to have the threatening message cancelled in case the wayfarer edition weren't because of me editing but because of a bug between the in-queue nomination status and the in-voting one.

    Thank you in advance for reading me and answering to my request.

  • InvestigateXMInvestigateXM ✭✭✭✭✭

    What I meant isn't editing the submission on Wayfarer (which you should be able to do as often as you like until it enters voting) but submitting a description edit of a portal that is already live. As all submitted edits (location, title and description) are shown at the same time to the reviewer, some people submit a (seperate) description edit to try to influence the reviewer.

    I'd try opening a thread on the Wayfarer forums btw. Wayfarer kinda became its own thing and most of the people working on it aren't on this forum. https://community.wayfarer.nianticlabs.com

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