Am I supposed to upload bad photos on purpose?
ezearis-PGO
Posts: 5 ✭✭
So, I got a Wayspot nomination rejected due to being a "Low Quality Photo". When I appealed, I got the following response:
"Thanks for the appeal, Explorer! We can confirm that the image is taken from a third-party source, which is a violation of our policies. Please ensure it is a clicked image taken from the default camera while submitting the nomination photos".
All of my nominations usually have high-quality pictures. I take the time of taking several pictures of the nomination I want to make, and take the time of making sure they are always well-framed in a 1:1 ratio if possible so it will look good on the Pokéstops and Portals.
Here I attach both the Appeal response and screenshots from my gallery where you can see both the location of the submission and the fact that they were, indeed, taken by me and on my phone. I don't have issues with a Wayspot being rejected as I may make mistakes thinking that something may be elligible when it's not and that's why there is a whole Appeal system, what I find outrageous is that someone from Niantic is accusing me of stealing (because using images from other sources and claiming it's yours is, basically, stealing) a picture that I took the time to take.
So I have several questions, the first one, is, do I need to send bad photos on purpose for a Wayspot to be approved? This is what it has been suggested to other Wayspot users before and, sadly, it worked. You have more chances of a Wayspot being approved if you submit a bad photo and then send a new, better one, and get it upvoted so it replaced the older one.
Second, how does Niantic properly verify if a picture is from a different source? Because one thing is that a volunteer makes a mistake but a different one is a company saying "we can confirm that the image is taken from a third party source" when, clearly, it's not.
And to finish, if these mistaken allegations are being made, how can we possibly trust the 30 day bans that are being issued to Pokémon GO players for Wayspot-related issues? And for the record, no, I do not have any bans issued in my account but after seeing people complaing on Social Media, I went to my submissions to check appeals and saw this which makes me wonder if there is someone reviewing things in autopilot mode which is causing harm to Players.
Comments
You might have taken that picture, but the exact same picture is found on a number of websites, exact dimensions and borders (from Google lens). If you choose to resubmit, you may want to step back and get more of the building in the pic.
I don’t blame niantic for thinking it was a 3rd party photo. I could not tell either. Make it more obvious it is a painting not just something you snatched from the internet.