As @JillJilyJabadoo-PGO points out, you’re not the “customer” for Wayfarer. You’re the customer for the apps that come off it. You may be more likely to spend on incense and remote passes if you don’t have any PokéStops nearby.
It seems fine for Japan or Europe but in North America there is a huge number of people with the phones to play this living in suburban settings. Missed opportunity for Niantic.
Use for nominations that do not have a safe, pedestrian pathway leading to the object. Note that it is not sufficient to be able to access the nomination from a nearby sidewalk. There must be a pedestrian walkway or a trail leading all the way to the object. Remote nominations, such as those on mountain tops or on small islands, are acceptable if they can safely be accessed on foot.
No pathway leading to that item in the middle of the lake.
There are suburban and rural areas in Japan and Europe.
The the integral thing with these games is that they about real-world exploration of real-world objects. Assuming Niantic wanted to maximize wayspots (and assuming that wayspots = profit, as you have posited), they would just make the game maps have wayspots equally placed every tenth of a mile or so with no regard to interfacing with the real world, and people would "get out" that way. But "getting out" is not enough, it's also about exploring interesting, or at least recreational, things.
People choose to live in suburban developments where it's just rows of houses for reasons like bigger property, more yard space, not having to see graffiti every 5 feet, etc. But the tradeoff is that they have to drive a mile or more to things that aren't houses, like the grocery store, library, park, etc. You get the other benefits but you live farther from interesting things. (I understand that if you are young, you may not have chosen to live in a suburb.)
If you do want games that do random locations instead of points of interest there’s a few like Witcher Monster Slayer & Jurassic World Alive @DerrickAClark71-PGO
I've had 3 rejected this week. One was the Pine Mountain Ga us post office which does not have a pokestop or gym at it but was rejected as a duplicate. The stops around it are a church, water tower, and a Mural on the next block over. The other one was a seperate Mural on the other side of town that when it was rejected it said mismatched location but the location they showed was clear across town. I know for a fact I selected the correct location because I was standing at the Mural when I did it and I double checked on Google maps. The 3rd was the entrance to wedding event venue out in the country with no other pokestops near by for several miles. It was rejected as a sensitive location. Im guessing because the name of the event venue says Plantation in the name, but that is literally the name of the place and it's been there since 1840. No I'm wondering why bother even submitting poke stops if everything is going to be rejected.
Quick look if I have the right place. You have “Pine Mountain Valley Resettlement” in the same cell as the “US Post Office”. Both appear in Ingress but you only get one in Pokémon GO. The Niantic games share the same map, so it is a duplicate of something already in the games.
It is just the same as with sculptres in the centre of a roundabout: although they might meet the accecptance criteria they also meet the rejection criterion "pedestrian access" and have to be rejected as such. Many of them have also been removed in the recent past.
If I do have the right area, you have three churches very close by that aren’t in any of the games, they would be some easy nominations to get accepted.
But with some persistence, and occasionally going back for "better" photos, most of the above have made it through now. Because each is something that encourages exploration, exercise, or group gathering, as per the guidelines.
In order to submit something successfully, you HAVE to be able to explain how it qualifies under one of those categories. And that you can walk up to it* safely and be able to hug it, if you were so inclined.
*in the case of a mural or unique bit of architecture, we've been assured that being able to reach the base of the structure (ie. wall) is sufficient.
@JaVonSafford-PGO You missed the part where we said that the pin must be ON the thing being submitted. A fountain in the middle of a lake does not have safe pedestrian access and the fountain is not located on the shore.
The people who reject incorrectly, or who submit ineligible candidates, should probably be the last people to get "kicked off" the forums - they obviously need guidance, and are many times actively seeking help to improve. Cutting them off from the one "official" social-media-type discussion group means they'll need to seek information from less reliable sources with less oversight.
I'm sure we've already lost some great teachers along the way, as many posts here talk about how horrible all reviewers are, how all Ingress players are bad, or how all Pokemon Go players are bad, or how Wayfarer is not worth the time we've dedicated. It's demoralizing. It would be nice to see applause for milestones achieved, respectful questions, and more Niantic presence...but those we don't have. The people who rise above the hardships and insults, and keep on educating, well, they're awesome in my books.
There are countless existing POIs that do not meet current criteria. However- and buckle your seat belt for this one - removal criteria is not the same as acceptance criteria. Niantic is willing to leave existing “ineligible” subjects on the map and in their games, even if an identical nomination would be summarily rejected in the current review environment. A common refrain in these forums runs something along the lines of: ‘current waypoints are not a good guide for new waypoints’.
Wayfarer is not intuitive. It is not “Pokemon Go, but make more stops.” It is its own animal, with its own tastes and its own instincts and its own enemies. It takes time and experience to understand how Wayfarer works, and to embrace - or at least accept - that it will not work the way most players want it to, and possibly not even the way Niantic wants it to. But it will work, it’s worth doing, and the investment in the system will improve gameplay for you and your community.
I reviewed the wedding venue. I'm glad to find you here! I want you to be successful. Niantic gives no way for reviewers to talk to nominators. I hope you can find churches, parks, artwork that will fly through. But not everything is a great nomination... Here's why on this one.
For rejection reason, I was torn between (1) Pedestrian Access, because it's on a road (state hwy, as I recall) with double-yellow, no sidewalk, and no place to pull over to socialize at the sign. Or (2) "Other Rejection Criteria" (which means "Meets No Criteria") because no one would pull over to socialize at the sign anyway.
The sign didn't say wedding venue - that was only in your title. I zoomed back and didn't see anything that looked like a gathering place or destination at all. It looks like the sign is on one end of a long driveway to single family residence - possible rejection reason #3. A lot of old houses have names, and families post the name in front of it. But it's still private property.
The Supporting Info gave no evidence that it was something wayspot-worthy. No link. Also, It isn't labeled on Google Maps.
I don't like "Plantation" in the name - that pretty much guarantees only certain people will be interested in it (and certain people will not). But I did not reject your nomination for (4) "Text Quality - Title or Description". I chose one of the first 3.
No I didn't miss that part. I know it's in the criteria. But like I said before the criteria is vague and it does contradict itself. Niantic says "water features" are eligible. They know not every one of them are pedestrian accessed but they included it anyway. The photo I just posted is a pokestop where I work. This pokestop is across the street from the one i submitted. Not the same fountain I submitted though. I took pretty much the same picture. Mine was obviously rejected but this one is approved, even though you can get to it. SAME PICTURE, SAME SITUATION. Different fountain, different results🤷🏿♂️.
White house & Pentagon have pokestops and gyms. Either are eligible, but they're there. Criteria also says "Forests" are eligible (which is also vague). How do you submit a forest?? Contradiction
Here is how you nominate a forest. You use the sign as an anchor, or physical manmade representation, of the nature area. This is demonstrated with the Park sign photo on the criteria page.
As for the other pond sprayer, just because a wayspot was accepted doesn't mean it meets criteria. Things sometimes get incorrectly accepted, so the existing game board should not be used as examples or justifications for new nominations, because criteria have changed or they were incorrectly or maliciously accepted. One might say, some people need to be kicked off here.
@MommaGenie-PGO Niantic has one central database of wayspots called Lightship. Each of Niantic's games incorporates a subset of the wayspots and each game has its own individual proximity rules for deciding what to use. I just checked Pine Mountain post office and it exists as one of the 14 wayspots that I see in Pine Mountain. Because of that the duplicate rejection is correct. Ingress portal link: https://intel.ingress.com/intel?ll=32.866923,-84.854192&z=17&pll=32.866923,-84.854192
No I didn't miss that part. I know it's in the criteria. But like I said before the criteria is vague and it does contradict itself. Niantic says "water features" are eligible. They know not every one of them are pedestrian accessed but they included it anyway.
There are many things in this world that meet the qualifying criteria but also crash headlong into the mandatory-rejection criteria. There is a high school in my area that has a fighter jet on a plinth at the front of the school. That sounds really freaking cool, right? It is. However, it is not allowed to be a wayspot because it's on K-12 property. Not only does this mean that it shouldn't be approved now, but it also means that it meets Niantic's removal criteria. The jet used to be a wayspot but when Niantic changed the rules to explicitly disallow things on K-12 property they removed it. I have reported a fountain in the middle of a lake and Niantic removed it because it didn't have safe pedestrian access.
There is another jet on a plinth a few blocks away that's allowed to be a wayspot because it is in a park rather than school property. Both of these jets meet the acceptance criteria but one of them also fails on a rejection criterion while the other doesn't.
Many wayspots were approved under earlier rules, like the fountain in the lake I mentioned above, which was a wayspot when I started playing in 2013... I once lost a shoe once wading into that lake to capture the portal. There are also lots of things in the games that reviewers accepted incorrectly or maliciously. The rules change regularly, and thus existing wayspots are not a good way to understand current inclusion and exclusion criteria.
Your example is of a nomination that is NOT eligible under today’s rules. The “fountain” is just generic infrastructure, an aerator deployed to help prevent unmitigated microbe growth. And it is in a location where there is no pedestrian access, which is sufficient evidence for Niantic staff to have it removed. If you bring its location to @NianticGiffard’s attention, there is a good chance that it will be quickly removed for you.
If that wayspot in your photos was nominated and approved recently through Wayfarer itself, then there is even the possibility/probability that the nominator and reviewers may receive some corrective action, as their actions deliberately allowed an invalid wayspot into the database.
But if the wayspot predates even OPR, the wayspot will still be simply removed for its lack of pedestrian access. Do you have its title and/or location?
I report and get waypoints like these removed all the time. they are no longer considered eligible and haven't been since long before opr was a thing. I know because I tried submitting fountains like these back in 2015, 15 and Niantic was the ones rejecting them. They are just aerators and considered generic infrastructure. Also unsafe pedestrian access. Most you see in the game predate opr by years
Forests are only good as a place to exercise - not a forest boundary sign, gate, or anything else that basically says, "Keep Out".
A great place for exercise
A place you'd go to get some fresh air, stretch your legs, or exercise. Places that encourage walking, exercising, and enjoying public spaces. Or something that teaches or encourages us to be our healthiest selves.
Comments
As @JillJilyJabadoo-PGO points out, you’re not the “customer” for Wayfarer. You’re the customer for the apps that come off it. You may be more likely to spend on incense and remote passes if you don’t have any PokéStops nearby.
Very good point. Can't argue with that. They gotta make their money
It seems fine for Japan or Europe but in North America there is a huge number of people with the phones to play this living in suburban settings. Missed opportunity for Niantic.
I mean there is a pedestrian walkway along the lake
Yes, but that's not where the physical POI is. The physical POI is in the middle of the lake.
Pedestrian access reject then.
Use for nominations that do not have a safe, pedestrian pathway leading to the object. Note that it is not sufficient to be able to access the nomination from a nearby sidewalk. There must be a pedestrian walkway or a trail leading all the way to the object. Remote nominations, such as those on mountain tops or on small islands, are acceptable if they can safely be accessed on foot.
No pathway leading to that item in the middle of the lake.
There are suburban and rural areas in Japan and Europe.
The the integral thing with these games is that they about real-world exploration of real-world objects. Assuming Niantic wanted to maximize wayspots (and assuming that wayspots = profit, as you have posited), they would just make the game maps have wayspots equally placed every tenth of a mile or so with no regard to interfacing with the real world, and people would "get out" that way. But "getting out" is not enough, it's also about exploring interesting, or at least recreational, things.
People choose to live in suburban developments where it's just rows of houses for reasons like bigger property, more yard space, not having to see graffiti every 5 feet, etc. But the tradeoff is that they have to drive a mile or more to things that aren't houses, like the grocery store, library, park, etc. You get the other benefits but you live farther from interesting things. (I understand that if you are young, you may not have chosen to live in a suburb.)
If you do want games that do random locations instead of points of interest there’s a few like Witcher Monster Slayer & Jurassic World Alive @DerrickAClark71-PGO
Oh trust me, you have not.
Is it panto season already?
I've had 3 rejected this week. One was the Pine Mountain Ga us post office which does not have a pokestop or gym at it but was rejected as a duplicate. The stops around it are a church, water tower, and a Mural on the next block over. The other one was a seperate Mural on the other side of town that when it was rejected it said mismatched location but the location they showed was clear across town. I know for a fact I selected the correct location because I was standing at the Mural when I did it and I double checked on Google maps. The 3rd was the entrance to wedding event venue out in the country with no other pokestops near by for several miles. It was rejected as a sensitive location. Im guessing because the name of the event venue says Plantation in the name, but that is literally the name of the place and it's been there since 1840. No I'm wondering why bother even submitting poke stops if everything is going to be rejected.
Quick look if I have the right place. You have “Pine Mountain Valley Resettlement” in the same cell as the “US Post Office”. Both appear in Ingress but you only get one in Pokémon GO. The Niantic games share the same map, so it is a duplicate of something already in the games.
It is just the same as with sculptres in the centre of a roundabout: although they might meet the accecptance criteria they also meet the rejection criterion "pedestrian access" and have to be rejected as such. Many of them have also been removed in the recent past.
Example: https://community.wayfarer.nianticlabs.com/discussion/comment/135707#Comment_135707
If I do have the right area, you have three churches very close by that aren’t in any of the games, they would be some easy nominations to get accepted.
i report each and every one i come across for removal and niantic removes them. if you can't walk to the location of the object it's not eligible.
Things I've had rejected for nonsense reasons:
But with some persistence, and occasionally going back for "better" photos, most of the above have made it through now. Because each is something that encourages exploration, exercise, or group gathering, as per the guidelines.
In order to submit something successfully, you HAVE to be able to explain how it qualifies under one of those categories. And that you can walk up to it* safely and be able to hug it, if you were so inclined.
*in the case of a mural or unique bit of architecture, we've been assured that being able to reach the base of the structure (ie. wall) is sufficient.
@JaVonSafford-PGO You missed the part where we said that the pin must be ON the thing being submitted. A fountain in the middle of a lake does not have safe pedestrian access and the fountain is not located on the shore.
The people who reject incorrectly, or who submit ineligible candidates, should probably be the last people to get "kicked off" the forums - they obviously need guidance, and are many times actively seeking help to improve. Cutting them off from the one "official" social-media-type discussion group means they'll need to seek information from less reliable sources with less oversight.
I'm sure we've already lost some great teachers along the way, as many posts here talk about how horrible all reviewers are, how all Ingress players are bad, or how all Pokemon Go players are bad, or how Wayfarer is not worth the time we've dedicated. It's demoralizing. It would be nice to see applause for milestones achieved, respectful questions, and more Niantic presence...but those we don't have. The people who rise above the hardships and insults, and keep on educating, well, they're awesome in my books.
Touche on that point. Although, I could be technical on some of the Niantics "eligible" nominations.
There are countless existing POIs that do not meet current criteria. However- and buckle your seat belt for this one - removal criteria is not the same as acceptance criteria. Niantic is willing to leave existing “ineligible” subjects on the map and in their games, even if an identical nomination would be summarily rejected in the current review environment. A common refrain in these forums runs something along the lines of: ‘current waypoints are not a good guide for new waypoints’.
Wayfarer is not intuitive. It is not “Pokemon Go, but make more stops.” It is its own animal, with its own tastes and its own instincts and its own enemies. It takes time and experience to understand how Wayfarer works, and to embrace - or at least accept - that it will not work the way most players want it to, and possibly not even the way Niantic wants it to. But it will work, it’s worth doing, and the investment in the system will improve gameplay for you and your community.
This is like the best comment I've read yet.
Is this satire?
I reviewed the wedding venue. I'm glad to find you here! I want you to be successful. Niantic gives no way for reviewers to talk to nominators. I hope you can find churches, parks, artwork that will fly through. But not everything is a great nomination... Here's why on this one.
For rejection reason, I was torn between (1) Pedestrian Access, because it's on a road (state hwy, as I recall) with double-yellow, no sidewalk, and no place to pull over to socialize at the sign. Or (2) "Other Rejection Criteria" (which means "Meets No Criteria") because no one would pull over to socialize at the sign anyway.
The sign didn't say wedding venue - that was only in your title. I zoomed back and didn't see anything that looked like a gathering place or destination at all. It looks like the sign is on one end of a long driveway to single family residence - possible rejection reason #3. A lot of old houses have names, and families post the name in front of it. But it's still private property.
The Supporting Info gave no evidence that it was something wayspot-worthy. No link. Also, It isn't labeled on Google Maps.
I don't like "Plantation" in the name - that pretty much guarantees only certain people will be interested in it (and certain people will not). But I did not reject your nomination for (4) "Text Quality - Title or Description". I chose one of the first 3.
No I didn't miss that part. I know it's in the criteria. But like I said before the criteria is vague and it does contradict itself. Niantic says "water features" are eligible. They know not every one of them are pedestrian accessed but they included it anyway. The photo I just posted is a pokestop where I work. This pokestop is across the street from the one i submitted. Not the same fountain I submitted though. I took pretty much the same picture. Mine was obviously rejected but this one is approved, even though you can get to it. SAME PICTURE, SAME SITUATION. Different fountain, different results🤷🏿♂️.
White house & Pentagon have pokestops and gyms. Either are eligible, but they're there. Criteria also says "Forests" are eligible (which is also vague). How do you submit a forest?? Contradiction
Here is how you nominate a forest. You use the sign as an anchor, or physical manmade representation, of the nature area. This is demonstrated with the Park sign photo on the criteria page.
As for the other pond sprayer, just because a wayspot was accepted doesn't mean it meets criteria. Things sometimes get incorrectly accepted, so the existing game board should not be used as examples or justifications for new nominations, because criteria have changed or they were incorrectly or maliciously accepted. One might say, some people need to be kicked off here.
@MommaGenie-PGO Niantic has one central database of wayspots called Lightship. Each of Niantic's games incorporates a subset of the wayspots and each game has its own individual proximity rules for deciding what to use. I just checked Pine Mountain post office and it exists as one of the 14 wayspots that I see in Pine Mountain. Because of that the duplicate rejection is correct. Ingress portal link: https://intel.ingress.com/intel?ll=32.866923,-84.854192&z=17&pll=32.866923,-84.854192
@JaVonSafford-PGO wrote:
No I didn't miss that part. I know it's in the criteria. But like I said before the criteria is vague and it does contradict itself. Niantic says "water features" are eligible. They know not every one of them are pedestrian accessed but they included it anyway.
There are many things in this world that meet the qualifying criteria but also crash headlong into the mandatory-rejection criteria. There is a high school in my area that has a fighter jet on a plinth at the front of the school. That sounds really freaking cool, right? It is. However, it is not allowed to be a wayspot because it's on K-12 property. Not only does this mean that it shouldn't be approved now, but it also means that it meets Niantic's removal criteria. The jet used to be a wayspot but when Niantic changed the rules to explicitly disallow things on K-12 property they removed it. I have reported a fountain in the middle of a lake and Niantic removed it because it didn't have safe pedestrian access.
There is another jet on a plinth a few blocks away that's allowed to be a wayspot because it is in a park rather than school property. Both of these jets meet the acceptance criteria but one of them also fails on a rejection criterion while the other doesn't.
Many wayspots were approved under earlier rules, like the fountain in the lake I mentioned above, which was a wayspot when I started playing in 2013... I once lost a shoe once wading into that lake to capture the portal. There are also lots of things in the games that reviewers accepted incorrectly or maliciously. The rules change regularly, and thus existing wayspots are not a good way to understand current inclusion and exclusion criteria.
Your example is of a nomination that is NOT eligible under today’s rules. The “fountain” is just generic infrastructure, an aerator deployed to help prevent unmitigated microbe growth. And it is in a location where there is no pedestrian access, which is sufficient evidence for Niantic staff to have it removed. If you bring its location to @NianticGiffard’s attention, there is a good chance that it will be quickly removed for you.
If that wayspot in your photos was nominated and approved recently through Wayfarer itself, then there is even the possibility/probability that the nominator and reviewers may receive some corrective action, as their actions deliberately allowed an invalid wayspot into the database.
But if the wayspot predates even OPR, the wayspot will still be simply removed for its lack of pedestrian access. Do you have its title and/or location?
I report and get waypoints like these removed all the time. they are no longer considered eligible and haven't been since long before opr was a thing. I know because I tried submitting fountains like these back in 2015, 15 and Niantic was the ones rejecting them. They are just aerators and considered generic infrastructure. Also unsafe pedestrian access. Most you see in the game predate opr by years
Forests are only good as a place to exercise - not a forest boundary sign, gate, or anything else that basically says, "Keep Out".
A great place for exercise
A place you'd go to get some fresh air, stretch your legs, or exercise. Places that encourage walking, exercising, and enjoying public spaces. Or something that teaches or encourages us to be our healthiest selves.
Examples of Wayspot categories
Parks and plazas
Gardens
Forests
Hiking trails
Biking trails
Exercise equipment in public spaces
Sport arenas
Sport fields