Best Of
Re: Clothing Drop Box Locations
I would imagine that any which have been accepted were done so mistakenly, as a clothing drop box isn't a great place to socialise, exercise or explore.
Re: Signless Parks - to be, or not to be
I think we all understand the issue, but you haven't provided any information about the nomination you had rejected, hence we can only give opinions and the experiences that we have had with this issue. I think almost all Wayfarers have had issues with the community and appeals team rejecting nominations we believe meet criteria, and have called them out from time to time.
As I previously noted, we can certainly take a look at what you submitted to see if there is any improvement needed. I think that is the main point others are also trying to get across that the nominations may need improvement, or better information may have needed to be provided with the appeal.
Again, feel free to post a screenshot of your rejected nomination, and it can certainly be looked at. It'll also help Niantic know what to pass along to the appeals team, as from time to time, they, too, need reminders.
Re: All Poké stops/gyms were removed at my college.. why?
A lot of trainers in this discussion need to get a grip.
If the University wanted those pokestops removed, it's because they thought the "local community" was annoying. Annoying them more with demands to discuss the removal will just prove the University correct.
Take the L and move on.
Re: Any suggestions for what to do when your totally valid updates are rejected?
You can't just change a Wayspot from the poi that was approved to what it is now. If that business is gone, you need to report it for removal. Then you can submit a nomination for what it is now, if you feel it meets criteria.
Re: 4 of My Last 5 Noms Sent To Niantic Voting. Bug?
Maybe the new bot is pulling all of my noms to use them as examples of what makes a good wayspot? Haha
Re: Signless Parks - to be, or not to be
I think it is practically guaranteed that the Appeals staff haven't looked at prior years' AMA rulings. I don't know what Niantic has shown them, but they may have limited it to the Criteria Guidance pages and an injunction to 'use your best judgement'.
If they had developed anything that was clearer, more comprehensive, or went into greater depth they would be better off using it to educate and inform the Wayfarers, then there would be less need for Appeals.
They haven't even got a hyper-deck (circa 1990 technology) to illustrate the evolution of prior rulings vs. where policy stands today.
It would seem that sign-less parks belong with sign-less natural features and scenic overlooks among things that officials have told us were acceptable but haven't provided any clarification about HOW we could even get past the machines' pre-screening with them. Somehow, you would need to find a man-made anchor to feature in the foreground with an attractive locale as the backdrop, and persuade reviewers that the object was not what you were nominating, but merely a proxy for the location.
In other words, they either lied, misspoke, or have simply gone off in a completely different direction now. Today's AMAs don't seem to have any specific answers to our questions whatsoever.
Re: Signless Parks - to be, or not to be
No one has mentioned this point yet:
I've seen plenty of nominations where people claim something is a "park", when plainly it's just a wide spot of grass. There's no bench, table, sign or anything. As the AMA says, it needs something that " makes the park identifiable to someone who has not been there before." Just the nominator's word that children and dogs play there, is not enough. You don't have the power to just name random places as a "park".
The Increasingly Terrible Wayfarer Experience
Like so many others navigating Wayfarer under the new regime of Emily, mostly hopeless appeal reviews, and the more recently slipping help chat usefulness; obviously I'm quite disillusioned, frustrated, and even angry right now 😠
The fact that the community is our best chance of fair and accurate review these days is not only surprising, but also concerning, particularly as Emily now often completely removes any chance of that! 🤯
After doing several hours of work across a few days of 43°C heat recently (in my limited childcare days) to try to improve the quality of the database and bring one busy area into this decade, it's been no end of stuffing-around (having to redo things due to bad help chat results and Emily insta-rejects) and I've had quite a few disappointing and outright baffling results; all where the community WAS NOT involved.
And don't get me started on the absolutely abysmal communication! 🤦♀️ I thought Niantic aimed to improve transparency and communication, but it's worse than ever!! 🤯 If there even is any at all, it's mostly a dog's dinner of total nonsense and contradictions, with half of the wording being outright lies (e.g: blaming the community for staff or Emily's decisions) 🧐
My trust and respect for Niantic is at an all-time low, with almost every aspect of the system broken and unreliable right now (submissions, Emily, appeals, help chat... All producing complete rubbish, unpredictable, and counterproductive results for database quality) and no craps given about the people actually keeping the system running by submitting new data, apparently (the system fails to produce a product without us; something that would pay for Niantic to remember) 😒
In light of previous responses to such discourse, an FYI for Niantic: Wayfarers do not need to read the comments of others to be frustrated or fearful of the Wayfarer system, the system quickly instills those sentiments all by itself; and it does so now like never before! (So save the scolding) 🤦♀️
In trying to reduce abuse, Niantic is alienating their best contributors and actually encouraging low quality/effort submissions and retaliatiory sabotage (the minimal local activity I've seen from anybody else lately has been poor-quality/inaccurate/non-eligible submissions and to upvote the absolute worst trash photos; probably by certain disgruntled former Wayfarers) 🙄
It might take a while, but the database quality will be significantly worse off if these trends that hinder legitimate quality and experienced Wayfarer contribution continue. If it gets bad enough, they may find very few willing to engage with the system at all, since it is a lot of effort and cost (both time and money, for many) for very little return these days (most "reward" is outweighed by the mental health toll of navigating all the increasing bollocks) 🤷♀️
/End rant... I did say I was angry 😅🤦♀️







