Wayfarer: From limbo to purgatory

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A few weeks ago Niantic announced that Pokemon Go players Level 39 and Ingress agents Level 11 could access Wayfarer website, where players can review requests for pokestops and portals to increase the number of points of interest (POI) in their zones. However, Niantic appears to have made some tweaks to the site and limited the number of nominations that players can review which has generated complaints among them.

The announcement that more people could access Wayfarer was happily received by Pokemon Go fans because it meant that the process of reviewing their requests to create new pokestops and gyms would be much faster.

Before this, the review rate was fast compared to the slow pace of those times when only Ingress players, who were very few, could review in OPR (Operation Portal Recon), the predecessor of Wayfarer. For example, I only got a response to one of my portal requests each month. Many Ingress players joked about this delay and said their requests were in limbo because it took years or months for them to be answered.

When Pokemon Go players entered Wayfarer, the review rate dramatically accelerated and the number of POIs increased. I received a daily answer to one of my requests and a daily upgrade for constantly reviewing on Wayfarer. It became and is one of my favorite mini-games because it helped me create more pokestops and gyms in my neighborhood.

However, now Niantic decided to limit the number of nominations that a player can review on Wayfarer to between 25 and 100. This amount can be easily reviewed by an experienced player in 2 hours or less, many players started to receive the message "There are no more nominations available to review at this time" and now they have to wait 4 or 5 days until new nominations appear.

Players started complaining because they can no longer get upgrades as fast as before and cannot prioritize their own nominations. Also, even though there are more people on the site, the limits imposed have made the review process way too slow. Player´s complaints can be seen on the Wayfarer forum and the responses from Niantic´s moderators are vague and unsatisfactory, they even said that players "review too fast", which makes no sense because some requests like duplicates and joke portals (photos of faces, toys and people) can be rejected in less than 15 seconds. Although more than a technical problem, it must be a control measure to prevent organized and multi-account players from abusing the system.

So this is the new Wayfarer, players will now only be able to review a few requests and wait a certain number of days to review again. It is a discouraging panorama for any Wayfarer player, personally I like to see new nominations and get to know my country through the photos of other players. Hopefully Niantic reconsiders and returns to the original Wayfarer, I mean they can always go back to the old regimen where only Pokemon Go Level 40 players and Level 12 Ingress agents could review, if they think they have too many people on the site, because there will always be a constant stream of pokestop requests and Niantic is fortunate to have players willing to spend time increasing their global network of POIs for free.

 

Until then, give us more nominations to review Niantic! >:U