New "Private residential property" definition

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  • TWVer-INGTWVer-ING Posts: 792 ✭✭✭✭✭
    1. In Pokémon Go, when you stand exactly where the pin is, you will be able to interact with any Pokémon that is shown to be at that pokéstop from where you stand, so if the pin is not on prp, there is no need to trespass to access any Pokémon.
    2. If it were so that you could see Pokémon that are out of range when you stand on top of the pin, I think that would be a game specific design flaw, and not something that Wayfarers need to account for. That is something the developers of the game should fix. Wayfarer places wayspots, not Pokémon.

    Niantic already uses OSM data to determine where to (not) spawn Pokémon. If they don't want Pokémon to spawn on prp, they should limit spawns to cells that have a road, path, park, beach, etc. running through them. It is not something Wayfarers should have to worry about.

  • sogNinjaman-INGsogNinjaman-ING Posts: 3,313 ✭✭✭✭✭

    In Pokemon Go, any Pokemon you can see on the map you can interact with. There is no need to stand on top of the pin.

  • Jtronmoore-PGOJtronmoore-PGO Posts: 1,581 ✭✭✭✭✭

    How many people playing pokemon go do you think know this though? I remember when i first played we would walk all around a poi cause there was generally more spawns just not listed on the nearby. I believe thats what it is trying to stop with that rule

  • TWVer-INGTWVer-ING Posts: 792 ✭✭✭✭✭

    The point is that if you see a Pokémon on Nearby, you will be able to access it without trespassing (if the poi is in public space). Could there be Pokémon further away that can only be accessed by trespassing? Yes, but you aren't attracted to those as you can't see them, and they are unrelated to the pokéstop. They would be there without it as well. You could trespass on any prp because there might be something there that you don't know about. This is not affected by the presence of a pokéstop.

    Again, if Niantic doesn't want Pokémon to spawn on prp, they need to change their placement algoritm. I have spawns that I can only access by going to the back of my yard. There is no road there, just other peoples yards. There is also no pokéstop/wayspot there. So the placement of these Pokémon is entirely on Niantic.

  • 0X00FF00-ING0X00FF00-ING Posts: 769 ✭✭✭✭✭

    Your game isn’t the only game. "Pokémon spawning" isn’t the only location-specific game interaction.

    Portal battles in Ingress can be quite intense and drawn out for a long time. I’ve had to battle against the other team for over 20 minutes before, which meant walking to very specific spots surrounding the wayspot within approx ~20m of the location in all directions. Being all of three meters away from that specific sweet spot would more than double the time. Literally all it takes is for some 2-3 frenemy teams' players to notice my attack and defend their territory for this. And yes, the defenders can indeed preplan the precise location of all eight locations down to the exact meter.

    The alternative potentially being, in order to drop that link/field, driving dozens or hundreds of km to try again at the adjoining location.

    While I can personally vouch for the local players on my team, that they're not going to get out of their cars and then trample all over the nearby yard(s) getting to all nine (including the wayspot itself) of those "sweet spot" locations, I can't say the same for all players on all teams everywhere. Neither can, or will, Niantic.


    I posted a photo of a typical front yard in my neighbourhood earlier in this thread. And yes, SOME houses do indeed have artistic structures that the homeowners installed on this "easement" land. Legally they possibly shouldn't have been allowed, but it's sitting there happily next to electrical and Bell boxes, fire hydrants, and other infrastructure. But it is abundantly clear that, no matter what object may someday be placed in that no-man's land in front of that house (ie. LFL), that spot is an invalid location for wayspots.

    The "sweet spot" to attack a portal on that location is variously on their front porch, in their and their neighbours' driveways and yards, plus along the sidewalk and in the middle of the street.

    While some might say that locating a wayspot like that is "strategic", because it's easier to defend against attackers, I recognize it for what it is: an unnecessary encouragement to trespass.

    We've already lost a great many good locations due to both the inattentiveness of players, and the deliberate actions of players. Ask any longtime Ingress player about cemeteries.


    Niantic has already described the PRP as including all space "associated with" the PRP proper, and in any suburban neighbourhood I cannot fathom how anybody else can see those grassy bits of land as anything other than "associated with".

    Niantic's rules have to be multiple things at the same time:

    • clearly and concisely written
    • all things for all people

    Whatever rule they write that covers your specific PRP, must also cover mine. In simple language that ALL wayfarer reviewers can abide by. And history has shown that Niantic does not write their rules with "but whatabout"ism in mind. There's no "this rule applies, except when this happens, unless this also happens", because doing that confuses wayfarers.

  • Lechu1730-PGOLechu1730-PGO Posts: 537 ✭✭✭✭

    I think the wording on the 40 meter rule is quite clear on this: if the PoI is within 40 m of PRP you should make sure it won't encourage people to enter PRP. I always look for a hard barrier (wall or tall fence) between the PoI and PRP. Otherwise I reject.

  • TWVer-INGTWVer-ING Posts: 792 ✭✭✭✭✭

    I assume you are responding to my post? It wasn't me who started talking about "Pokémon spawning". I know about resonators and ultra strikes. But as I said, that is a game specific design flaw, that a Wayfarer should not have to take into account while reviewing. If the placement of resonators is a problem, then that is a problem the Ingress dev team has to fix. Wayfarers don't place resonators, Agents do. A Wayfarer should not need to know everything about every game in order to review properly.

    The land between your property and the street is not your easement. And it is not an invalid location for wayspots.

    Associated with means belonging to. Being next to something does not mean it is associated with it.

    The rule is "ON prp, or on the wall or fence of prp". That is a simple rule that works for everyone and gets repeated every time. Yet some people feel the need to add interpretations to it that were never stated by Niantic. Yet they keep insisting on them despite evidence that Niantic actually allows and restores wayspots in those area's that are supposed to be off limits by those people's theories.

  • 0X00FF00-ING0X00FF00-ING Posts: 769 ✭✭✭✭✭

    No. "Associated with" means exactly "associated with". "Belonging" is something you are throwing into the mix, not Niantic.

  • TWVer-INGTWVer-ING Posts: 792 ✭✭✭✭✭

    And you keep ignoring the fact that Niantic restores wayspots in those area's, despite enough people "reminding" them that those area's should be off limits if you bend the criteria enough.

  • 0X00FF00-ING0X00FF00-ING Posts: 769 ✭✭✭✭✭

    And I keep ignoring all the anecdotes where Niantic staff is very inconsistent with the rules when it comes to appeals. My personal complaint that ERII postboxes 1- are invalid nominations, 2- were correctly removed, and 3- were incorrectly un-removed, is also unwavering. (In short -- if it did not meet criteria in the first place and somehow was still voted through by wayfarer, then a wayspot's continued existence shouldn't be "grandfathered".)

  • TWVer-INGTWVer-ING Posts: 792 ✭✭✭✭✭

    That is also your personal opinion. I agree with you that ERII postboxes are invalid nominations. I don't understand why other postboxes in the UK are eligible (not from the UK). But once they are in the game, there are other criteria to get them removed, and being ineligible is not a criteria to get them removed. So they were incorrectly removed and correctly restored following the criteria.

  • 0X00FF00-ING0X00FF00-ING Posts: 769 ✭✭✭✭✭

    The problem with THAT viewpoint is fundamental, (ie. that "ineligibility is not a removal criteria").

    Players WILL and DO intentionally create falsified wayspots. The one in particular was created by way of a lie -- they claimed it was a King George (historically valid, so goes the UK groups). But with fake photos and descriptions got this one approved. And despite going in circles with Niantic, it somehow remained. DESPITE the obvious fraud.

    "It was created with false information" SHOULD be an explicit reason for removal, even if it's not explicitly stated for us to read.

    Otherwise players will just continue to do their cra.pshoo.t submissions, hope for the best, and retry retry retry until it finally works, secure in the knowledge that their fakery will go unpunished.

  • TWVer-INGTWVer-ING Posts: 792 ✭✭✭✭✭

    That's an entirely different situation. That would be abuse, and wayspots created by abuse should be removed.

  • 0X00FF00-ING0X00FF00-ING Posts: 769 ✭✭✭✭✭

    AS I SAID. Niantic is applying their rules inconsistently, and you cannot use anecdotes about how approval and removal appeals are handled as justification for much of anything.

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

    The whole Private Residential Property thing gets a lot easier to understand if you stop analyzing it in terms of rules-lawyering the specific wording(s) of the guidelines. Niantic's rules are certainly influenced by lawyers but they aren't intended to be legal documents whose every word and nuance should be scrutinized and cross-examined for hidden meaning.

    Instead, look at it from Niantic's intent. Their goal is to avoid creating a situation where players have an incentive to show up in and around yards and driveways and create a nuisance for homeowners and residents. A more cynical analysis would be that Niantic's goal is to avoid getting sued again because players are doing that, but that perspective gets you to the exact same place as the more charitable one-- don't annoy the residents of private residential property, and don't create "attractive nuisance" wayspots that create an incentive for players to trespass on private residential property.

    Remember that Niantic has said that art on the outside of a fence around a private home counts as private residential property. That applies even if the artwork is accessible from a sidewalk outside the property. It seems pretty obvious to me that something that is on the easement of a single-family home would fall under the PRP restriction as well. And no, it doesn't matter if you're the homeowner.

    https://www.theverge.com/2019/2/15/18226604/niantic-pokemon-go-lawsuit-changes-settlement-private-property-pokestop-gym

  • Lechu1730-PGOLechu1730-PGO Posts: 537 ✭✭✭✭

    At this stage I think we already have the team names for the Wayfarer team reviewing competition if Niantic ever decides to have one: Team Sidewalk vs Team Easement!

  • 0X00FF00-ING0X00FF00-ING Posts: 769 ✭✭✭✭✭
    1. wayspot was created with false imagery -- George postbox = good, ERII postbox = bad (UK reviewers deem sufficiently old and/or rare postboxes with particular emblems of the then-current monarch to be acceptable wayspots, and recent and/or common postboxes to be unworthy)
    2. niantic removed the wayspot
    3. niantic REVERSED their decision, saying that it did not meet removal criteria

    and then... nothing happened. If there has been further progress in that case, I've missed it. (I haven't been paying full attention to the Appeals threads for some many months now, so who knows)


    https://community.wayfarer.nianticlabs.com/discussion/4183/invalid-wayspot-appeal-wayspot-approved-with-fake-photo#latest

  • TWVer-INGTWVer-ING Posts: 792 ✭✭✭✭✭

    The guideline says exactly the same thing as the settlement. Anything ON prp is not allowed. Anything within 40m is to be closely examined to make sure it is not on prp. All the rest are just assumptions and speculation. There is no reason for a harsher interpretation.

    The easement bit has been discussed in this thread many times before. Objects on easements of prp are to be rejected, but the area where the sidewalk is, is very rarely on an easement/prp. That is the road allowance/public space.

    Niantic took 3 weeks to reverse their decision, without anyone commenting in that thread. I would think that that decision is then well thought out. Who knows what their reasoning is? Maybe they don't see a difference between the different cyphers on postboxes. Maybe they thought that there was a possibility that the original postbox was replaced with another one, and therefor found there was not enough evidence for abuse.

    What I also see in that thread, is that that postbox is located in an area between a prp and a street. So by some of your opinions, that would be on prp. So outside of the potential abuse, they also did not remove it for being on prp.

  • 0X00FF00-ING0X00FF00-ING Posts: 769 ✭✭✭✭✭

    So you use a specific anecdote that proves Niantic's inconsistency, and try to use it as an argument that Niantic is being consistent and thus anecdotes based on their appeals process therefore should be used as an argument in your case?

    Umm, nope, sorry. You've utterly lost me again.

  • Hosette-INGHosette-ING Posts: 3,469 ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited March 2021

    @TWVer-ING Do you have a citation for Niantic specifically qualifying easements? I have never seen them say that. As for your citation of Niantic's guidelines, you're missing part of it. We're supposed to pay attention to anything within 40 meters to ensure that it's not on private residential property or that it might encourage trespassing. That last part is important... Niantic doesn't want a bunch of game players trampling a homeowner's daffodils, as that's gotten them sued before. I've worked with Niantic's lawyers before (in a cooperative rather than an antagonistic situation), and I can tell you that they tend to be extremely cautious.

    In many area sidewalks are considered easements but property beyond them isn't. I just uploaded an example of one where I know the laws well-- the street that I grew up on. I can say with certainty that the **** of grass on the other side of it is owned by the homeowner. If someone put a little free library next to that streetlight it would be on private residential property.

    Zoning laws vary widely, and I don't think it's reasonable to expect local reviewers to be familiar with the nuances of zoning in every area that they review in, or that Niantic would expect them to look up municipal codes when reviewing. I argue that the more conservative interpretation is exactly Niantic's intent.




  • TWVer-INGTWVer-ING Posts: 792 ✭✭✭✭✭

    It doesn't prove any inconsistency. Abuse is a harsh acusition. It is not to be used lightly.

    I have never said that anything on easements is allowed. On the contrary, I have always said that nothing on easements is allowed. I have only said that many people don't understand what an easement is.

    If they are so cautious, why don't they just outright tell us that we should consider prp to extend to the street? Why do they not remove and even restore wayspots in those area's? They don't do that, because they don't consider those area's prp. Because those area's are not prp.

    It would be interesting to see a property map of that street, or another one like it. I highly doubt the properties extend to even the sidewalk. With that said, if I had to review a wayspot there, I would consider the prp to go to, but not including the sidewalk, as there is no clear property line.

  • 0X00FF00-ING0X00FF00-ING Posts: 769 ✭✭✭✭✭

    "Harsh" you say? The submitter LIED. They used a photo of an entirely different object in the place of one which otherwise would never have been eligible, as ERII postboxes are not sufficiently "historic" even by the UK Wayfarer standards.

    Niantic considers such deception to be abuse, and in most such similar occasions will indeed take action against the submitters. You'll see @NianticGiffard in the main "General" popping up that similar submissions have indeed resulted in negative consequences for the player. Whereas in the linked one above, the best we got was that @NianticAaron merely suggested that one could submit a "correct" photo instead if they wanted, for the location that ought never have been approved in the first place.

  • Lechu1730-PGOLechu1730-PGO Posts: 537 ✭✭✭✭

    @Hosette-ING I'm firmly in #TeamSidewalk but were I to come across with a nomination in a place like your picture I think I would rate it 1* PRP so fast that I would get two cool downs in a row...

    Compare and contrast with this:

    There's no way to enter the property grounds that doesn't involve jumping a 1.8 m fence (or breaking a door). Doing that is a whole different level of illegal. A PoI in such a sidewalk doesn't encourage trespassing and I wouldn't feel compelled to reject it on PRP grounds.

  • TWVer-INGTWVer-ING Posts: 792 ✭✭✭✭✭

    I agree that it does look like abuse and probably is abuse. I'm just saying that it is possible that it is not. Given the time it has taken NianticAaron to reverse the descision, I highly doubt they have taken the descision alone. There must be reasons why they decided to keep the portal in the network. Reasons that they have not shared with us.

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

    @TWVer-ING I think Niantic generally wants to establish guidelines and principles rather than micro-manage details of every specific situation. The general principle is that Niantic wants to avoid anything that could cause a negative impact to a homeowner.

    @Lechu1730-PGO Yes, homes like that are less likely to have people physically trespassing. I'm pretty sure they could still be bothered by 20 players loudly raiding outside their window.

    It's hard to create a general rule that perfectly handles every private home in the world, and I don't envy Niantic the job of trying to create one.

  • TheFarix-PGOTheFarix-PGO Posts: 5,063 ✭✭✭✭✭

    Niantic has also rejected an appeal to remove a Wasypot that was clearly on the side of a high school building...three different times. Does that mean that school grounds are not off limits?

  • Lechu1730-PGOLechu1730-PGO Posts: 537 ✭✭✭✭

    A guy from our group once commented he has reported a school that was a gym. The title of the wayspot said clearly it was a school. The request for removal was denied🤦🏻‍♂️

  • TWVer-INGTWVer-ING Posts: 792 ✭✭✭✭✭

    You are just making assumptions here and you add extra requirements that don't exist. The definition of prp is very clear and consistent every time Niantic talks about it. Everything ON prp (including easements and structures that mark the border line) is ineligible. Anything not on prp is okay. People need to stop acting like this is complicated or creates inconsistencies. It is a simple rule that works worldwide.

    Is it so hard to include a link when you make statements?

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