Lots of things are bad here.
This is just one of them.
I was just wondering what made you think the point structure was worth changing. In your first post you said:
deeggo wrote:I fear people will just confirm prices of every station they pass, for gaining points.
But in your most recent post you said:
Come on Mapcat, I'm only signalling that the way the gas prices feature works now isn't very safe and reliable. I just want to make sure that the quality of that part of Waze's information is as high as possible, and I see room for improvement.
OK, so then what is the problem with people confirming prices for gaining points? If the prices are correct, great, then that's better quality information (i.e. more recent). If the prices are incorrect, then that's an opportunity to get the name of the person posting bad prices, submit it to Waze, and get them to change their behavior (or PM them yourself). Changing the way prices are entered will not suppress cheating if a cheater is determined to get points.
If you were signalling something else about the feature's safety and reliability, then it was not obvious to me from what you said.
Part of our difference of opinion may stem from me being in a country where the gas price feature is horribly unreliable and hard to use. If someone made up prices, they may be better than the ones I see whenever I think to check. At the same time, since I am in a country with a dedicated gas price app (GasBuddy), maybe I am more aware of what causes problems with gas price reporting, and what doesn't. That app has its own set of problems, but people getting points for confirming what other people posted doesn't seem to be one of them. The way it works, I can post prices for any station within 10 km of my house right now. I don't have to be within sight of its sign. Furthermore, I could get on the GasBuddy web site and post a price for a station in San Francisco, right now, 3000 km away. You could, too. People determined to cheat for points (in this case, post prices they can't possibly know to be correct) have many opportunities. However, this is not a problem for two main reasons: you only get points for 5 prices a day, and there are millions of people posting prices every day. A cheat can only get a tiny bit ahead by doing this, and even if he gets away with it, someone else will probably report prices for the same station within a few hours. The second person then has the opportunity to see that the prices were incorrect, and correct them (and optionally, contact the moderators and complain about the cheater). The community makes it safe.
So if you're concerned about someone making the data less safe in Waze, then I suspect that once price reporting becomes very popular, the problem will be insignificant.