My rating drops when I reject inaccessible athletic field locations

Johnsonsine-INGJohnsonsine-ING Posts: 417 ✭✭✭✭

"Placemarkers for Large Areas

Larger areas like dog parks or sport fields make great Wayspots, but it is important to choose the right placement of the Wayspot that respects the activity it was designed to support. Instead of placing the Wayspot in the center of an open field, park, or other large area, place it at the entrance or where there is a visible sign or placemarker. That encourages you to approach the area to visit the Wayspot, without having to enter or interfere with the activities within."

(From the Content guidelines)


Apparently this has to be pinned on most reviewers' forehead. In my area anyway.

I get so many large athletic fields for review - mostly soccer fields or soccer stadiums - where the marker is set right in the middle of the field. Sometimes I try and move the marker to an acceptable location instead, but honestly, many times I just plain reject the nomination. Then often my rating drops afterwards.

I don't worry too much about my Wayfinder rating, but the principle in this is important to me. I feel like what I'm doing is the correct way to handle these "sloppy locations", and then I get punished for it, so obviously, yeah - it's frustrating.

I have talked to many submitters who say they've never thought about the problem with placing a Wayspot right in the center of a sports field. I think some of them even continue to place nominations there, lol...


Maybe using the pedestrian access reason is too harsh, but what other options are there?

Thoughts and input will be much appreciated. 🙏 I also really think this should be a major focus point for Niantic. I've seen so many live Wayspots that are actually quite inaccessible or at least they come with the risk of players intruding to some degree.


Thanks in advance for any constructive feedback on this, and have a good summer out there. 🙂

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Comments

  • FireFly73-INGFireFly73-ING Posts: 140 ✭✭✭

    The only sports fields I've denied are when the submitter takes the photo of the field and places the pin on their home or private property. This would be a mismatched location or another option like abuse. Rare but it happens.

  • Johnsonsine-INGJohnsonsine-ING Posts: 417 ✭✭✭✭

    I know. I just see it so often and I get frustrated. 🙈 I just wish more submitters knew about this rule/guideline.

    Can I ask you; do you know how they treat a moved pin at Niantic? I mean there is no guarantee my suggested location move will be accepted, is there?

    Problem is often that a lot of what I review are at locations I'm not going to visit. So it would be a great deal easier if it were just done right (is what I think).

    Thanks for the feedback! 🙂

  • Johnsonsine-INGJohnsonsine-ING Posts: 417 ✭✭✭✭

    Yeah, I know you're right. I do admit I get a bit 'stubborn' with this, and like I said, I don't mind the rating drop that much - it's more of a matter of principle.

    But yeah, nobody really cares about that principle, I guess. 😆

    Point taken, thanks for responding. 😊

  • Johnsonsine-INGJohnsonsine-ING Posts: 417 ✭✭✭✭

    Well, I've rejected quite a few that IMO could only be considered Duplicates, on K-12 grounds or other of the 'obvious' rejection criteria. But yes, I know athletic fields are mostly considered a sure shot.

    What defines an athletic field is a whole different discussion... Here (Denmark) we have a LOT of very lowkey lawns-with-goalposts (mostly movable). I know it's Wayfarer comme il faut to accept all those, but personally I'm not really sure all of them meet the Criteria as I imagine the Criteria is meant/intended.

    🙂

  • RandomExploit-INGRandomExploit-ING Posts: 948 ✭✭✭✭✭

    A soccer/football stadium where people can't access the pitch it makes sense that putting the at the sidelines

    However if it's just a soccer field in a public sports ground or park, it's accessible when football is not being played which would be the majority of the time. Similar to how stuff can be submitted in gated communities and similar.

    So I don't think they should be rejected for being bang in the middle. I have done it myself because there was no anchor point or there was just a banner which looked temporary/was full of advertising so no viable for a banner. Choosing a random place around the pitch would just make some major rejectors 1* it thinking it's been placed for someones benefit/to get a gym/cell manipulation/whatever reason rejectors can grasp on to fulfill their fantasy of being able to reject another POI

  • cyndiepooh-INGcyndiepooh-ING Posts: 1,317 ✭✭✭✭✭

    From my personal observations, it appears that the reviewer corrections are averaged into the pins location. For example a friend submitted a pond sprayer (I told her they aren't eligible) and it was accepted (I did not get an agreement on that one) but the pin had moved from where she put it on the bank to a position halfway between the sprayer and her pin. It appears that reviewers placing it at the sprayer and reviewers leaving it where she pinned it resulted in a location halfway in between. (How anyone could move a pin to the middle of a pond and still accept it is beyond me, but that is a different issue.)

    We won't really know for sure how Niantic handles the suggestions unless a Niantic employee decides to explain.

    Oh and I recently had a long time playground turn into a gym so someone one edited it away from the correct position at the entrance to on top of the equipment - I assume to move it closer to their house. Help chat rejected my request to return it to the original position and the edit location suggestion I submitted in game was also rejected. So I can sympathize with your frustration.

  • SeaprincessHNB-PGOSeaprincessHNB-PGO Posts: 1,606 Ambassador

    Agree. Not many people acknowledge this but I think this is how pin placement works in the approval process as well. If no one moves your pin, it will go where you placed it. If several people move it, the system will take an average of those location edits. That's how we end up with so many bad locations for sports fields, I believe. Every person moves it to a different spot around the edge of the field and the average ends up being in the middle of the playing field!

  • MargariteDVille-INGMargariteDVille-ING Posts: 2,846 ✭✭✭✭✭

    OSM has a routine where you can send it several points, and it chooses a pedestrian friendly point that is not quite an average of them, because it removes points that it knows/suspects aren't pedestrian friendly (like inside a building or on a step hill).

  • Johnsonsine-INGJohnsonsine-ING Posts: 417 ✭✭✭✭

    THIS. 🙌

    I feel this should be pinned on the top of everything Wayfarer! 😁 Seriously, the pond Wayspots... All those pond wayspots. It's horrific how many inaccessible live Wayspots there are, seriously.

    Nobody likes a Wayspot-remover (maybe it's just a PoGo thing, dunno, but here it's wildly unpopular to mark anything for removal 🙄). But I can't not report something so crazy as an inaccessible or clearly fake Wayspot. I think I like Wayfarer too much to not 'clean up' the bad spots.

    About the false location Wayspot (the one turned gym), I'd suggest you make a post here in the Wayfarer community forum. I't really crazy how almost all reports get rejected without a glance and I'm not sure why Niantic do this, but there's clearly a pattern. I've heard so many complain about this and I've had the experience quite a few times myself also. Very obvious cases that should immediately result in removal, but they reject it at Niantic. Stubborn as I am ...lol... I've made a couple of posts about it here in the forum. Providing proof and 360's and yada yada. THEN they remove it. You would think Niantic cares about this enough to properly review the reports when they first receive them, but no.

    #cleanupwayfarer 😏

  • MargariteDVille-INGMargariteDVille-ING Posts: 2,846 ✭✭✭✭✭

    Really, any mapping program shows bodies of water. It should be easy to auto-remove any out there, and auto-reject new nominations of them.

  • PepeFuentez-PGOPepeFuentez-PGO Posts: 31 ✭✭

    Personally I would still accept it. That guideline is burried in these forums and a mass majority of reviewers aren't going to ever see it, which I see more as Niantic's responsibility to communicate rather than the contributor's responsibility to randomly happen across that info somewhere.

    If it was somewhere in the elligibility criteria that is mass-distributed, that'd be a different story (someone correct me if I'm wrong on that info being easily accessible/obvious somewhere.)

    If the location is acceptable, isnt a duplicate, and the nomination is otherwise acceptable I think rejecting it off a "best practice" location (vs a legit elligibility issue) does more harm than good for this system in place.

  • Melurra-PGOMelurra-PGO Posts: 421 ✭✭✭✭✭

    If you're referring to pond sprayers, this is built in the Wayfarer interface. Plus the need for pedestrian access is stated on every section of the Wayfarer criteria page.


  • FireFly73-INGFireFly73-ING Posts: 140 ✭✭✭
    edited July 2022


    Post edited by FireFly73-ING on
  • Hosette-INGHosette-ING Posts: 3,469 ✭✭✭✭✭

    @FireFly73-ING You might not have a problem with them but Niantic explicitly disallows them. Safe pedestrian access requires you to be able to walk to the candidate, not to be able to walk to interaction range (which varies between games).

  • FireFly73-INGFireFly73-ING Posts: 140 ✭✭✭

    I don't disagree. I tried the other games and they aren't for me. My point is I'm not going to go through the process of asking for them to be removed but anything I have played I haven't had a problem interacting with them in all the games I tried. They are still terrible waypoints. Everything I nominate you can touch and walk up to safely. 90 approved compared to 100 decided. Two were tangible fountains you can touch.

  • Hosette-INGHosette-ING Posts: 3,469 ✭✭✭✭✭

    @c0ldspark-PGO They should be accepted if you can safely walk up to them and touch them.

  • Elijustrying-INGElijustrying-ING Posts: 5,481 Ambassador

    I would say that whilst the bridge is there all is well.

    If the bridge was demolished then those wayspots would not be there is real life and could go from the game.

  • Johnsonsine-INGJohnsonsine-ING Posts: 417 ✭✭✭✭

    Thanks for all the feedback. 👏

    I know rejecting a soccer field (example) because of a marker set right in the center of the field does not solve anything. I think what is requied is giving even clearer instructions on how to set placemarkers correctly. The info is there alright, but even though I know this rule well, it took me a bit to find the passage myself.

    There are a lot of important things that Wayfinders need to know (both newer and more experienced!), maybe this issue with placemarkers isn't the most important issue, however, this sure can cause some problems in the games.

    I hope for even more visible info for all reviewers on this subject. And let's emphasize the rules about pedestrian access and water even more, while we're at it - please? 😅

  • Hosette-INGHosette-ING Posts: 3,469 ✭✭✭✭✭

    The thing is that putting the pin for a sports field in the middle is not explicitly wrong. It's sub-optimal for larger fields, but it's an accurate location. There's no rule that every wayspot has to be conveniently accessible at all times. In Ingress there's an advantage to having wayspots that are more difficult to reach.

  • PaulingZubat-PGOPaulingZubat-PGO Posts: 604 Ambassador

    I put something along the lines of "pinned out of zone-of-play" in my supporting text in hopes that this tidbit gains traction. Including the obscure clarifications in the S-text while waiting for the promised compendium is what can be done for now IMHO. Pass the hot potato while the table isn't set yet.

  • Duiomar-PGODuiomar-PGO Posts: 458 ✭✭✭✭✭

    Supporting information like that always backfires it seems. Someone will see it as an attempt to game reviewers and nuke it from orbit. It's a shame because there's no other way to know the exact details of what's acceptable without poring over the forum.

  • ElfFromSpace-INGElfFromSpace-ING Posts: 71 Ambassador

    How can an athletic field be inaccessible? If people can play on it, people can get to it. This is why your rating is tanking. as others say, move the pin and approve.

    Moves are handled strangely. I am not sure exactly how they are reviewed but I've had many nominations that got moved for no good reason including a gazebo I pinned at the entrance that someone moved to the opposite side where it was just barely in the wrong cell. Whenever possible, if the location is close enough, leave it alone as nominators are actually there and may have a good reason for it.

    I also wish people were smarter about placing pins around the edges. So many things that newer nominators get wrong. I saw yet another today where they nominated a mural and then turned around and took the supporting photo facing the opposite way so I could not verify the location at all. It timed out while I tried to find any way to confirm it in google photos, websites and streetview.

  • Johnsonsine-INGJohnsonsine-ING Posts: 417 ✭✭✭✭

    I actually think the quote says explains it quite well? "...choose the right placement of the Wayspot that respects the activity it was designed to support..."

    If there is a soccer match or pracitse taking place on a field, that has 1st priority. Then Niantic users do not have 'access'. I actually think Niantic worded this very accurately, not much room for debate there - which is a good thing in this case. 🙂

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