Rejected Baseball Court, only for Niantic to place a portal there.

About 2 weeks ago, I nominated the below submission. The portal didn't exist in any way shape or form prior to me being there. On the 9th (after we got the upgrades from the Indonesia challenge) I applied the upgrade to this portal and it got rejected for "Not historically or culturally significant" criteria. I won't go down the route of wondering why reviewers rejected this nomination, as the point is moot.

I was going to appeal this when I had an appeal free, but decided to go back to resbumit it just in case the appeal would fall through for whatever reason when I would have appealed. When I got to the location, I found what appears to be a Niantic placed portal (essentially a portal without a picture and without the correct name and description) for the Basketball Court. Am I glad there is a portal ther? Absolutely. However, I am a little deflated that I had used a nomination when Niantic had decided to place a portal there instead. Am not going to blame Niantic for the rejection reasons, but am a little deflated nevertheless.

Don't get me wrong, their platform, their games, their rules. But seeing this happen makes me think of what's the point of submitting something that I thought was a sure thing if Niantic are going to put a portal there anyway.

Rant over.


Comments

  • 29andCounting-PGO29andCounting-PGO Posts: 2,435 ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited March 2023

    What happened is this. Someone else nominated it. It got approved while yours was still in voting. When a nomination gets marked duplicate by some but not all reviewers, you get the rejection reason not historically significant. Niantic didn’t add it, just another nominator.

  • Elijustrying-INGElijustrying-ING Posts: 5,482 Ambassador

    Since it is a basketball court without a picture it I believe it is a Courts of the world import into the Lightship database done for their NBA game.

    so it’s in the database and reviewers see that there is something there already so those that recognise it as CotW will mark it as a duplicate. As not all will recognise it as a duplicate as @29andCounting-PGO says a bug happens and gives you the silly reason

    Since it is not called a basketball court I think there is a good chance on appeal of getting it approved

  • P1dg3ySlayer-PGOP1dg3ySlayer-PGO Posts: 165 ✭✭✭


    Here's the thing though... the Lightship placed portal wasn't there 2 weeks ago, therefore it would have appeared since my nomination. I know Niantic have been adding Basketball courts prior to my visit, I wasn't aware that Niantic were still adding Basketball Courts, otherwise I wouldn't have nominated it or even upgraded it.

    The basketball court is not near where I live, so I simply can't go there just to see if Niantic have added it around the time I wish to upgrade. I rely on the Intel Map to see what's in the system, and as the nomination doesn't appear on the Intel Map (For whatever reasons Niantic wants to justify, which is their right), so could not anticipate that the court would exist when I upgrade. I know the Intel map isn't a 100% truth, but it's all I really have to rely on without going to the location in person.

    I also believe those who were reviewing would not have seen the Niantic portal and that it appeared after my nomination was rejected. I can't prove this, and it is speculation, unless someone can prove otherwise.

    Sadly you are not correct on this. Niantic are adding Basketball Courts, and have been doing so for the reasons mentioned by Elijustrying-ing.

  • 29andCounting-PGO29andCounting-PGO Posts: 2,435 ✭✭✭✭✭

    Well, either way, I think this is a rare occurrence and you probably won’t ever encounter this happening again.

  • Elijustrying-INGElijustrying-ING Posts: 5,482 Ambassador

    I agree it’s frustrating.

    The reviewers do see these, as it’s the Lightship database that populates the duplicates field. I have seen this myself by having a look when I reviewed one near a wayspot submitted in the app, agreed but stuck in the app and nowhere else that I know of.

    It doesn’t appear on intel because I understand the CotW have not been synced into ingress.

    Are you sure when you created the submission that you were close enough to the place for the wayspot to show up? It could be that they have imported more but who knows. 🤷‍♀️

  • HankWolfman-PGOHankWolfman-PGO Posts: 4,845 ✭✭✭✭✭

    The import will have happened during the time your nomination was in voting.

    There's a known issue where the "not historically or culturally significant" rejection reason is not meant to appear as a standalone rejection reason. However, if an amount of reviewers reject a nomination as a duplicate, but not quite enough do so to trigger the duplicate message, then this is the rejection reason that gets shown instead.

    If the import happened during the time that your nomination was in voting, then it would make sense that anyone who had already voted on it prior to that would not have marked it as a duplicate (obviously, as the imported one didn't exist in the database at that point, so there was no duplicate), and would thus likely have voted to accept it as it's a valid nomination. Once the imported one was added to the database though, any reviewers that received your nomination afterwards would have marked it as a duplicate, and thus the system ended up confused and gave you the rejection reason that shouldn't actually show up.

  • P1dg3ySlayer-PGOP1dg3ySlayer-PGO Posts: 165 ✭✭✭

    When I submitted the nomination I was physically at the location. If I got any closer, I would have been the basketball hoop itself. There were no Portals in that cell or the adjoining ones, for either the basketball court or anything else. There are portals for other things, but not in the cell I nominated the basketball court.

    I wouldn't go out of my way to submit something where I know it to exist. I submitted the portal whilst in Pokemon Go and not via the Wayfarer app. (I won't be using the Wayfarer app until it becomes fully public). I am absolutely certain there were no portals there at the time of the submission.

    I can't justify asking for the upgrade back from Niantic, but it seems to be a waste.

  • Gendgi-PGOGendgi-PGO Posts: 3,535 Ambassador

    I'm a little confused by some of your verbiage being used.

    You were there, physically on-site, and you nominated it in Ingress.

    If this was a Courts of the World import, those do not show up in Ingress but they do indeed show up in Pokémon GO (and the Wayfarer app).

    It should NOT be appearing as a Portal as you've said above and I don't see it on the Intel map.


    So, what I think happened was you nominated it in Ingress because these Courts of the World imports don't sync to Ingress, but the Wayspot was already there. Reviewers don't always know to duplicate basketball courts as the Wayspot itself is titled "park" rather than "court." It got the soft duplicates but not enough to give a hard duplicate rejection.

    You can add a photo of the basketball court and propose text edits through PoGO. At this time, there is no known way to sync it into Ingress.

  • P1dg3ySlayer-PGOP1dg3ySlayer-PGO Posts: 165 ✭✭✭

    I didn't say I submitted the portal in Ingress in any of my posts. Only referenced the intel maps. I submitted in Pokemon Go. I use portals instead of waypoints or pokestops as often or not, saying pokestops seem to sometimes get a negative reaction. And yes, I should have said waypoints instead of portals.

  • Elijustrying-INGElijustrying-ING Posts: 5,482 Ambassador

    In that case it’s really unlucky timing if they have loaded up more CotW data as wayspots in between.

    i haven’t heard reports of any new imports in U.K.

  • P1dg3ySlayer-PGOP1dg3ySlayer-PGO Posts: 165 ✭✭✭

    It's frustrating as it means we can't get our upgrade back. In the big scheme of things, it's not an issue.

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