Confused about rejection of my first submission
First time I submitted a Wayspot and it got rejected, but it's not clear to me as why. Before I appeal I thought I'd ask here to better understand what I might be doing wrong so I can learn how to do better here.
Under the "Rejection Criteria" section it says:
Natural Feature
Other Rejection Criteria
The first doesn't make sense, though I might be misunderstanding what that means. The location I created was of a man made feature and not natural, it was an old train trestle that is along a converted rails to trail. To me it's the most interesting thing along this section of the trail, pretty much all the other things along the trail that are showing up are just signs marking all the entrances to the trail.
No idea what "Other Rejection Criteria" even means.
Somewhat fitting for the "A great place for exploration" the location is interesting to walk to along the trail, it's an architecture of historical significance for the area as it was part of the logging industry that even made this city here at all.
Unfortunately there are no signs here designating even what it is, so I thought adding it as a Waypoint for Niantic would help give those using the systems that used this data to know what it is.
It definitely fits into the "A great place for exercise" category. It's a rails to trail conversion and MANY hikers, walkers, bikers go along this trail, hence why I added it to those categories. It's a long trail that is pretty and scenic to walk along.
So that makes it fit into 2 categories, where it only requires 1. Again, unless I'm misunderstanding the categories and how they work. It is a "permanent" identifiable object, as permanent as any other object in the world currently is. It also is easily accessible along the trail from 3 different directions. And I think I gave it an accurate photo, title and description.
I tried to give as much info in the "supporting info" section text, but for some reason it won't allow me to enter more text to add more detail as to why I nominated it.
Here's more info it it helps.
Comments
I just realized this might not be the right location for this post, maybe it should go in "Nomination Improvement" instead?
The heading for this section says it's for discussion about appeals. "Misc Appeals Discussion - Discussion of the appeals process. [DO NOT POST APPEALS HERE]" which makes me think it's for discussing appeals.
But then the "Nomination Improvement" section seems to be similar for getting feedback on my nomination as well.
Which is more appropriate for this type of post?
Then just post once more in Nomination Improvements section.
Hi @ElectricTacoMan-PGO
It thought this looked like it could be great with a bit of tweaking. It's on an official trail, it ties in to local history and intersects both the exercise and exploration criteria.
Unfortunately after looking into it to see if there was a better way to present this it looks like it's being removed this summer due to it being unsafe.
:/
@The26thDoctor-PGO for my future reference on how to tweak it for other potential Wayspots, what might have I done to improve it so as to not get rejected? It's not clear to me why it was rejected and I'm still learning what to do here.
Unfortunately after looking into it to see if there was a better way to present this it looks like it's being removed this summer due to it being unsafe.
Oh no! I was guessing that they were removing another section but didn't know they were removing that one too. Guess that bit of local history will go too. :( The other section is totally blocked off causing the trail to meander a bit, this one doesn't seem to have any markers saying it's going away.
Also, thank you to who ever moved this post to the right spot! :)
Decided to send a letter to the city for clarification on what is being removed where. I couldn't find any reference to the section I'm talking about but see lots of articles, including one at the city site, about the other sections removal.
This is not the section I'm trying to add, but maybe you have another source I didn't find.
While I'm asking here, is there a way to see an overview site of the Wayspots? I'd like to see more on what is around here. I've seen mention of one phone app that allowed me to look around but I couldn't figure out how to create an account and it seemed like my Niantic account didn't work in it. Is there a desktop website that shows these Wayspots? It'd be nice to see them this way to get a feel for how I can add to the existing ones. I can walk around but getting the data to read would be a lot more difficult on my phone as I'm older and so are my eyes. :(
If you create an ingress account you can use the ingress intel map to see existing portals. That won't show you everything, but you'll get more than you do in Pogo.
The wayfarer app will show you everything, but that's only available for your phone
Apologies, that's the one I was looking at.
My first impression was I'm not sure what that is, obviously you go on to explain but the first impression counts for a lot.
I don't know if getting closer or a better angle would help me recognise what it is in the first couple of seconds of seeing it.
Anything on the official trail helps in the support and how it ties into local history and shows it's relevance which it looks like you have done?
Not sure if this helps any @ElectricTacoMan-PGO
“Other Rejection Criteria” means “does not meet criteria,” and I think that is correct. I don’t think this is an eligible subject. Though it’s along a trail it’s not a trail marker (to be fair, it’s 1000% more interesting than a trail marker, but trail markers are exempt from being interesting), it’s not a place to explore or socialize, it’s just run-down, abandoned infrastructure. Were there a sign to mark the local history of the spot then we’d have something, but as it stands I think rejection is the correct decision here.
Thank you, turns out I was able to create an account on the website which allowed me to use the app.
Also, it seems there is a web page that shows what I was looking for as well that I can view from my desktop. Found it when I decided to figure out which app you were talking about.
https://lightship.dev/account/geospatial-browser/
Could you contact the council to see if they could put up an information board about the railway at this site?
Maybe a local history group would be interested.
Also thanks all for the feedback. I can see why some might not consider it a good POI to add, especially if you don't know what it is. Though to be fair that's why I wanted to add it, so folks could know what it was when walking by and using apps that use this data. Anyway, I'll try to find something that might fit better.
There are some things that puzzle me as to why they're in the game but others are not. Hopefully I'll understand that better at some point to provide something useful here.
Good idea, was thinking about that as well. There's even a local museum that has a lot of photos showing what was here logging industry wise and maybe I can find someone there who might know who to talk to. https://www.whatcommuseum.org/exhibition/history-exhibits-at-old-city-hall/
Waiting for the response from the city/parks to see if they're tearing it down or not.
Assuming that they're not tearing it down, I think this could be a really interesting nomination. But it really is going to depend on how much supporting information you can find and how well you can present it. I'd say focus on the historic aspect more in the title and description, and in particular make sure to use the word "historic" in the title. It will put the reviewer in the right mindset for approaching the nomination. If you can find some good background information online, dropping a link in the supporting info (and only in the supporting info) may also help.
I can see this submission taking a few attempts, though, as it's not the type of nomination that reviewers see all the time and that is obviously eligible. In addition to having a good nomination, you'll have to get the right reviewers as well.
I agree @flatmatt-PGO@ElectricTacoMan-PGO
It's a definite point on an official trail.
If I was walking along here I could see a little trail marker, I'm on the railroad trail at 2km, great thanks.
This however would interest me and make me want to find out more about what it is, why it's here and where it came from.
Hopefully reviewers can see that from your submission.