With Ingress First Saturday, one step of being able to verify your event is taking a group photo, sharing it on a public social media platform and submitting it on the score submission form. But what qualifies as public social media? Which links should you use for your photo submission? Hopefully this guide will help you with these questions.
Requirements for Group Photos
- A minimum of 10 agents must be shown in the picture.
- The picture needs to be posted on a public social media with preferably the tag #IngressFS
- The photo can not be a collage, candid photo or snapshot or series of snapshots
- Photo links to Google Photo, Google Drive, Telegram, and any limited posting are not accepted.
Accepted Submissions
Anything Social Media platform that can make public posts and do not require log in or an account on the platform to be able to be seen are accepted. This means sites that do not allow people to look at posts without an account (example MeWe) are not allowed. Twitter, Instagram, Reddit, Vk, and Facebook are all allowed but again, the accounts need to public and not shut down to only friends can see. The only exceptions to this are Facebook and Vk as you can have a private Facebook or Vk and still make public events and posts that anyone can see with the right links. As more social media platforms open up we will add to this list.
Why was my submission denied?
If you do not have 10 agents in your group image it will not be accepted. Even if there are 9 in the picture and someone else is taking the picture, it can not be accepted. We are not at the events so we can not confirm if the person taking the picture is an agent or not. We suggest asking someone to take your groups picture or attempt to do a “selfie” group picture to get at least 10 agents in the image.
Was it an actual group photo or a snapshot?
Snapshots are not an acceptable group photo. Getting pictures of the agents interacting with each other does not count as a group photo. We do not have a way of telling who is an agent in the public space unless it is a posed picture. If you have issues with getting a group photo of the agents, we suggest getting your group photo at the beginning of your event. Make sure your attendees are aware that the group photo is required if they want to get their FS badge.
Was it a collage?
Although collages are accepted for online events, they are not accepted as for onsite group photos. All participants must be in the same photo for it to be considered a valid submission.
Was it posted on a public social media?
What we mean by public is that we can see your posts without logging in. If you are unsure about whether or not your post can be seen, you can always check by opening an incognito window and looking from there. For different social media platforms there are different ways to either work around this or not.
Reddit does not have a privacy option on accounts, so everything that is posted there is public.
Twitter and Instagram have no way to post publicly if either are set up as private so if you plan to use these platforms the accounts need to be public.
Vk and Facebook are probably some of the easiest to work around. You can have a private account in these platforms and make public events/communities that can be seen without logging in. The issue with these are you need to make the Events public from the start so that it does not require the volunteers verifying to log in.
This is important! MeWe is a completely private social media. We can not accept submissions from MeWe at this time as it requires you to have an account.
Was your Picture a direct link?
Direct Photo Links are not accepted
Direct Photo links are just that, direct photo links. They give us no details of the event, when the event was, where it was, etc. Direct link photos are normally shared by sharing the image link instead of the post link. We need the post link to see when you shared your group photo and for which event it is actually for. Below are what we need to be able to see with your submissions.
These links are easy to get through your laptop, computer, tablet, or phone browsers and can be checked on whether or not they are public by using an incognito browser.
Was your Picture an Event link instead of a photo post link?
This problem is seen more with FB. When you make an event in FB you need to be sure to share the photo post link and not the event link because the event link does not always show us your photo. Some times it can be seen in the discussion but other times it can not be seen at all, so the best bet to get your photo approved is to give us the photo post link. You can check if you are giving us the correct link by checking your link in incognito mode. Below are examples of the wrong and right links and how they look to us when we attempt to verify your event.
Was your picture part of a Google Photos, Google Drive, Telegram or other exclusive link?
We do not accept Google Photos, Google Drive, Telegram or other exclusive links for the same reason we don’t accept direct image links and chat links. They are not public social media platforms, are exclusive to only those who have the links, and therefore can not be used.
We will be updating this guide as other platforms come to our attention.