Action Required: Niantic must update criteria to clarify no candidates within military bases

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Comments

  • TrevorAlan-PGOTrevorAlan-PGO Posts: 993 ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited November 2021

    You don’t know what you’re talking about… At all.

    This has absolutely nothing to do with the current sitting president, and I and we do not need anyones permission from the US government to play games or take pictures or use GPS or our phones on base

    And my father was the official. High ranking military officer wing commander. It wasn’t even anything he was aware of or on his radar, because it is 100% not the “military’s rule” it’s niantic. Niantic decided to ban bases on their own accord.

    Niantic just has to decide to stop geo-blocking OSM military land uses in the US for it’s games, and allow nominations. That’s it. Problem solved.

  • tp235-INGtp235-ING Posts: 1,364 ✭✭✭✭✭


    The conversation between you and your father has no official effect. It is private, not official.

    Things are not going to change without a change in the official guidelines.


    As I mentioned before, the current official position of Niantic is reject.

    This will not change.

    We are requesting that if we reject a candidate based on this official position and it is approved as a result, it must be clearly stated as it will lower our review rating.


    On the other hand, I am telling you that if you say that there are POIs that can be approved on military base sites, and if Niantic responds to the government's request for consultation and the government says that your residential POIs are OK, Niantic may change its guidelines.

    The government has the right to change them. Not Niantic, not you, and not me.

  • TrevorAlan-PGOTrevorAlan-PGO Posts: 993 ✭✭✭✭✭

    No there is no consultation and there’s no government request.

    Niantic overreacted to the viral launch of PoGo, and one of their overreactions was banning military bases which included the US.

    Niantic has to just change their policy to stop excluding the US military community and families. There is no government rule, consultation, involvement… nothing. This is all the Niantic.


    so yes If I and others in the military community raise our voice Niantic could change it on their own.

  • tp235-INGtp235-ING Posts: 1,364 ✭✭✭✭✭
  • TrevorAlan-PGOTrevorAlan-PGO Posts: 993 ✭✭✭✭✭

    I’m a military brat gold star family member for one. But I only bring up that I talked to someone because you can’t try to be smooth and say “talk to a government leader and and see what they say, oh wait you can’t and they don’t have time to talk about games”, since I already know that it’s not a government rule, I personally was very close to high ranking military officials, and trying to dismiss the argument by passing it off like that isn’t going to work. Just ends up showing the misinformation and lack of understanding of why the situation is the way it is.

  • TrevorAlan-PGOTrevorAlan-PGO Posts: 993 ✭✭✭✭✭

    Well, I thought that the conversation was dead for a while, but then all moderated approved photos that people keep posting get posted… so it more like 5 pages of people trying to “out” military members and families doing nothing wrong (so they can get banned?) and have all existing waypoints removed from us bases when really Niantic should remove the geo-block in games and just allow otherwise perfectly eligible waypoints.

    But whatever, I just keep arguing with people from other countries that don’t know what they are talking about…

  • Gazzas89-PGOGazzas89-PGO Posts: 2,613 ✭✭✭✭✭

    I wouldnt have niantic remove them from bases, thats up to the person in charge of the base, I just wouldn't put any in

  • TrevorAlan-PGOTrevorAlan-PGO Posts: 993 ✭✭✭✭✭

    Exactly. Only a current base commander can request a waypoint removal, like a business owner or land owner, nobody here in this thread or forum can request they be removed so that argument needs to stop.

    And otherwise the “rule” only has to do with Niantic, so they should stop being unfair and allow the us military communities on bases also play along. No “government intervention” is needed.

  • flatmatt-PGOflatmatt-PGO Posts: 2,107 ✭✭✭✭✭

    No one is trying to "out" anyone so far as I can see, despite your characterizations to the contrary. What people are trying to do is demonstrate that the status quo is not working, as players (in general, not specific players) continue to submit, and in some cases receive approvals for, wayspots that Niantic has specifically said are not eligible. As they do in threads on other topics. What Niantic does with that information (updating criteria pages, updating rejection reasons, adding geoblocks, changing their rules, do nothing, etc.) is up to them. They could send warnings or issue penalties to the submitters, but I don't think that's the "solution" most of the posters in this thread would like to see.

  • SiIverLyra-PGOSiIverLyra-PGO Posts: 952 ✭✭✭✭✭

    Just to add another country to the collection - Jordan this time:

    That's the Muwaffaq Salti Air Base - here's the nomination's location on Intel.

  • WheelTrekker-INGWheelTrekker-ING Posts: 3,380 ✭✭✭✭✭

    The people that are "outing" themselves are those that are ignoring the Niantic's rules stating that no wayspots are allowed within military bases, they take pictures of the location and send them so any wayfarer might be able to see where they live, so if you wanna blame someone, blame the people that don't follow the rules.

    Which leads to: if they can't follow the current rules that state that no wayspot is allowed within military bases, what makes you think that they wouldn't want to put pokestops in places that are restricted if Niantic reversed this rule?

    What we got here is a group of people that don't follow the rules. You might say that the rules are unfair, just as so many people state that forcing the USA PRP rules all over the world is unfair, but at the moment any wayspot reported anywhere in the world on the outside wall of PRP (even small villages where there are no issues at all) is promptly removed, while other people are able to break this rule and those wayspots remain and keep increasing day by day.

  • WheelTrekker-INGWheelTrekker-ING Posts: 3,380 ✭✭✭✭✭

    You talked to your father and that's all. Despite all the things that he could control on that base, I doubt that when he met with other government officials they talked about Pokemon Go due to one simple reason: it's not an issue due to the current ban, so given that there's mostly no one playing Niantic's games inside military bases it's not an issue for most of them.

    I don't imagine a huge meeting with all the commanders in the summer of 2016. "Item meetings 1. Pokemon Go".

    No, there's no need for any such meeting, just one message from some department in the Defense to Niantic (or even just Niantic acting preeventingly due to the lawsuit regarding PRP) and that's all, the bad press from any incident with the military is something that most people would prefer to prevent.

    Despite that, there's people breaking the rules and trying to play and add more wayspots although the rules say that they are not allowed. That people are not behaving according to the rules and that's all. Niantic should act to stop this inconsistency, remove those wayspots in the same way that they act on PRP or schools.

  • TrevorAlan-PGOTrevorAlan-PGO Posts: 993 ✭✭✭✭✭

    Yeah, thats all, I just mentioned it to him, and it was a non issue. But of course there weren't meetings and such about Pokémon for wing/base commanders.

    There may have been a memo put out when the game launched at the 1 or 2 bases that someone tried to trespass... But there's wackadoodles and **** people etc trying to hop the fence/wall or get in through the main/side gates of bases all the time. Nothing has changed since the beginning of time in that regard.

    And people DO play Niantic games on base, look on ingress you will see captured portals and fields, also ALL gyms on base will be constantly occupied and rotating mons, as well as lures going (but nothing spawns....) And already people on Reddit are complaining that Pikmin Bloom flowers don't plant when you walk and its because they are on base.

    They should NOT remove existing waypoints, they should just allow them all and stop the unnecessary ban on US bases. Then that'll stop the apparent "problem" y'all are having too. (IDK how you are tracking what is an agreement or disagreement in the first place? Just stalking the base on IITC?) Win win. done.

  • TrevorAlan-PGOTrevorAlan-PGO Posts: 993 ✭✭✭✭✭

    Apparently being without a home is an offensive word... **** people/people lacking a home.

  • TrevorAlan-PGOTrevorAlan-PGO Posts: 993 ✭✭✭✭✭

    Imagine if other companies had the same "rules" Facebook, Snapchat, Twitter etc don't let you post or take pictures because you live on a military base. Good Lord.

    Most bases have everything you ever need, school, work, playground, movie theater, water parks, camp sites, grocery store, convenience store, liquor store, etc etc. The list goes on. Especially during the pandemic I knew many people (my family included) who NEVER left the base. For months at a time. Since its a self contained city and has everything anyone could need.

  • Jtronmoore-PGOJtronmoore-PGO Posts: 1,581 ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited November 2021
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