Removing Old, Invalid and Obsolete Waypoints (with no luck)
KingPepperFrost-ING
Posts: 59 ✭✭
Howdy 🤠 Team!
So I'm the kinda player who makes an effort to use all of my nominations, photo submissions, title/description updates and invalid reports. The problem I've run into is that, despite depleting my 'invalid portal'-reports every week, I can only recall one in recent memory that has ever been successfully removed. We've had a handful of public community parks in the Greater Phoenix Valley that used the pandemic as an opportunity to shut down and remodel the playground areas. For this reason, I've been trying to remove the old waypoints so we can add the new ones. In many cases, the new jungle gyms and equipment are not in the same places they were or have been replaced by something different entirely (ex: a giant spaceship was replaced by a ♿-accessible merry-go-round). In some cases, waypoints that were physically removed years ago remain in the network and reviewers absolutely refuse to allow them to be removed to more accurately reflect the real world. In other cases, we have Agents who work at places like Honeywell Aerospace and have submitted waypoints that are not accessible to the general public, effectively giving these players waypoints that only they may access. (ex: https://intel.ingress.com/?pll=33.678577,-112.097513)
Is there anything additional I can do to help improve my luck? Should I submit Street View Photospheres to help substantiate my submissions like I've been doing with my regular portal submissions? What do?
Comments
If the waypoints are truly gone/relocated and that fact can be backed up by photographic evidence, I'd submit appeals in the Invalid Wayspot Appeals thread here using the format specified.
I will do this because it's been an ongoing issue for a while now. People would rather hang on to their old portals rather than create new ones.
Oh, and there's nothing wrong with having limited-access waypoints at work spaces as long as at least SOMEONE can access that spot. If it's not single-family private residential, a K-12 school, a tactical part of a military base, or similar prohibited area, then the location is likely valid and eligible waypoints can be added.
Good luck with your appeals! I've had success in the past doing that same thing, removing a years-gone spot when the initial request was rejected.
Another example would be Tovrea Castle ( https://tovreacastletours.com/ ) where there is a 6+ month waiting list to access the main building area. The Castle itself was in the network up until around the time when Pokémon GO came out and people started trespassing to get over there in the middle of the night. The waypoint was finally removed, thankfully.
Yes, we have a cemetery in a similar situation - all Pokemon Go content was removed quite early in the game due to trespass and disrespect. The stops and gyms were removed by the cemetery owners, and requests for removal from owners of the property do not need to meet removal criteria. The Ingress portals in that cemetery remain.
You could add current pictures to the existing wayspots, and move them.
Or just leave them in the old places, as a park history tour.
I have done this in the past and it's just tedious because instead of using one removal charge and one nomination, you're instead attempting to use potentially multiple name changes, photo submissions, location corrections, etc. I'm going through a similar thing at this one Church up the street from where I live where every nomination I submit keeps getting tagged as a duplicate of an existing Waypoint and none of my edits to update existing Waypoints get approved. Iiiit's a whole headache.
Same thing happened here in Phoenix. The caretaker at a local mortuary park told me a similar horror story, describing large groups of 20+ showing up in the middle of the day during funerals and making a mockery of the whole place. Over the course of the last two years, I've slowly repopulated the park with Waypoints in Ingress, but it appears that PoGo Waypoints aren't going online in that area.