We need to go back there -> Into the Woods
Rodensteiner-PGO
Posts: 1,707 ✭✭✭✭✭
@NianticDanbocat @NianticTintino
Dear DanBocat and Dear Tintino,
beign out and about alot and talking to alot of the communities (both pgo and ingress) there is one thing on my mind that is also on alot of other peoples list:
Getting into the Woods, Exploring the Areas, Finding new places and things to interact.
These are above all on your List
- Ein Ort, der zum Entdecken einlädt
- Ein Ort, der zur Bewegung einlädt
- Ein guter Treffpunkt
Ein Ort, der zur Bewegung einlädt
Ein Ort, um frische Luft zu schnappen, sich die Beine zu vertreten oder Sport zu treiben – solche öffentlichen Orte regen zur Bewegung an und motivieren uns, auf unsere Gesundheit zu achten.
Beispiele für Wayspot-Kategorien
- Parks und Plätze
- Gärten
- Wälder
- Wanderwege
- Radwege
SADLY here in Germany, the acceptance of those Candidates submitted by me and my fellow wayfarer colleagues is still, even a year after the introduction of the new revisited criteria, very bad.
People tell me that there is nitpicking on trailmarkers in the forums and on discord, alot of the players always get their Candidates rejected.
I am bringing this up, because it is top priority for me to bring the playerbases out from the cities and into the woods. I am very sad that our efforts are sabotaged by reviewers that are not familiar with the rules you set up, and also by reviewers that do not accept the candidates because of nitpicking.
Especially Bicycle Trails are basicly still all rejected here in Germany. These are great candidates for wayspots, but people see them as common street signs.
It cannot be that there are trails out there (for example you just have to look them up on sites like www.wanderreitkarte.de) that are very perfect for the games, but people dont go there because there are no pokestops or portals (and no spawns).
I am counting on you both that you will put this on your Prio List, because it is in the spirit of everything Niantic.
Comments
Thank you for your thoughtful feedback and post about the challenges you are facing in your local community. And for your understanding and passion for our mission to build games and experiences that help people explore the real-world.
It is a really sticky problem since our mission is clear, but open ended in terms of implementation. Wayfarer is a global community mapping project in pursuit of Niantic's overarching mission. So we want you to have these debates where a collective judgement call is made. The Criteria update where we included Niantic's mission (Explore, Excercise, Social) was only one step to helping you better frame your decisions during the debate.
For now what I would recommend doing is encouraging your local community not to think about whether it's acceptable based on 'what is it' or whether we put it on the list, but on 'what is it's POTENTIAL to support' exploration, exercise, and being social, is this Wayspot going to be useful for me when I go to the woods to explore?
Now, I realize that what some will say woah woah woah we are just going to overpopulate the gameboard with really uninteresting things, but please know that (1) just because it is accepted in Wayfarer doesn't mean it's automatically going to be on all of our gameboards. Wayfarer does not make that call, games do. And (2) we are thinking about the overpopulation problem too, and brainstorming how we can help games make better decisions on which of the Wayspots to include (circling back to point 1).
Thinking out loud, maybe we need your help in identifying 'sets' of wayspots that mark a larger place, or letting you rank existing wayspots by how cool, interesting, and meaningful they are, whether you'd recommend a friend to visit it etc. If they are good for groups, if it's open vs hidden, loud or quiet, what kind of exercise you can do...
That would give game developers much more to work with to ensure that only the Wayspots selected make sense to the game's lore and narrative. Maybe one game DOES want all of the trail markers and doesn't care about how unique they are, and another only wants the really beautifully historic ones... Does that make sense? Do you think the community would be willing to provide more information about these places in the future so that we can enable this for our current and future games?
Hope this helps!
cc @NianticTintino @AnsonNIA-PGO
Thinking aloud, as well, one thing to is helping understand what "generic features" may or may not be used to represent something as a whole. For example, a river access site may only have a rules sign and no other discerning feature (other than a beaten path to the water) or an official trail may have nothing other than a gate, stile, or pylons and no signs at all. Almost all of these would be rejected for being "generic" (well, "natural features" in Wayfarer terms) but having Niantic sponsored advice that these can be acceptable for what they in turn represent would go a long ways for nominators and reviewers. We can craft supporting text that helps make it clear, but it only takes a few rejections before everyone just assumes they should all be rejected "for the agreement."
@Danbocat-PGO To tag along to this reviewing "for agreement" rather than for criteria is a real problem. Very recently I pointed out a marvelous nomination that the nominator made ineligible by the submitter. In pointing this out i was called a "gatekeeper" was told "niantic doesnt pay me to be strict with criteria" and was mocked that i "missed an agreement" (the nomination was ultimately accepted). Its hard to get people to review based on criteria when their set on agreements.
Do you think the community would be willing to provide more information about these places in the future so that we can enable this for our current and future games?
Not at all. While ithe following may not accurately reflect the sentiment of those who are so deeply involved with Wayfarer that they regularly frequent this forum, the general sentiment of the community regarding the number of Wayspots within the gameboards for certain games is simply that people just want "more more more". This mentality is widely vocalized in places like Twitter and the /r/PokemonGo and /r/TheSilphRoad subreddits, as well as local community Facebook and Discord groups, but has even cropped up on this forum from time to time. The issue is also deeply reflected in the sheer amount of garbage nominations (trash cans, walmarts, trees, etc) that reviewers see everyday, which clearly resembles what some people believe should be a Wayspot or Pokestop since they nominated them. In general, the community doesnt care about quality. They just want more.
There is a widely believed (false) rumor that Pokestop and Portal scans can lead to removed Wayspots being deleted, and as such, many misinformed members of the community refuse to do AR tasks and vehemently encourage others not to do them either. I have even seen some people on Reddit state that they intentionally perform AR tasks incorrectly in an attempt to stifle whatever Niantic is doing with the scan data.
A similar mentality was observed in the recent "#HearUsNiantic" debacle regarding Pokestop interaction distance, where users argued that the "reduced" interaction distance "forced" them to to go to Wayspots in dangerous locations, like in the middle of the road. The reality is that any wayspot that is truly dangerous (such as not having pedestrian access) should just be removed. Many players don't care about that nearly as much as they care about just having a more populated and accesible gameboard.
Mentalities like these could easily completely destroy a system where users provided information that helped determine what POIs are more suited or worthy of being a wayspot on a particular gameboard. While the intention would help diversify different Niantic games, in practice people would simply provide information that they think would lead to that wayspot most likely showing up in their game of choice, whether the data provided was true or not.
Hey @Danbocat-PGO,
I don't have much to contribute to this specific discussion. For a start, I'm not in Germany (I'm in the UK), and over here it seems easy enough to get wayspots approved out in nature, as our Wayfarers seem to appreciate such things; if anything, our problem seems to be with restaurants instead, which are nearly always rejected no matter how unique/interesting/popular/important/award winning they may be.
I am not here to hijack the thread with my personal gripes though. I just wanted to offer my own welcome to you, and to also comment on the fact that I appreciate you being here and posting. Having seen your posts on the forum, it's very refreshing to have someone commenting in the way that you do. You seem to speak openly and freely, and generally seem to be coming across as very personable. Whilst Wayfarer itself might be a bit buggy with the recent update (which you've acknowledged, and I'm sure all the gremlins are being hunted down), the fact that you're here and talking to the community is very much an improvement to the overall Wayfarer experience, and this is a good thing.
I did notice you say you might not be on here as much as Giffard or Tintino, but I do hope you keep dropping by when you are not too busy with other things, as it's good to see your insights :)
Thank you so much for this insight. That is exactly why I think all trail markers and footbridges should be in game - useful for exploring - but i can't see why they would be in pokemon go and not ingress.
I agree with the comment that people just want more and more portals and pokestops and do not care about a beautiful game board. At least in those two games. I have folks in our pogo discord say they just approve every single nomination. (Which makes me wonder why it is so hard to get anything accepted.) And it is assumed everyone just grabbed an AR scan task and is holding it so they pick up the "real" research from the pokestops.
To me the whole problem with the criteria "refresh" is that the heavy reviewers actually still have notes on any old rulings and are going by those. We need concrete yes or no guidelines whenever possible.
I know this will update much later than my other comment, but these game boards just do not lend themselves to "Oh, I want to go see that poi" when they look like this.
Two of those dots are these gorgeous murals I added to the game, but you would never know that from the game boards.
Neither of which ever showed in my Showcase, since I only see Wayspots from an Air Force Base 70 miles away - but that's another discussion.
This is so true. I had a trail head submission rejected for not meeting criteria. The Trail is well marked and maintained but has no official signage. There is a gate and a well kept wooden fence that separates a beached area and the trail itself; so there is a physical, man-made anchor for a Wayspot. The trails official name is **** Pond Trail, and loops around a large pond in one of our state parks, but again its not labeled at the location. If I could upload the official image of the parks map you would see the start of the trail marked and the trail looping around the pond. However the nomination process does not allow for that information to be easily included.
There was a discussion on one of the recent AMA's around including a place to add a link if you had one. Often folks will include links to supplemental information, which I find helpful, but some reviewers, wrongfully, mark those as a rejection for including a URL. So even that becomes a risk for the submission if you get the wrong handful of reviewers, who are after their 1% agreement.
Sadly for the player community, this is in a state park that I visit once a year on a camping trip so it will be 11 months before I will have an opportunity to try and resubmit this in another way that will be acceptable to the reviewing community. May by then the system will be improved to the point that it will be an easier lift.
@Roli112-PGO - thank you for sharing that experience with me. I'm really sorry you went through that. Know that the entire Wayfarer team is always incredibly appreciative of those that believe in our mission as much as we do. And there are definitely those in the community who are aligned with you, but maybe are just not as vocal. If anything, definitely reach out to me if need some advice!
@HankWolfman-PGO - thanks for the welcome! I will do my best to stay engaged :) And you are welcome to join any thread here of course!
@AisforAndis-ING - Correct. Scanning doesn't determine whether a Wayspot stays in Niantic's database or not. It also does not get used to update photos or to validate a Wayspot. Could be useful for the nominations process though?
@cyndiepooh-ING - wow those are wonderful murals! I agree with you entirely. The games determine how they design the gameboard and the game features so I will see if they want to brainstorm with me :) Also another reason why a Wayfarer native app might help here. Thinking in both the game and a native Wayfarer app, what in the design would make you want to visit the place? Maybe a 'newly added' styling? Or style the map markers by type? ideas welcome!
Always is a tricky word. Take footbridges for example. A footbridge over a stream on a hiking trail is very different from a footbridge at a supermarket over the retention pond. This is part of the problem with a lot of the reviews: the reviewers simply want to vote yes or no on the wayspot without trying understanding why it meets or does not meet the criteria.
Additional thoughts in relation to this:
Thinking out loud, maybe we need your help in identifying 'sets' of wayspots that mark a larger place, or letting you rank existing wayspots by how cool, interesting, and meaningful they are, whether you'd recommend a friend to visit it etc. If they are good for groups, if it's open vs hidden, loud or quiet, what kind of exercise you can do...
Has the idea of submitting wayspots as an area or 2D plane, as opposed to a single point / set of GPS coordinates ever been considered? While some wayspots such as a statue or historical sign might be able to have their location accurately portrayed by a single set of GPS coordinates, something like a park, sports field, or a unique building may take up a large enough amount of space that a single GPS coordinate does not properly express it's location.
If areas could be marked as wayspots, and standing within or close enough to that area allowed you to interact with it within a gameboard, it may encourage a more accurate wayspot network, reduce the number of weird location accuracy issues and subjective location edits seen within Wayfarer, as well as encourage players to move around a bit more within the real world.
I think the comments about the games/gameboards not being conducive to actually exploring POIs is pretty spot on. The POIs are pretty peripheral in the actual gameplay and even in the point of the games themselves, at least for the current games. As a player, you don't need to know or care what's there, you just need SOMETHING to be there to facilitate gameplay, especially if you have nothing. Which is what drives the completely understandable need for more POIs, as well as the completely understandable frustration when players happen to be located in areas that have no POIs to offer. Now they can't play, and that's the concern, not whether a POI is interesting enough to make a detour. Right now, Wayfarer is concerned primarily with POI interest, and because of that, it fails to serve player needs toward basic gameplay. Even though improving gameplay is what drives Wayfarer user activity, the aims of the platforms are not the same. In Pokemon Go, for example, I look for and catch Pokemon. I don't pay attention to the POIs, unless maybe I have some moments between actual gameplay, but that exploration piece often takes time and attention away from the game goals. When there's a game event going on, it's absolutely not happening.
Real exploration in the current games is really more of an advanced activity, which is doable once you have basic gameplay needs met. Then you can start to care about what's around you. You don't care as much if your ability to play is severely limited by lack of POIs.
That said, I've really enjoyed exploring my new areas through trying to identify new POIs, but I'm also in an area that has potential in offering new POIs, and not everyone can say that. I would also love for my hiking trails to be marked by periodic, regular POIs, in line with the trail markers. An outside observer may not care about trail markers, but the actual person walking the trails does, especially when they might be hard to identify or it might be hard to tell where the trail is going. Let me have the POIs I need to play the game in the wilderness (otherwise the game is totally barren and pointless), and let it help to guide me on the trail as I go. How more perfect could you get in an augmented reality game that's supposed to promote exploration?
Styling map markers by type would be pretty awesome. I would love some kind of size indicator too, at least for really big things. If something is a giant skyscraper or a castle, let me see it towering on the horizon. I might just decide to journey toward it.
100% agree with the original post. Bike Trails should 100% be allowed. If you're here to go biking, the Trail has done its job, hasn't it. It's got you out and about and exercising and exploring a wonderful area. Again, 100% this should be accepted.
thank you @Danbocat-PGO i dont know what happened to @NianticDanbocat, it is nice that you answered back.
It is rather straightforward what Niantic has to do. People would never be able to submit such a Wandering Trail in its form in the system that Wayfarer is now.
a) Wayfarer needs a Contribution Option for Trails. It is working like this: Someone finds a route (like in my example, on www.wanderreitkarte.de) - a official trail that has markers, and also alot of markers at trees. (the current system would never let those pass, it is like Gandalf) - and then opens a new tab for "Trails" and looks for the paths/trails on maps in wayfarer. Currently the streets should all be there.
In my example it is R8, "Panorama zwischen Erz und Stein" (Panoramaroute Ore and Stone)
The gpx/ovl/kml for it is here for example
http://karte.wanderwalter.de/odenwald/381034_Reichelsheim-R8-Panorama-zwischen-Erz-und-Stein.html
You have to upload the gpx/ovl/kml to wayfarer, that even would contain information on the route
Now Wayfarer processes the route in background and places every 300-500 m a trail-wayspot
Why not now give the uploader the option to actively choose what happens on the route? Maybe choose where the gyms would be in pokemon go, at places where theres a good infrastructe (benches, mountain tops?)
AGAIN, we are not talking about giving people homegyms in pokemon go, it is about getting people OUT of the car, OUT of the house and into the wilderness on their feet. The Trails are there, have no or little car traffic. Make something out of that.
In my example, we dont have "Parks" here. It is nice that people 50km away have Parks and can go there and play pokemon go, ingress, catan or that other Niantic game. In reality, everyone here is without Parks - but with Trails aplenty.
I can show you a good example on how this can look - my community (and myself) had the opportunity to submit the Nature-Object Information Signs at the "Waldlehrpfad Unterschönmattenwag" - which is the oldest Forest Teaching Trail in Germany. Here it was no problem, because it is filled with a Sign every 100m or so. There is really alot there.
https://intel.ingress.com/intel?ll=49.54211,8.868158&z=18
glad to see that you have reverted back to @NianticDanbocat
The biggest issue with an automated system to create generated wayspots is, priority needs to be given to the trail markers proper, ie. signage that indicates entrances into the trail system, or that indicates where multiple trails converge/cross/intersect.
And given that we’ve ALREADY been instructed to avoid allowing those simple “distance” markers along trails, 300-500m would be much too short.
If anything could be addressed directly by @NianticDanbocat and/or @NianticTintino I would suggest that they make a more-detailed description of what qualifies a trail marker. For example, some of my local trail systems’ signage does not include any NAME on their sign, just unique iconography. As such, reviewers incorrectly reject these as “not valid”.
I have several such rejections, that Niantic staff could maybe see in my account and/or I could send by PM.
thanks for your insight, @0X00FF00-ING
yes the idea is good, that you can make a startpoint. as most Trails here are circular trails, the question didnt came up for me. Anyway, the most circular trails have a parking space where to start. you can pick up the start everywhere anyhow on these trails.
Surely there are Trails that lead from A to Z.
Personally i think a "Trail Wayspot" every 1km would be much too far. 300-500m is very optimistic. In my example, if you have a 15km trail, that would only lead to 15 pokestops/gyms in Pokemon Go, which would bore people and they wouldnt go there.
You can see on my example "Waldlehrpfad Unter-Schönmattenwag" that there is a wayspot everywhere, sometimes these are not 100m away.
If you have time, try walking 10km in the woods with 10 wayspots. You will go there once only.
This isnt about the ruleset that applys to creating wayspots, this is about giving people the opportunity to walk (in my example) 15km on a nice sunday, explore places that they wouldnt go normally, get fresh air and build up a healthy lifestyle while playing a Niantic Game.
A "Wandering Trail Wayspot" could not work under the present system, as people always would reject the trail markers (we have the same @0X00FF00-ING - they only have "unique" iconography. ) - i wouldnt put a single one into the current system to have it float down here for 18+ month, until it gets rejected. also would never upgrade that.
There needs to be a decicated system to enter these gpx/kml data, and then have it auto-populated with random wayspots that could consist of the Routes "iconography".
Even if Niantic would relax the rules, as you know the community would not hear about the changes and continue to vote like ever. Also keep in mind that this system completely is against most Ingress Users Mindwork.
@rodensteiner-ING Sometimes the solution is to think “outside the box” so to speak.
People may have thought I was joking, but I’ve always advocated that one could work with and/or sponsor organizations like Scouting troops to work with their communities, perhaps to create a series of educational plaques along the trail.
I don't think anyone would go on a 10km trail hike specifically for playing games, so whether there are wayspots every half or full kilometer isn't all that relevant ... but I do agree that something should be there, because they should help encourage me to keep going and stay engaged in the game. I really like the idea of something in the games identifying a trail route and auto-populating it to fill the gaps. I think they should be synced with real world trail markers wherever possible, but a maximum distance between stops is a good idea. This type of thing could be ingested via existing trail data, or even submitted by a user as a whole: build a trail route, identify the real trail markers, supply supporting website data, and submit the entire thing as a trail nomination. Auto-population of stops can occur afterward as needed to support gameplay along the trail.
That may not be what brings me to a trail in the first place, but it would probably encourage me to come back more regularly, especially if in-game "trail terrain" generated more unusual or rare gameplay events (like uncommon Pokemon, for example).
People are definately going in 10km circle trails to Play Pokemon go.
And yes, rewarding Players by having uncommon spawns in the Woods is a concept that niantic Always Had, But failed in execution. I
I know people that have done two-day mountainous hikes just to get to a single portal in Ingress. I've taken many planes, boats and cars around to get to locations just because of the portals that are there, not to mention the hiking and lots of walking. So it's not as farfetched as it may seem ;)
Also what you describe, rather than planting Wayspots everywhere, could also be achieved through missions (or "Routes" as has been datamined for PoGo). In Ingress they are user generated routes that take people from Point A to Point B and could be useful in this case for highlighting walking trails, maybe Niantic can look at generating routes based on trail data?
Hello.
I've been doing some reviews and wondering about something.
Explore, Excercise, Social
Each of the three eligibility categories is different in what is important to them.
However, all the candidates are looking for the same scores for Title and Description, Historic or Cultural Significance, Visually Unique, Safe Access, and Location Accuracy.
In November 2020, the criteria were revamped because "the judges realized that there was too much historical knowledge to maintain credibility and make the judging process simple and enjoyable," right?
Isn't that what the "Historic or Cultural Significance" section is looking for in every candidate?
There are historical candidates among the eligible candidates for exercise and social. But don't all of them need a question item that is more appropriate for their eligibility than historical?
Let me give you an example to make it more clear.
A distinctive set of playground equipment in a newly built park
This could be considered to meet the eligibility criteria for exercise and social, but isn't it a bit nonsensical to ask such a candidate to score "Historic or Cultural Significance"?
The way nominations are made and the look of the review may change drastically, but why not make some significant changes to make it easier to understand?
Yeah, I totally agree with you. For a while, I was thrown off by the "historical or cultural significance" criteria, because not everything is historical, and not everything is cultural. Unless you want to define culture as anything people use, which I suppose you could if you wanted. So, for a while, I was 1-star-ing that criteria if it didn't fit my definition. I thought maybe this was some arbitrary descriptor and Niantic just wanted a scale on where the submission fell. But then something led me to believe that these perfectly good nominations could be rejected on the basis of not being historically or culturally significant, so I decided to simply 3* anything and everything that wasn't obviously historical or cultural, just to make sure it got a passing score.
At the end of the day, I have no idea what Niantic intends to get out of that metric, and I agree that it's not a good one and not applicable to everything. But not knowing how it's used or how it might unfairly tank a good submission, I'm going to continue providing halfway decent ratings anyway.
@rodensteiner-ING - I don't know what happend to my profile name here lol, it switches back to my PGO name when I'm on mobile // 🤷♀️ - anyway, thank you for your examples and ideas! Probably the best way to represent a long linear feature is by using lines or polygons (we can geek out about cartography if you want!), but for now the best proxy we have is the point. It is true that the alternative to a line is a series of points!
@0X00FF00-ING - It's actually very hard to make global definitions for things that will make sense and be interpreted by everyone around the world in a consistent way; that makes it clear for everyone across every culture in every locality over time. If we did try to define every single thing, we'd be leading you all down a path of arguing the definitions and the interpretations and, really, all of that is besides the point. Equal number of folks have told us 'relax the criteria' or 'make the crtieria more strict/specific', but either way will continue to create a space where people will be disagreeing because we have designed it so that you HAVE to make a decision.
Instead, I want the overall experience to be about feedback and discourse in a way that helps you spend your physical and emotional energy learning about places from each other, and not spent on being judge and jury against the place or against each other. It's a fundamental shift in the product design but ultimately I think Niantic/Wayfarer should start to shoulder a bit more and leave the community to focus on the fun parts of contributing.
@OscarAstro-PGO - totally - the willingess of how far you'll go to get out there is really different for each game, and dependent on the narrative of that game, it's missions and it's challenges!
@SAThomason-PGO @CipherBlakk-PGO - yea, I agree the questions in the nomination review needs an entire revamp to better align with the intent of the new criteria (which is no longer limited to historical, cultural, or visually unique). The star system is also not working as intended so I'm revisiting that as well. This one is a bit of a bigger problem space to handle so I'm taking my time to work out the new experience with my team. Thanks in advance for your patience!
This may have already been suggested by the team, but here are some suggestions I came up with. When nominating, what criteria did you consider this candidate to meet before choosing a place? How about a checkbox for the question, "Which criteria do you think this candidate meets?
The checkboxes could include, for example
The type of eligibility as defined in the three eligibility categories. "Has local interest and importance," "Brings out the best in the community," and "Important and interesting to the community..."
Of course, the items defined by EXERCISE and SOCIAL will also be available as items.
For first-time nominees, why not make it easier for them to understand that they can't apply if they don't meet the criteria by including them in the nomination process?
Of course, I think it's also important to link a detailed help page to the nomination screen so that people can see it at any time.
Also, on the review page, I think it would be easier for people to evaluate if you change the questions according to the items they have chosen when they nominate, and ask questions that match the items.
By doing this, we can prepare a lot of items for this category in the future, and limit the number of items for this category to those that are considered to be of high quality. It would also make it possible to change the role of each wayspot in the game according to its rating, wouldn't it?
This is just the opinion of one user, but I hope you can take it as a reference.
That's a really cool idea. Maybe also have the reviewer check one of the three main criteria boxes - I imagine that the reviewer's job would be to either validate what the submitter had in mind, or to decide a different criteria is better to review it under. And then the evaluation options would change depending on what box the reviewer picked.
Along with other necessary guidance updates to the submission process, this would help new and uninformed players to select better nominations and to defend their reasoning accordingly.
@NianticDanbocat yes, i think if the user just uploads a kml/gpx route that can be from any hiking website, this would be the easiest way to populate this route with random wayspots, that are exclusive only on this route.
You now have the idea, the easiest way to make it work, now bring this to the attention of -jh (i am sure he will like the idea, even if it doesnt give him AR scans. If he likes, he can add a AR-Scan feature of the whole route, which would take a large amount of data).
It is a very good way of bringing a new feature into pokemon go, that could add easily into the new concept of "pokemon go user-generated routes of already existing wayspots".
Just let me test drive that.
@NianticDanbocat Some of our frustration with submission denials can be traced directly to the poor wording on the Wayfarer site. There isn't anything there we can refer to reviewers who have been marking our real, physical signs as a rejection. For examples:
I have some specific examples from my own rejections that I can show you in a DM, but without adding language to the wayfarer website that addresses the above issues with poor reviewers, nominating trail markers will continue to be a frustrating experience.
As for @rodensteiner-ING's proposition, assuming that you CAN manage to pull .gpx information along any given hiking trail, I've only got one particular concern:
Personally I wouldn't want to see "generated" wayspots along my hiking trails while I'm playing Ingress. I'd MUCH rather be able to easily locate the trails' entrances and intersections at a quick glance.
As for Pokemon Go and other games where the main content is the stuff spawning in between wayspots? Having extra random spawns ALONG trails would certainly improve engagement in those games. And I would suggest to the game masters and marketing fiends that periodically having "Go explore!" events, where special spawns ONLY pop up along trails during the events? or at least MUCH MORE OFTEN along trails? I'm down with that.
Locally, the urban/rural network of trails is "mostly" visible on Google Maps, but where it isn't, usually the 3rd party source "AllTrails" (available as an app) has fully updated information when I need it. It just ain't free, and it's basically impossible to do deep-linking so that I can prove to reviewers the trails' presence. But it HAS helped me out when looking for new trail markers that aren't wayspots yet lol
this post is 100% spot on. if you live in a major city near it’s downtown core then you might care about quality of pois, but for the huge number of players that live in suburban heckholes there’s often no pois at all. here’s my neighborhood for example. the only nearby wayspots are either down major roads with no sidewalks or require a car trip to get to. The only way this neighborhood is gonna have a density of pois that actually make the game fun to play is if things like apartment signs, generic stores, and private pools are made into pois. as it stands any exploring I do can only happen when I make trips to major cities, and in the mean time to keep my pokeballs replenished we literally drive around hitting stops with our pokemon go pluses which is like the exact opposite of how the game should be played.
If niantic wants these games to be playable by everybody in all places there definitely needs to be looser criteria, but if quality of gameplay is less important than so called quality of pois then there’s nothing to change.
it could possibly be solved by having different criteria based on type of location (urban, suburban, rural, etc) but that will make review much more complicated
Yes, if you are living in a suburban neighbourhood, there mostly is nothing. Same here. We do have the occasional painted power box. Niantic is giving you the hint to leave this suburbs and get into the areas that have POI. Which to me sounds okay, but as you said, sometimes people just have to drive a vast amount of kilometers to get there.
Niantic should at least expant the waysquarer database to include the stuff that is okay - i checked the now famous, albeit nearly defunct website of "foursquare" that is the cheap deliverer of Niantics dreams.