Wayfarer is BS

I'm a pokemon player who put more than a healthy amount of time into the game, and with that I have also nominated a few pokestops.


However it's becoming all the more clear to me that Wayfarer and the community for extending the playfield is a closed, elitist and *very* unfriendly to "casual" users. Basically you will obviously need to "know someone" to get your nominations through. :((((

I just recently got two perfectly good nominations rejected because of obviously false, fabricated reasons that makes absolutely no sense.


Most blatant example:

Nomination ID: vrP5b+eSpjVHnq10KVUaFMQQILJooa5kCsyG0/cz8bU=

I nominated a location on a local island where there is a small pier built so that it is easy for swimmers to enter the water. It is complete with a lifebuoy. A bench and a sign showing the name, exact location, and information that there are no lifeguard present. Should be very obvious nomination which can tick off several of the "good pokestop nomination" hints.


However: I get a rejection saying

This nomination has been rejected due to the following reason(s):

"The real-world location of the nomination appears to obstruct the driveway of emergency services or may interfere with the operations of fire stations, police stations, hospitals, military bases, industrial sites, power plants, or air traffic control towers, Nomination does not meet acceptance criteria, Nomination appears to be a natural feature (waterfall, mountain, lake, etc.) that is not connected to a man-made object."


This can not be further from the truth. This place is in essence made for people to hang out, swim, play and have a good time.

There is no hospital, fire station, police station, military base, industrial site, powerplant OR air control tower anywhere near this place. AND further: It is very CLEARLY not a natural feature. How on earth can this be rejected with the above argumentation? Something is rotten with your process!!


/OB1973 - Clearly not accepted as a member of this elitist "community" 😡😡😡

Comments

  • ApplPsydarr-PGOApplPsydarr-PGO Posts: 139 ✭✭✭

    Post this in nomination improvement and you will get the help you need. Beautiful photo but for a nomination it doesn't tell me anything. Share your photo, supporting info, and any other information. Also it's based on a limited review area unless you upgraded it.

  • Goddess1974-INGGoddess1974-ING Posts: 217 ✭✭✭✭

    Does not meet criteria.

    Simple.

  • TavisSr-PGOTavisSr-PGO Posts: 58 ✭✭

    What is even being nominated here?

  • PkmnTrainerJ-INGPkmnTrainerJ-ING Posts: 5,119 Ambassador

    The three criteria are:

    • A great place for exploration
    • A great place for exercise
    • A great place to be social with others

    From what you’ve said, it seems you’ve nominated under the last one. Without reading your full description and seeing further details I can’t offer much. But I can understand the two of the rejections.

    • Nomination appears to be a natural feature (waterfall, mountain, lake, etc.) that is not connected to a man-made object

    This will be where reviewers think you’re nominating the body of water itself instead of the pier, so if your title or description isn’t clear, perhaps fix that.

    • The real-world location of the nomination appears to obstruct the driveway of emergency services or may interfere with the operations of fire stations, police stations, hospitals, military bases, industrial sites, power plants, or air traffic control towers

    This will be where reviewers think you’ve nominated or included the lifebuoy in your photo. Try a photo without it. This would block emergency services such as lifeguards if they’re trying to save someone, if you have a bunch of Pokémon GO players crowded around for a raid battle etc.

    For the last one, without seeing the rest of the nomination I can’t say why it’s noted as not meeting criteria.

  • Eneeoh-PGOEneeoh-PGO Posts: 747 ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited August 2021

    I think this is another “Wayfarer’s Paradox”.

    It’s similar to the café required to show a long queue of customers for popularity, but no people may be visible in the nomination.

    Scandinavian towns always provide a life ring at local swimming sites. It’s difficult to show the amenities and ladder without including the life preserver, and the ring is the most telling proof that this really is a place to swim.

    The pier, ladder and ring are the man-made objects that constitute a ‘swimming spot’, and the water is the proof of real-world location, as it is the locale that is the subject of review.

    I think these should be fine nominations, but people pretend the life ring itself is the candidate. Bad reviewers say ‘this is a boring mass-produced item at a natural location.’

    Niantic disallows in-use fire hydrants over the concern that players will block access with their cars. That could lead to tragedy and bad press.

    There are no such concerns around life rings. They’re an object serving in proxy for a place of activity. A great place to explore. A great place to exercise. Even a good place to socialize.

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

    He should take a photo of the whole pier and not the view from the pier. Fishing piers are very common here in Florida in our parks and trails and are easy nominations, but you have to photo that actual pier. If the photo is the water where you are swimming or casting your pole, that won't work

  • Shilfiell-INGShilfiell-ING Posts: 1,559 Ambassador

    Yes, I think this nomination could be improved and eventually accepted. As mentioned before, try to focus on the man-made items for the main photo, and stress their significance to the community, maybe some history, in the description and supporting detail. You're competing with a lot of local natural beauty, it looks like, so draw focus to the man-made element and its use in swimming (exercise). Your spot looks lovely, but I'd likely skip or reject unless I was convinced.

    And no, one does not have to know people or use undue influence to get candidates approved: I'm not exactly a social person, but I've had candidates accepted both with and without upgrades. It takes some stubbornness at times, but overall it works.

  • Nadiwereb-PGONadiwereb-PGO Posts: 1,119 ✭✭✭✭✭

    The pier is not the nomination, though. That would be ineligible. The nomination is the designated swimming spot, marked by the information sign and the life ring. Which is included in the original post.

  • Shilfiell-INGShilfiell-ING Posts: 1,559 Ambassador

    Why is the pier ineligible? What constitutes a "swimming spot" and is that not a natural feature? The pier itself is a good focal point for the nomination, is man-made, and if needed could be titled "(Place Name) Swimmer's Pier" with a description indicating its value as a spot promoting exercise.

  • jhenstridge-PGOjhenstridge-PGO Posts: 37 ✭✭✭

    There's definitely aspects of Wayfarer that result in bad experiences for submitters. And since almost everyone first interacts with Wayfarer by making a submission, this colours people's first experiences.

    The primary incentive given to users is upgrades to speed up their own submissions. And the best way to earn upgrades is through agreements. A review decision that results in an agreement (wayspot acceptance, rejection or duplication) is worth about 10 times as much as a decision that doesn't get an agreement.

    So if I see a borderline nomination that doesn't obviously fail a listed criteria, I'll likely get a better reward if I give it a one star rejection rather than two or three stars. As more people follow these same incentives, then the one star option is more and more likely to lead to an agreement.

    The obvious problem is that once you've earned your upgrade, your nomination now needs to navigate this more hostile review process.

  • Nadiwereb-PGONadiwereb-PGO Posts: 1,119 ✭✭✭✭✭

    A pier is a generic piece of infrastructure, not unlike a generic footbridge.

    This swimming spot is designated by a sign. It's right there on the original picture. You don't need to speak Norwegian to understand it. I think it is a perfect anchor point for the "place for excercise" and therefore a good Wayspot nomination.

  • Eneeoh-PGOEneeoh-PGO Posts: 747 ✭✭✭✭✭

    The municipality has provided pedestrian access to this benign location on a waterway, given it a name (in most cases), and supplied whatever infrastructure they deem appropriate (life ring, signage, ladder, etc.)

  • Shilfiell-INGShilfiell-ING Posts: 1,559 Ambassador

    Unless this was submitted as "Swimmer's Pier" or "Swimming Access Point" or some other man-made object, I'd likely reject as a natural feature. The Swimming Place itself is a natural body of water, not a constructed public pool. "Swimming Spot" (at least in my native language, and I do realize that this might be a translation flaw) seems to indicate that it's the body of water that's being nominated, and thus can lead to reviewer confusion.

  • CipherBlakk-PGOCipherBlakk-PGO Posts: 309 ✭✭✭✭

    Didn't we have some updated guideline that allowed natural features, like waterfalls and pools and such? I remember something about that, and it said that some signpost for the feature was preferred, but that those features were still acceptable if there wasn't one.

    Or maybe it was an upcoming change, but I know I read something about it somewhere.

  • Eneeoh-PGOEneeoh-PGO Posts: 747 ✭✭✭✭✭

    Is there anything difficult to understand about a municipality choosing approved locations for swimming/bathing and providing signage/infrastructure to back it up?

    The world is full of places where it is physically possible for people to approach the water, but only a subset are publicly owned. A subset of these are within the purview of a municipality. The town chooses safe candidates under their control, names them, and ensures safe access via infrastructure and signage. These may be called beaches, lakes, ponds, rivers, swim docks, etc.

  • Shilfiell-INGShilfiell-ING Posts: 1,559 Ambassador
    edited August 2021

    There's nothing difficult to understand about that. What's difficult to understand is the reviewer perspective. A municipality may have a park with a fishing pond in the middle of it, and a dock for people to cast from (although the banks of this pond can also be used). The whole pond wouldn't be eligible as a waypoint in this case, because the location is too non-specific - but that dock, it's a fixed, pinpoint-able, man-made object that's a good clearly defined spot for a waypoint. I agree this "swimming spot" is eligible - I'm just suggesting ways to make it more palatable for reviewers, which can be done by some tweaks to title and description only. Make it clear that you're nominating the access point and not the water itself.

    Most of us here have had similar valid nominations rejected. The best way, I've found, to deal with those rejections is to do what I can to improve my nomination and then resubmit. I look at each rejection as my failure to "sell" the candidate well enough, not on the volunteer reviewers. Most of my rejected candidates have later been accepted in game. I'm a player of three Niantic games, having reached Level 50 in Pokemon Go and Level 16 (only once) in Ingress, and my Wayfarer medal instantly went gold/platinum when it was released. My experience level is at least Intermediate.

  • TheFarix-PGOTheFarix-PGO Posts: 5,063 ✭✭✭✭✭

    If we are suppose to reject community pools because most of them are "swim at your own risk", then I don't see how that would be different from "swimming spot" that are also "swim at your own risk".

  • flatmatt-PGOflatmatt-PGO Posts: 2,137 ✭✭✭✭✭

    We aren't, though. We were told to reject PRP, hotel, and "other residentially-focused" pools without any explanation of the underlying reasoning. You can't generalize a rule based on speculation about the reasoning behind the rule.

  • Shilfiell-INGShilfiell-ING Posts: 1,559 Ambassador

    I don't know what happened to my longer post, but the summary is as follows: many of us have had perfectly valid nominations rejected. What works for me is to improve the description, title, or any other elements as needed to do a better "sales" job, and then resubmit. The system is not BS because a few reviewers and submitters disagree.

    In the case above I think it could be more clearly stated that the nomination was for the access point, and not the body of water altogether. That's all. I think that would help with getting this apparently quite valid candidate approved. When I first looked at the image, I thought it looked like a beautiful spot I'd like to visit! I'd say it's worth resubmission, but a few improvements would not hurt.

    I believe I also may have mentioned that I, too, have invested quite a bit of time in the three Niantic games I play, and am a Level 50 Pokemon Go player on a minority team so yeah, I know there are struggles. My Wayfarer badge was instantly maxed as soon as it was released. I try to be the best reviewer I can be, but as a frequent submitter I've learned to give some thought to each nomination and what verbiage would sell it best.

  • Syksyvaara-INGSyksyvaara-ING Posts: 8 ✭✭

    A very eligible nomination. A public swimming place: a great place for exercise and a community gathering place.

    It is not equipment/station for professional-only life saving, so it's not an emergency service. Players can use it to save someone's life.

    It's official and man-maintained as indicated by the sign. Supervision is not a requirement for swimming places. Not a natural feature.

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