Why business nominations often fail.
TheFarix-PGO
Posts: 5,063 ✭✭✭✭✭
Wonder why your favorite restaurant doesn't get accepted. Well, if you put as much effort as these nominations that I reviewed over the last 100 nominations is any indication:
What makes any of these places stand out from any other generic business? And there were still quite a few that I forgot to snapshot.
And then the only nomination out of the entire session where the person honestly put in some effort.
Was debating about whether its location disqualified it since it was inside a hospital, but I finally decided to give it a couple of extra stars just for the effort.
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Well Sheetz should just be categorically eligible 💁♂️
The Latin restaurant I'd have considered approving depending on area, but that's certainly a weak nomination.
Cue he who shouldn't be named calling all of those eligible and must be accepted.
God I wish Sheetz was sponsored so bad. There a few near me with booths that have charge ports.
I get a lot with "high traffic area" too. 🙄 Also restaurants where the supporting information is just basically "they serve food".
A rich seam of coal there.
Sometimes if they took that extra effort of "what art do they have avaliable" they'll get success. These 5 restaurants that I frequent had successful submissions. Notice that I don't submit the restaurant itself but some sort of art it offers.
@CaptMcJay24-PGO did you make photospheres for the ones inside?
I can't delete my own comment? I clicked the post comment bottom twice and didn't noticed.
random business isnt really a good poi, for someone that is not local, what makes it special other then serve food? needs be a bit unique not a random business chain store...
A random playground isn't special beyond having toys for kids.
A rabdom basketball court isn't special other than having hoops for playing basketball.
A random library isn't special for anyone non-local other than having books to read.
These double standards against any and all businesses are ridiculous. I know that this is not likely to ever change, but I'll point it out anyway, just in case someone might change their mind.
That's an entirely different eligibility, though. Technically the business AND the artwork should be eligible (at least assuming those are "eligible" businesses). Folks usually do fall back on the "if there's art, just submit that" mantra, though.
¿Porque No los Dos? When possible, I submit both.
No i did not. Although on a few of these i would tag the site of the restaurant that had a little brief paragraph about the art. Or i would tag the instagram of the artist that made the mural.
I am 100% on board with approving restaurants. In fact, i have a controversial opinion of not wanting to accept churches as they are technically private property. But i give them a 5 star because its part of the "Public places of worship". I cant tell you how many times ive sat in their parking lot hacking a portal or fighting a Pokemon gym and someone from the church knocks on my window and asks **** im doing LOL. I also think movie theaters should be approved as its basically a gathering location to socialize and view a form of art. But all of my movie theater submissions get 1 stars for either generic business or the dreaded "Doesn't meet criteria"
Like bro its on their criteria. "A great place to be social with others" - popular restaurants, favorite coffee shops.
But reviewers want a 10 page essay on evidence of it being a popular restaurant, and even then they still categorize it as a generic business. You're right that both of them "Should be eligible" but the art one has a greater chance.
Re: your comment to @CarolFig1607-PGO - a photo showing the entrance to the building and the mural (either from inside or outside) can help immensely. I've even seen people use a menu in the foreground of the photo and the mural in the back. Finding the artist can sometimes help you discover a personal website, news article, or Instagram posts detailing creation of the mural that will reference the location. Sometimes the business website itself will show the inside of the building and the art.
@CaptMcJay24-PGO
Just to be clear, "private property" is NOT a rejection reason - "private single family residential property" is. A business complex, gated nationhood, or even a church with "no trespassing" signs are still eligible for Niantic Wayspots.
I'm fine with approving most movie theaters I've reviewed. One could also argue they encourage exploration of current pop culture and/or even influential cinema. I agree with "a great place to be social with others," but also will toss a jovial "you definitely shouldn't be social during the movie." I only remember submitting one theater and it was approved, however it was a one screen theater in a very rural town with the traditional marquee up front that helped it pop a little.
Sorry for derailing @TheFarix-PGO's thread a little.
You are correct about the private property statement. I have never rejected anything because they're private property BESIDES place of residence. My wording is weird. I was just stating that in my personal experience ive had people from the church ask why im in their parking lots playing a game. lol.
And to go back with what @TheFarix-PGO is talking about. What should a restaurant nomination have in their supporting or description for it to pop out at you? When it was established? A famous menu item theyre known for?
What would make a restaurant nomination pop out for me is:
1) It's a special place (for whatever reason - I can check TripAdvisor) that people travel miles to experience
2) It plays an important role in the community - hosting some kind of significant events
3) It's a live music or other performing arts venue
4) It's the life and soul of the community - it's the place to go: if I visited you, that's where I'd want to visit
I really don't care when it was established. Some people do, I don't. I walk past a cafe established in 1680 most days. The building it uses is 1483. If you can beat that, I might show a flicker of interest.
On the topic of restaurants...
There's a street corner near me where I can easily see more than 20 local, non-chain restaurants within a short 1-block walk. Are they all great places to explore? No, not at all. Are they all great places to be social? Eh, no, they're just ordinary unremarkable restaurants. I've lived here 20 years and I can't even tell you the names of most of them. Sure, you can be social in them but that doesn't mean they're great places to be social.
Same. It also doesn't help that most ordinary restaurants fail within their first few years so if they did get approved odds are that POI will not be there (or it will be some different unremarkable restaurant in the same building). I get a lot of nominations to review that are restaurants opened in 2020 or 2021. Add that to the reviewers not giving any supporting information better than a variation of "they serve good food and we need more Pokéstops" and they are easy rejects for me.
Thought I'd give this a go myself and I did not get as much success lol
Love that this got rejected as "temporary or seasonal display" when I literally provided proof that this restaurant has been at this location for 40 years and that these statues have been at this location since at least 2008. Ridiculous...
I see many problems in this nomination..
The title with a symbol in it when you can have put the word At. Saying a pair, while there only one on the picture not help your nomination.
But the main problem is they seems to be standard manufactured cast, they are not statues done by an artist.
I don't know what criteria you think they meet. You say exploration, but nobody come to this place to see the lions.
@CaptMcJay24-PGO
Like bro its on their criteria. "A great place to be social with others" - popular restaurants, favorite coffee shops.
Do note the adjectives in those examples. It is clear that Niantic doesn't want every restaurant or coffee shop to be accepted as Wayspots. In fact, in the very hypothetical post form @NianticCasey-ING that some have cited to claim that Starbucks can be eligible, Casey does actually state that:
Deciding whether a location is generic or not is really up to the reviewer and their understanding of the impact of the location to the community. The burden is on nominators to include enough details in the supporting text to reinforce why a possibly generic / chain location is actually important to their community.
So restaurants and coffee shops are not suppose to be given a "free pass" simply because they exist. Now you can reasonably complain that the standard of many reviewers are too high. But if you look at the nominations I posted above, most nominators don't even try to include any details or supporting text to validate their nominations. Of the 12 examples, only one put any effort into their nomination and they were thusly rewarded with a higher rating.
And as I've said before, lazy nominations results in lazy reviewing. Don't expect reviewers to put more effort into evaluating a nomination than you did when making it.
This did come through my review queue and I had similar thoughts to @VladDraco-PGO. The at symbol is a minor detail that could be improved, but the main issue is that it's impossible to tell whether these lions were custom made for the restaurant or whether they're mass produced ornaments that were bought from the local garden centre. The fact they're permanently outside the restaurant isn't in doubt, and they certainly do fit with the restaurant's theme, but like I said, the possibility exists that they may just be mass produced ornaments rather than a pair of unique sculptures.
In an ideal world I would've suggested nominating the restaurant itself (Chinese food is my favourite, so you'd certainly be appealing to my stomach in this case haha), but I also know the struggles behind getting restaurants accepted, so I can't blame you for not doing that.
They are mass produced. I get at least a couple identical looking lions here across the pond every week or two. Chinese restaurants love to stick those things outside or occasionally inside.
I think the fact the title contains an @ and the fact the photo only contains one lion is really just nitpicking and not really grounds to reject a nomination :/
I've never ever seen these lions before in person or in a nomination. I did not realise they were mass produced. I would argue that these being mass produced doesn't really diminish from their value, especially on a local scale, but trying to debate this is just pointless. Already got a thread I stared from ages ago about NCN markers where people keep going round in circles about things being mass produced and whether that makes them ineligible and it honestly just gives me a headache.
I will say the reason why "Chinese restaurants love to stick those things outside or occasionally inside" is because these types of statues have significant historical and cultural value in China lol
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I am happier to hear actual explanations of why my nomination was rejected rather than the obviously stupid "temporary/seasonal display" or "other rejection criteria" which literally means nothing. Though I'm still pretty disappointed this nomination I put so much effort and research into can get dismissed so easily...
Guess which one(s) I gave something other than a 1* rating to.
@TheFarix-PGO im loving this thread. some of those are downright ridiculous. I am wondering what Niantic will do when someone submits an inappropriate body part & im surprised that it hasn’t happened yet
On the flip side for business submissions, last night I voted to approve a generic-looking gas station. I saw the picture and groaned, then looked at the title and reconsidered-- "The Last Standard Oil Gas Station in California". I dropped that into Google and came up with an Atlas Obscura article that documented exactly that-- there is only one in California, and only 16 in the entire United States. The company keeps the old branding for trademark reasons. I decided that was good enough for me-- it's a gas station with a story and a history.
I'm betting it doesn't pass because people will just have a gut reaction to yet another gas station, but I think it should.