What is it? Now required (sometimes)
AgentB0ss
✭✭✭✭✭
As of today it appears that some reviews on the Wayfarer website require you to fill out the “What is it?” Section. The review will still says optional until you click Submit. If it’s required it will show you at the top of the review screen that it’s required similar to the below screenshot.
Tagged:
2
Comments
@NianticCasey Can you confirm this is a new intended feature? Will this eventually convert to all reviews or just pop up occasionally. If its intended to be occasional can it be added to let us know its required prior to hitting submit?
Important: Could the list of "What is it?" be updated? Currently the list is lacking for example a Picnic Pavilion at a park has no current option in the "What is it?" category.
I've just noticed this aswell.
Thanks for sharing, @AgentB0ss. I haven't reviewed in a while since I'm typically afraid to get upgrades that may or may not be working.
I like the idea, and it could be used to coach and or flag bad acceptances, but last I remember there were several things listed on "what it this" that were specifically listed elsewhere as ineligible - and I've seen the argument that if you can choose it, it must be eligible.
I wonder if this has been posted elsewhere by Niantic? Twitter, Reddit, Facebook, Telegram? I don't follow social media so I rely on here. Just hoping to find out if it's intentional or another bug they'll tell us about in a few weeks, if ever.
I just notice the same, it only apear when i put 5 starts.
I recently started reviewing again.
If this is a new requirement, then I'm going to STOP reviewing again.
Just FYI.
This is terrible — I’m not a speed reviewer and it will really slow me down. They are going to lose a lot of reviews and reviewers if they stick with it.
The implementation is dreadful too — hit submit turn get sent back to the top of the page then scroll down again, which makes it even slower.
Yeah... So they need to remove the Optional tag from this as it is sometimes required.
It's really annoying, nothing about is is smooth. Half the time I can't even figure out what to categorize stuff as. Slowing me down unnecessarily and don't even feel like reviewing. Its annoying Niantic has time to mess with stuff like this but they can't fix the ongoing Wayfarer bugs. What happened to being transparent @NianticCasey? Where do I sign the petition for removal.
Yeah, instead of improving UI, fixing upgrades, tackling the increasing queue/voting times, or anything that could improve the reviewing experience, they force a clunky feature with a list of categories that aren’t even updated with the latest criteria clarifications? How is there this bad of a disconnect between the team behind a Wayfarer and the users?
I have to echo what Roli said. If I remember correctly, at the beginning of 2020 Niantic tweeted that they were going to be even more transparent. Running an experiment like this without any sort of notice to reviewers is a terrible experience and the exact opposite of being transparent. I'm not asking for an entire explanation of how it's being done or why, but merely a "hey we're going to run this experiment" would have been nice.
Hello!
Spanish website version, the error message says "! Requisitos" and you can't see what is the required field.
What is..? is marked as optional but if I refresh the page, this section change. Then, there are a list with 3 options. If one is blank, you can choose it and send the review. But if the three options are with some type of "What is...?" and is no option listed is correct, the page force you to choose one
Is it a validation problem?
PS: Sorry, I don't speak English...
Yep. Went back to review stuff, hit this, spent much longer than I care to trying to find an appropriate category.
I'm out, if this is the future. I'll give Niantic some of my time to build their dataset for free, but this is more frustrating and slower than is worth it. Sorry.
yo creo que tambien dejare de evaluar... no es adelandor evaluar tanto, para que te rechacen una multicancha (como duplicada a cuadras de diferencia? y una sede social.. mas de 6k de revisiones mas casi 2.5 de acuerdos, no me importa colocar informacion adicional... pero veo que en mi area debe haber algun grupo organizado para negar mis POI
si decir ademas que tengo POI atrapados desde oct-nov
From all the complaints I have seen here and elsewhere, I am surprised at how few people actually input a selection into the What is It? category. I've been doing it since I started reviewing and still continue to do it 15,000+ reviews later. It only adds an extra second to the time it takes to review and adds information into the database that would probably benefit Niantic. Once you get the hang of it, you will instantly know what to categorise things as.
It's probably because so few people did it, that they are rolling it out to be a requirement on the whole.
I used to do it always, but it really does slow things down, especially on a phone. With declining numbers of reviewers and a growing backlog, this is a dreadful time to try this experiment. It will drive some from reviewing completely and decrease the number of reviews remaining folks can do in a give. chunk of time. Plus the implementation slows things down even more. Just a terrible idea all around.
I actually like this, if 1) the bug of showing up like optional and with no quick choices when it's really required this time and with quick choices and 2) include more common types of Wayspots so I can spend less time thinking about what category fit better.
it didnt happen again today. i had this atrocity yesterday
Oh its definitely still happening. Today users are reporting that it for some gives suggested what is it options.
Hey folks,
I checked into this and it looks to be an intentional change on the part of the Wayfarer team and they're working on making it required moving forward.
What's changed is that, If we have category predictions for it in the backend, we serve the top three predictions and ask you to pick one. If it’s none of the top three, you can choose the best/closest label from the full list of categories by tapping ‘Other.’
that is rather a good idea. i hope you can give us some answers on the other thread, too. thank you.
Good to see answers on this. Perhaps the team can also work through removing some of the incorrect or misleading things listed? I also see "communications tower" and "cell tower" as options - I don't think we want that argument, again.
Also, adding more things that are eligible would be greatly appreciated, such as "community center(s)."
is there a place where reviewers can request additional "what is it" categories?
@NianticCasey just an initial use and this is extremely half-attempted. As being stated above, it won't prompt you to categorize it until you hit submit, which in a few cases has refreshed the whole page and lost the ratings I had given it.
Many of my nominations will not meet the generic categories given, and I've already seen people on Facebook and Discord chime in that they'll skip or reject outright more nominations if they can't categorize what it is. There is not even a general "other" option to choose from. This will hurt your Wayfinders until new categories can be implemented. Please also provide some sort of public information that we can point people to that states 1) not every category is by default eligible and 2) nominations may be eligible even if they cannot be categorized.
Edit to add: I can't not say it. It's fan-tastic the team is working on half attempts of implementing new review requirements without better vetting, while continuing to ignore one of your most viewed threads about lack of resolution on upgrades several months old. Please at least review and make a comment in the thread today to address it.
@NianticCasey I agree with what Gendgi said above, this implementation seems to be broken and doesn't help that it just came out of the blue while other lingering issues like broken upgrades remain. The wayfarer community seems to be completely divided on many topics and this just adds more fuel to the fire right now. A little heads up or some sort of announcement goes a long way.
Again echoing what Roli and Gendgi said. This initial roll out feels like a half baked, broken, implementation. Last night I was getting suggestions occasionally after submitting. But today I am not getting any suggestions for what is it. I like the idea of being suggested what to categorize the nomination. What I don't like is the experience of a half baked feature being implemented, especially without any notice. If the what is it section is required, it should indicate it.
Why wasn’t this information posted before it took effect? Currently we have no way to tell if it’s going to be required or not. The list of options is very lack luster. A great example is how should we categorize a Park Pavilion?
To give my 100% honest answer is the so far every update or change to Wayfarer makes the system slower and worse off. Not saying that requiring categories is the worst thing but Wayfarer is already slower and harder to review than OPR was. It takes me nearly twice as long because everything is spread out and more difficult to click. So now adding a half broken function is just adding fuel to the flames.
Plus putting more work on reviewers when we have outstanding broken problems. We have been escalating issues with upgrades for months and the Wayfarer team instead of working on fixing that is now requiring more from reviewers when we already don’t get much reward from reviewing?
I already mark what is it about half the time, but now requiring it and not mentioning it before hand or requiring it when the option says optional... it’s slowly becoming the straw that broke the camels back.
I think it’s moronic to have a location as a portal for only one or two of Niantic’s games/platforms. It’s why people are losing interest in Ingress and it’s other games. Just dumb. Now they’re making it hard to review? Really?
With all do respect, how are people losing interest on the other games and what does this have to do with the new complains?
Thanks for your feedback @Gendgi @Roli112 @AgentB0ss and the rest of the group. A few updates here:
I also know that there hasn't been much update about the Upgrades issue. I promise that I haven't been ignoring you, but am in fact, pushing very hard behind the scenes to get this issue resolved. I know it may not feel like much is happening but it's turning out to be a very complex issue. I am putting together an update on that situation in that thread to post in the next few minutes.
@NianticCasey -- Given how much things are slowing down, this is a terrible, terrible idea.
Will the value you get from forcing this on reviewers really be worth it?
I used to always pick a category, but it became very tedious to constantly be manually typing "basketball court" and the like in my phone because it wasn't a preset option. When I stopped, reviewing became much smoother and faster. These days I regularly question why I should keep reviewing at all given the overall submission quality and the things I see go through that objectively shouldn't (and these cost me agreements). I do do it out of a sense of duty; if I submit, I should do my share of reviewing. I don't want this to be the straw that breaks my back, but it might well be.