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Fire Hydrant: eligible or not?

EteLotz-PGOEteLotz-PGO Posts: 1

My Fire Hydrant Nomination was rejected with reason," Nomination does not meet acceptance criteria". Is fire hydrant invalid?

Post edited by NianticGiffard on

Comments

  • LukeAllStars-INGLukeAllStars-ING Posts: 4,625 Ambassador

    1. Not the right place, for this topic

    2. It can block emergency services and also not a good POI. Definatly understandeble rejection

  • Hey @EteLotz-PGO I've moved this discussion to Guideline Clarifications.

  • Gendgi-PGOGendgi-PGO Posts: 3,535 Ambassador

    Nomination Improvement probably would have been a better place, no?

    https://community.wayfarer.nianticlabs.com/categories/nomination-improvement-advice

    Could you elaborate? If you nominated a simple fire hydrant, it simply does not meet any criteria and is part if generic (albeit in some cases) life saving infrastructure.

  • TorvoTeratos-PGOTorvoTeratos-PGO Posts: 161 ✭✭✭

    Here's a previous discussion on this; https://community.wayfarer.nianticlabs.com/discussion/4243/painted-fire-hydrants/p1

    Hi folks,

    Thanks for the interesting discussion, you always bring me the tough ones. I have to say that I lean towards these being emergency services. I look at these as similar to the painted garage door of a fire station for example. It may not always be in use, but if there's the possibility that you would impair emergency services if it were in use, it's ineligible.

    NianticCasey-ING

    You can see some people discussing their disagreements in that thread, but I have to agree with the blocking emergency services. There's a reason you're not supposed to park within a certain distance of hydrants, and having hydrants as waypoints would definitely encourage people to park around it.

  • Legacy4N00b-PGOLegacy4N00b-PGO Posts: 78 ✭✭✭

    Fire hydrant is invalid, it falls into "obstruct emergency services" category.

  • Raachermannl-INGRaachermannl-ING Posts: 1,070 ✭✭✭✭✭

    I want to cite a few arguments of the other side from the above mentioned thread, where Casey did their statement:

    First, the frequency of use. A fire station driveway is very likely used many times per day, and unpredictably. Any particular fire hydrant is only likely to be used once every few years if that-- I haven't been able to find data, but I wouldn't be surprised if fewer than half of fire hydrants were ever used to put out a fire during their lifetimes. Also, if you're playing a game at a fire hydrant that needs to be used you very likely are standing near a burning building and you should get out of there anyway. In the unlikely event that you haven't figured it out, the fire truck is going to pull up and the men and women in uniform will make you hightail it away immediately. It will probably involve a loud siren and a very forceful comment from a loudspeaker.

    [...] I live in a moderately dense urban area. A few weeks ago when this was being discussed elsewhere I tried an experiment. I marked off an area around my neighborhood and then used street view plus walking the neighborhood myself to identify every fire hydrant I could find within the area. I then went to the intel map and drew 40M circles around each of them. The result was not good. Over 70% of the POI in the area would be invalid. [...]

    Another one:

    Anything (and literally, anything), anywhere could be required for use of emergency services. Whether it would be:

    • Rescuing a cat near a tree that has a plaque on it
    • Police presence at a historical bank during a heist
    • Maintenance work being completed by technicians at a painted traffic control or power box
    • Maintenance also being conducted on painted telegraph/utility poles
    • A mural on a burning building, or even
    • Phenomenal artworks on water towers

    A painted fire hydrant follows the similar pattern of having a very infrequent, situational use. Sure, people don't gather around a fire hydrant, let alone a painted box, but at the same time you don't see people actually standing right at the object's location. Is it considered to obstruct emergency services if it's on the way or path of travel of such vehicles?

    If it needs to be used, then players should have some basic common sense to move along. Because I'm sure as hell people do not want to be playing near a fire hydrant adjacent to a building that's on fire. [...]

    And last but not least the point, where even Casey struggles in their comparison:

    There's just no comparison here.

    In the end I want to add, that the argument with parking cars is totally worthless here. In wayfarer we have to evaluate the pedestrian access, not the observance of the most simple traffic laws. Btw a person playing a game and interacting with the hypothetical hydrant wayspot is only a stopping car, not a parking car. Parking means, that the person isnt there and so they most likely don't interact with the wayspot.

    So in the end there should be a more reliable and well reasoned statement by Niantic. @NianticCasey-ING

    The one cited above is very shallow - "lean towards these being emergency services". "lean towards" is a very weak statement; "being emergency services" is NOT the rejection reason - the rejection reason is "obstructs the driveways of emergency services" and all of the until now given detailed guidelines (for example the special rules for wayspots on hospital area and so on) are all fitting with this rule and this general sentence can be applied, but not really for the hydrants. The hydrant statement is way too farfetched - in the same farfetched manner should be unique local donut businesses excluded, because of the police, and evry public way could be a driveway for an ambulance. So that's no good point to draw a border line.

    So in my understanding there should be a clarification like they did with cemeteries: After the big prohibition of wayspots in the undisputable driveways next to the buildings of emergency services there could be an additinal statment with "Avoid nominations [...]". So this doesn't do hard damage, but Niantic states, that these types of concerns should be part of a extensive review decission and is an valid argument, but should not be the single reason for a decision.

  • RelishTray-PGORelishTray-PGO Posts: 22 ✭✭✭
    edited September 2020

    A couple of things worth noting on this topic.

    First, there was a later, more firm, ruling by Casey in that same thread.

    Hi folks,

    In response to the significant discussion that my reply kicked off, I brought this to other members of the Wayfarer team to discuss and they agree that Wayspots at fire hydrants can get in the way of emergency services and should be considered ineligible.

    I’ll work on adding this as an example to the confusing nominations article, as The discussion has indicated that it’s a good one to clarify.


    Second, Casey mentioned in a later thread that they are reopening the discussion on fire hydrants internally.

    I have not seen an update more recent than this, so I'm not sure if they have changed their stance. It's worth mentioning that they have not yet added it to the confusing nominations article, which would have been easy to do if they were set on enforcing this ruling.

  • PoMaQue-PGOPoMaQue-PGO Posts: 252 ✭✭✭✭

    @Raachermannl-ING comparing a Fire Hydrant to trees, banks and any random object is not a valid argument.

    Fire Hydrants were built/placed specifically for emergency situations. Trees, banks etc were not.

    You cannot nominate things that block the driveway of ambulances, fire fighters etc, because you could prevent them from responding to an emergency. Fire Hydrants also need to have clear access for them.

  • Raachermannl-INGRaachermannl-ING Posts: 1,070 ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited September 2020

    To your point with the fire hydrants and emergency situations - simply no. A hydrant is part of the generic infrastructure and the access is not only given to fire fighters. It may be the most important one with the biggest media presence, but nethertheless the rarest one. Water supply for stuff like funfairs, the street and canalisation cleaning, water source for building sites, for pressure regulation and compensational pipelines while maintenance of the water supply pipes in the underground, etc.pp. ....

    A standard hydrant simply doesnt fit any criteria, but the rejection reason "obstructs emergency services" is like taking a sledgehammer to open a nut. So in that sense there are lots of other water sources for fire fighters, that you possibly accept evry day - wells, stuff in ponds, etc.pp.

    Niantic describes for lots of things in detail how this rule shall be treated - for police and fire stations its said, that the driveways have to stay free of wayspots and players. The rule doesnt exclude for example murals of Saint Florian (patron of the firefighters), that are in safe distance to any sort of emergency driveways - so not evrything from the context of fire fighting is automatically taboo. Same for hospitals: old AMA says, that candidates around the buildings in parklike recreational area are okay - ambulance driveways should be free; corridors and so on shouldnt be crowded too, so no spots within the buildings.

    The very big difference to these places is, that the start of an emergency mission is unpredictable for normal citizens, so that random people blocking the garages are in evry case troubling. If you are at a hydrant next to a burning building, then there is nothin unpredictable (unless you are one of the m0r0ns from Murica, who caused, that coffee to go needs to be marked as hot) - there is a building on fire, then ther will come firefighters. No magic involved. See the problem around - in that case you could be a first aider, if you are there! In front of the fire departments garage you are simply troubling. So there are two different questions: if you block the departments driveways the biq question is, why you have been there. There is no good reason to block a departments driveways - playing a game is the worst. If you are at the target location of a emergency mission, then there is in most cases no question, why you are there. The only question is, whether you act according to common sense - call the emergency service, help to secure the area, be a first aider, whatever ....

    That's a totally different situation. So for me hydrants are simply generic infrastructure. In the sense of wayfarer they are not comparable to the driveway in front of a fire departments garages as well. So the comparison to trees and banks is not the very best, but better than comparing a hydrant to the fire departments garage door.

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