Niantic Reviewers Should Focus on Getting Trail markers, Dance Studios and Dojos Accepted.

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Comments

  • grendelwulf-INGgrendelwulf-ING Posts: 301 ✭✭✭✭

    Memorial benches were discontinued because they were everywhere and aside from possibly a tiny engraved plaque, there is nothing unique from one to the other. A park could have dozens of memorial benches but because of certain rules they would then block any other cool poi from entering any of the games. I have a park near me where a memorial bench is next to a memorial tree but both are in the games because the submitter faked out their location. Who wants to go to a park and play ingress and capture nothing but hundreds of benches? Where is the fun and exploration in that?

  • Raachermannl-INGRaachermannl-ING Posts: 1,070 ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited December 2021

    No. The nomination is the biking trail marker as a whole. The boxed plaques are only the things, that make this one undoubtfully eligible for evryones own "interpretation" of the rules. These small plaques are the symbols for the named trails. So if a reviewers rule knowledge is stuck at OPR-times these should be convincing.

    (btw this photo is already taken with outstretched arms, and I'm 1.90m tall .... )

  • tp235-INGtp235-ING Posts: 1,364 ✭✭✭✭✭

    It's not too late to remove the toilet, it should be removed.

    I think it's insane too.

    But sometimes it was Niantic at the time that approved it.

    I'm not sure why they approved it.


    Also, to put the other side of the story, back in 2014, Niantic hadn't said a word to players about the specific candidates that I've given since the start of OPR.

    In such a blind state, players applied for various things and were told it would be six months or a year before they would know if they were accepted or not. (Among them, there were many cases where even candidates that are now always approved were rejected, despite their flaws.)

    Therefore, players were finding specific candidates to be approved based on applications from a year ago, which is exactly the right way to describe it: indiscriminate ****.


    Since it is such a relic of the thing, I hope that the ineligibility criteria and the deletion criteria will be equated so that these ineligible spots will be eliminated.

  • Cowyn2016-PGOCowyn2016-PGO Posts: 597 ✭✭✭✭✭

    You couldn't miss my point more ... 100% miss.... In a park, I'd continue to reject them for the reasons you said.

    My question is if a Named/Trail uses benches every mile, instead of Mile Markers.... shouldn't benches on a Trail be more acceptible under the same logic that mile marking signs were? That a person sees a POI down the trail and continues hiking to the next way spot, whether that wayspot is a generic mile marker sign or a memorial bench ... what's the difference.

    Benches along a trail could be vastly different then benches in a park.

  • VladDraco-PGOVladDraco-PGO Posts: 560 ✭✭✭✭

    That's exactly my feeling too.

    If trail markers are eligible under the Explore criteria, their interest is not the same on every place.

    If they are on a trail, and give you direction to the next point, hundred meters away, they are very good incentive to explore.

    If they are in city center sidewalks every 20 meters like some heritage markers in UK, they don't promote exploration. I rather prefer unusual or hidden footpath.

    I hope Niantic will clarify this (again), but they will probably say again it's not black and white, and to the reviewer’s knowledge of the area.

  • Gazzas89-PGOGazzas89-PGO Posts: 2,612 ✭✭✭✭✭

    Thats notbwhat the guidance says though, the guidance does not say it needs to be in a forest or that, it says if it encourages you to go somewhere you wouldn't. If a heritage trail goes througha city center, so what? You're still following the trail


    Now, if there's 1 every 20m, then youncan accept the first one, but then the kne 20m away, you can mark down the visual uniqueness and maybe contemplate dupe, but thats a different thing, there is no rule that states a trail marker needs to be x meters apart from the next one

  • 0X00FF00-ING0X00FF00-ING Posts: 769 ✭✭✭✭✭

    Even in an urban environment where the "trail" is a walking/biking route (mostly) along sidewalks, these periodic signs that may often look like generic road signs are important to the trail user. The trails' myriad twists and turns are impossible to follow otherwise.

    One such trail, that alternates between inter-city roadways and windy paths through the streets, and through any conveniently placed parks:

    https://waterfronttrail.org/

    Another smaller trail, this one goes along roadways, through cities, along sidewalks, into the woods and various parks, but these signs are smaller and obviously NOT "street signs":

    https://www.friendsoflaurasecord.com/2018/01/31/turn-by-turn-guide-to-the-laura-secord-legacy-trail/

    Like any other trail, "endpoints" are purportedly the most viable -- but end up being the most-frequently rejected ones, because those "end" points end up being out beyond the range where cities maintain sidewalks.

    Signs pointing you through parks or over any footbridge are the easiest to have accepted -- even though basically NONE of those ones are at "branching" points of any kind.

    And then there's the ones AT branching points, where trailgoers are easiest to confuse or find themselves lost -- at city street intersections. These too are frequently rejected, due to proximity to PRP. But at least @NianticGiffard has made it abundantly clear that locations on the "easement" are explicitly viable now, so <crossing fingers> some day the reviewers will eventually take that into account.

    But in all of those cases, ALL the signs are fully legitimate, both eligible and acceptable. A post by @NianticDanbocat implied that Niantic does not see an issue with the "frequency" of intermediate trail markers, even those not at endpoints or junctions -- because they encourage exploration.

    My personal opinion is that there can feel like there are "too many" intermediate markers on some trails, I wouldn't personally submit things every 50m or so. But 200m apart? It's juuust far enough out of reach to encourage players to reach for one more and keep going.

  • X0bai-PGOX0bai-PGO Posts: 1,667 ✭✭✭✭✭

    One recent nomination and a couple of nearbys. I 100% expect that the nomination will be approved, and obviously two of them are already in. This is most of what I get for trail markers - little more than sticks in the woods - and I’m unimpressed.

    To me, making the case for more trail markers means lowering the bar below these, and I’m not on board.


  • X0bai-PGOX0bai-PGO Posts: 1,667 ✭✭✭✭✭

    How about this one? I ask because it’s very clearly a laminated piece of paper and designated as marker #3. Sure enough, marker numbers 1 and 2 are already in the nearby. How low does this standard need to go?


  • 0X00FF00-ING0X00FF00-ING Posts: 769 ✭✭✭✭✭

    @X0bai-PGO there's nothing at all wrong with the first set of trail markers, they are exactly what one would expect at MANY locations in parks and preserves/reserves throughout the world. (My only issue is how tiny your screenshots are, but meh.) It doesn't matter if they're subjectively "ugly" or "unimpressive" -- they are marking the trails.

    The second batch, you maaaay have a case in that they appear to be somewhat impermanent. My only personal concern for those is whether that impermanence implies "fabrication" on the part of the submitter, ie. they're cheating in order to create faked wayspots. But the fact that the signage can be changed or updated by their local authorities as they need to? There shouldn't be a problem with that. I mean, trails can be closed for various reasons (local hunting season; flooding; any other repairs).

    Remember, you're not limited to using JUST the wayfarer website in order to make your determination. Niantic does NOT want us to "hurry! more wayspots! fast fast fast!", they want us to slowly consider each individual one on its own merits, and you've got all of Google or Bing or whatever else you've got available to you on the internet as a reference. If you're unsure, check it out better, and so long as you get back to your Wayfarer tab before it times out, you're all good.

  • X0bai-PGOX0bai-PGO Posts: 1,667 ✭✭✭✭✭

    So we have now advocated that the standard is that laminated pieces of paper are acceptable trail markers as long as the nominator didn’t create them.

    This thread has become a parody of itself.

  • 0X00FF00-ING0X00FF00-ING Posts: 769 ✭✭✭✭✭

    If the signposts are permanently affixed to the spot, and they are exclusively used for the purposes of being a trail marker? Why wouldn't they be acceptable? Because the park administrators are able to make changes to the displays as required?

    I'm not saying they HAVE to be accepted. That's for the community of reviewers to collectively decide. But I AM saying that in your given examples, you're may be too harsh.

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