Gym creation
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Gazzas89-PGO
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Yes I know, most people will argue this isn't a wayfarer problem, but it is also argued that it can be as wayfarer passing s waypoint csn create a gym. Now, yes, some people have abused the likes for gym creation on ingress (as if likes weren't abused before to get a teams picture up instead of the best one) but a lot, and I mean a lot, of the time its used not to get a home gym, but instead to put gyms in better places for gatherings of people, whats better? A gym in the middle of a grassy area with lots of places to stand that was chosen? Or a gym.right next to a busy road where the only place to stand is on the pavement causing possible accidents from.occuring because it was randomly designated a gym?
Now comes the best option as to why this can become a wayfarer issue and fix. When submitting a waypoint, there could be a question to be selected by the submitter that might say "is this a good/safe place to gather" and in the reviewing stage reviewers can also say if it is or isn't, if enough say it is, then it can become gym eligible, if not, then it won't (obviously). (This bit might be a lot harder to program) if a gym would be created in an area that as been voted on with however many stops needed can't have people gather, then instead, it would create a gym but host no raids or anything else that could encourage larger gatherings.
At the end of the day, its niantics decision how to have gyms be selected, I know, but surely it would be better all round to have them be at least in some way chosen rather than randomly, even from a pr perspective if someone managed to get hurt trying to stand around for a raid next to a rod because a random placement of it put it where it wasn't optimal. Remember, people who live there and people who review are going to have a better understanding than ring will ever have
Comments
Just to add to it more, virtually everyone so far who's commented on reddit is in agreement, that having some way to choose what becomes a gym is a much better method than rng
https://www.reddit.com/r/NianticWayfarer/comments/lwh0tp/niantic_response_selecting_gyms/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share
Hey @gazzas89-PGO, It has never been an intention to be able to manipulate the in-app map to ensure a certain Wayspot becomes a Gym. Any attempt to do so is actually considered to be Wayfarer abuse and could result in your Wayfarer account termination.
We treat all in-game locations equally and they all need to meet our criteria. Our density and inclusion criteria determine which Wayspot should be included in our games and it should remain that way. Thanks,
Sorry but I disagree, as do several wayfarers. We all know safe access is for one person to be able to go and touch something, meaning that, for an example in the UK, a post box is absolutely fine to be a waypoint, its got the safe access. But that same post box might not be safe for 20+ People to congregate round and have pedestrians walk by. Im not saying gym manipulation should be allowed, but i am saying that submitters and reviewers should be allowed to have a say on if something could be safe to be a gym as being waypoint doesn't require space for 20+ people. As it stands now, its rng or some other method that does not take into any account the on the ground submitters and reviewers knowledge of the area is being used and it could end up with safe wayloints becoming unsafe with groups standing around
Again, i refer you to the reddit page on how everyone is reacting, saying the same as me, that you should take our words on board when it comes to gym creation as you already do with reviewing
@NianticAaron Thank you, and thank you to @NianticCasey-ING in another conversation, for making this statement. I applaud the strength and clarity of this unambiguous declaration.
(And now I'm off to start a betting pool on how many dislikes your comment gets.)
@Hosette-ING Not sure if I understood correct. Are you applauding the decision to
A) make photo voting not to influence gym creation
B) make gym creation random from now on
First option I can understand. If the second, care to elaborate?
😂
@Kellerrys-ING I am applauding the clarity of the statement. In future discussions about potential methods for choosing gyms it will be very easy to point to that comment and Casey's elsewhere and say, "Niantic's message is right here, and it's quite unambiguous."
My comment was deliberately neutral about the message itself, although I do have opinions about it.
@Kellerrys-ING I don't think B necesarily follows from what @NianticAaron said.
Niantic not wanting players to influence gym placement doesn't mean they can't use other methods to place gyms in a logical manner. Areas marked as parks in OSM can be given priority. Cell phone usage can be used as well. L15 cells can be used to improve spacing between gyms. We just don't know.
@Hosette-ING Thanks for clarification.
To be frank, I didn't find your comment neutral (at all). More like "thanks for shutting up the complainers". But... I realise my frustration on Niantic's decision might make me... irritated at the moment.
@NianticAaron @NianticCasey-ING
re: "Any attempt to do so is actually considered to be Wayfarer abuse and could result in your Wayfarer account termination."
could you be more specific, what you consider "abuse" and what is ok?
Honestly, I took your original comment to be I favour of them shutting down our input on what could be used for gym suggestions (im not saying house gym or whatever, as I said in my, admittedly lengthy, post, it should be submitter and reviewers looking at if something could suit being a gym or not, not just a waypoint, as there's a difference between 1 person being able to stand somewhere and 20 people). But your follow up does make it look more neutral
There is a lot of backlash about Niantic's decision on Reddit, discord and facebook groups. People are almost all disagreeing with it. Gyms are better in popular locations and well sometimes some waypoint are good for walking or for Ingress, but not good for big group of people. If anything, you should let the pokemon go players choose collectively the best location. I would not be against the most spinned pokestop or something
It is always good to get a clarification and know where you stand.
Personally, understanding that "likes" in ingress had a bearing on gyms in pokemon go just made me want to upvote my favourite pictures so that the bad pictures would be replaced with better ones (which I hope is a legitimate use of the feature!)
However, I am concerned about potential cases of gyms being created in a location that is totally fine for 1 or two people to interact with for a few seconds at a time, but not suitable for 5-20 people to interact with for 10+ minutes all at once.
For example I remember a conversation locally around should the next gym be at a waypoint on the main street with a narrow footpath and very busy with pedestrians, or should it be in the park nearby. People preferred the park location because it was quieter, healthier to stand by (no traffic fumes), more child friendly, less likely to get in the way of other pedestrians, and just all round nicer. The busy location made much more sense to remain a pokestop which you could interact with alone and move on from within a few seconds.
I'm sure that the people who discussed this locally would be shocked to think they did anything wrong - they were just trying to be sensible. As far as I know, they had no intention of abusing the system.
Im sorry but this is flat out wrong. Not all waypoints are equal. Niantic has stated waypoints behind a fenced area are fine. However, when there are multiple locations a gym could be it makes less sense for the gym to be placed in the fenced area if there is an option outside of the fenced area. Niantic is taking the wrong stance and approach. There are plenty of situations where a Stop is fine in a location but a gym is not fine. Niantic needs to pay more attention to the game and the needs of the players instead of taking the lazy answer.
I applaud the strength and clarity of this unambiguous declaration.
I have difficulty lauding Niantic for any comments made on the Wayforum when they do not have the boldness to post it themselves on their NianticSupport account they have on several Facebook groups or their Twitter account.
I have difficulty considering this unambiguous until they declare what somebody pointed out earlier: is liking your own Portal picture(s) abuse? Adding new photos, asking friends to upvote? Is it now abuse to simply consider the order you submit Wayspots?
It provides plenty of people the long-wanted confirmation that "achtually Niantic calls that abuse" and, in my opinion, only causes more division in the already strained community.
Well, if none else fancies answering what seem to be a seies of straighforward questions, I will.
Could you be more specific, what you consider "abuse" and what is ok?
Not abuse, as since the recent changes the number of upvotes a photo recives has no influence on whether the Stop becomes a Gym.
No - why would it be?
No - Niantic are always wanting good, high quality Waypoints to be added to their database
Multi-accounting is against the Niantic TOS. As noted, voting for a particular picture makes no difference to what becomes a Gym
How about personal abuse in the forums or over Comms?
The gist of this whole thread is essentially - "Why can't PoGo players choose what becomes a Gym?". Considering the levels of abuse of location edit facilities and the like we saw prior to the recent changes, do you think any future system would not suffer from the same problems?
Nice to see a definitive response from Niantic. We need to see a bit more of this please.
I'm pretty sure the Niantic stance is that the games should not be considered when reviewing. We're reviewing and creating a POI database, that's it. So, no, Wayfarer reviewers should not have a say on gym creation. Nevermind that they are too far spread out to know what's what and where.
A much better option (IMO) would be to seperate the games assets and changes to these points even further. Maybe delay gym creation by a week and slap a "Vote for Gym" button on the picture with the Scan button. Then when the week is up, the highest voted becomes the gym and all ties are random. This way players can look at the Stop layout as a whole and none of this preplanning, up to and including BS rejections to prevent someone from unknowingly putting something in in the wrong order.
But Niantic seems to prefer vagueness and randomness over letting their players have some control.
Whats worse (and this is from a player and a biantic perspective), players getting s say in what is safe and unsafe to become a gym, where maybe a bit of abuse happens? Or rng puts a gym in a busy road area where people congregating to raid causes somone to fall in front of traffic?
Yes, the likes could be seen as abuse, but in 90% of the things I've read, the likes was used to put gyms in the optimal places for.people to meet up safely, which is what everyone wants.
My Suggestion is more that submitters and reviewers can say if something is safe to be a gym, not that it will become a gym
My probably unpopular 2 cents on this.
I've always disliked the voting system in gym creation. Making an Ingress account for more accurate Wayfarer actions (avoiding duplicates etc) is one thing... having Ingress votes affect the game map of PoGo is another thing.
In theory, Ingress players definitely don't care about the PoGo map, and would just vote for photos they like, greatly altering the game experience of PoGo players.
In practice what I saw is that the people with the most Ingress alt accounts (multiple per person, to make it clear) get to decide where a gym is created. Where it's the most convenient for them, not for the whole local PoGo community.
The factor that SHOULD decide which pokestop becomes a gym is which pokestop is the most popular in the area. Niantic definitely should have the data on which pokestops get clicked on/used the most, and my opinion is that that should be the main deciding factor in the process (as well as density).
This is correct in my experience. It's usually only one or two people deciding what becomes a gym. I've heard of portals getting upvotes overnight, only to have them mysteriously disappear once the new gym is created. And it usually is only one person who makes the decision. Locally, there was a player who had a gym deleted from the game because it was pedestrian, rather than car friendly. She made up a reason to get the gym deleted, and when confronted with the proof of her abuse, Niantic did nothing.
Most people I've talked to have no clue why a stop becomes a gym, not having knowledge about the cell thresholds let alone what can be done to influence the selection process. These are people who enjoy the game and might even contribute to wayfarer, but don't visit the forum, or reddit or discord.
A lot of people are upset by this, because most people want there to be a metric that decided which Wayspot becomes a Gym in Pokemon GO other than random.
Yes, a lot of people are upset that they can't specifically choose the gym, or use it for abuse potential, but most people just want the gyms to be more easily accessible or in locations that allow for EX raids. Especially with a lot of towns that did not even have any EX gyms until people figured out how to manipulate it.
While I understand Niantic not wanting players to manipulate what becomes a gym or not, players losing potential EX Gyms or more easily accessible gyms due to randomness can be both incredibly frustrating and very demotivating. I've seen many people dropping off from wayfarer because of decisions like these.
I know the @NianticCasey-ING or anyone on wayfarer team isn't in control of this (that would be the Pokemon GO team) but I wanted to let Niantic know where a lot of this frustration is coming from. Pokemon GO players just want to make the game better for their communities, and if there's no trust that Niantic can choose gyms by some metric that helps the community other than random, then a lot of people aren't going to be interested in wayfarer.