Beware of fake beaches (Pokémon Go)

Re:Beware of fake beaches (Pokémon Go) by randunel on Wednesday May 01, 2024 @04:40AM (#40220901)

TL;DR:

Online game company Niantic Labs uses OSM for a game, restricts certain features to beaches and other natural and artificial elements.

Then, Niantic Labs users edit OSM to add fake natural formations to game the system. Beaches and parks are added to cities where they don't exist.

OSM community tries to tackle the phenomenon by guiding users to correctly edit map features before reporting them.

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Re:Beware of fake beaches (Pokémon Go) by vintermann on Wednesday May 01, 2024 @05:07AM (#40221034)

I remember in Ingress a few people managed to convince Niantic that their garden gnome was a landmark statue.

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Re:Beware of fake beaches (Pokémon Go) by makeitdouble on Wednesday May 01, 2024 @08:32AM (#40222246)

It was almost a requirement to hit certain achievements.

Ingress is/was a wild game, with an avid community but also crazy chalenges, like keeping control of a portal every single day for a full year.

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Re:Beware of fake beaches (Pokémon Go) by eythian on Thursday May 02, 2024 @06:20AM (#40234540)

"Guardian" no longer exists, as it was causing (slightly more) toxic play. It was retired in 2018. Very annoyingly, when I was just a few days away from getting the maximum of 150 days.

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Re:Beware of fake beaches (Pokémon Go) by makeitdouble on Thursday May 02, 2024 @09:21AM (#40235932)

Thanks for the correction, yes Guardian was "only" 150 consecutive days. I mixed it up with Sojourner which is 360 days, but has no location requirement.

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Re:Beware of fake beaches (Pokémon Go) by SideburnsOfDoom on Wednesday May 01, 2024 @05:56AM (#40221291)

Analogy: this is like editing Wikipedia articles to add fictional data, because you play a game that consumes that Wikipedia data and the fiction benefits you in the game.

Wikipedia calls this "Vandalism", and it's definitely true that the downside in general far outweighs the benefit to the person making the map edit. Externalities and mis-aligned incentives.

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Re:Beware of fake beaches (Pokémon Go) by InsertUser on Wednesday May 01, 2024 @09:06AM (#40222614)

It's called vandalism on OpenStreetMap too. New users often make mistakes though and some Pokemon Go users might become more productive when they realise the map is used for other things too so a bit of guidance can be useful as the changes get reverted.

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