My Pokéstop was Unfairly Rejected!!!!
Et tu Lechu?
Those with some time in this forum might be surprised to see such a discussion title next to my name in the forum board. After all, titles like this are usually associated to newcomers, many times in their first post ever, not to someone with hundreds of comments to his name.
So if you're angry because your nomination was rejected, let me show you how it feels when it has become a regular part of your Wayfarer experience, how to understand the rejection and what to do about it.
Half of my heart is in Havanna
They say the rejections they hurt you the most are the ones of wayspots that have some emotional connection to you. So let me talk about the emottional connection first.
The Demetrio Eliades Building, better known as Havanna Building after the billboard of a renowned alfajores manufacturer Havanna that has always shined on its top, is a residential building on the beach front of the seaside city of Mar del Plata and an icon of the city skyline.
The emotional appeal? I spent all my summers as a kid there and a lot of summers afterwards as well, as my family owned a flat in the building. There's no single year in my life that I hadn't gone there at least a day. It's the site of some of my fondest memories.
So imagine my surprise when I check in Ingress Intel in March prior to a trip to the coast and saw it wasn't a wayspot. I had to nominate it. So I did. As you can imagine, it didn't go well. (Weird word choices because the email and the Wayfarer page were translated with Google Translate prior to screen capture).
Here's Johnny! (*)
PRIVATE RESIDENCE???!!?!?11??!!1|1 I QUOTED THE AMA!!!!11!!1!!! URL???!!!!??!11??!11 URLS ARE VALID IN THE ADDITIONAL INFORMATION1!!!11!!!11!!! MY NOMINATION IS VALID AND IT WAS UNFAIRLY REJECTED!!111!!! BAD REVIEWERS MUST BE PUNISHED!!!!111!!!! WAYFARER DOESNT WORK!!!!11! I WANT NIANTIC TO REVIEW THIS DECISSION!1111!!!! ELEBENTY!!!!
The cold hard facts
Argentina is a big country, but unlikely as it seems to someone who knows it as a major agricultural producer, 70% of it is arid or directly desertic so most of the poulation is concentrated in the fertile plains of the pampas. 30% of us live in Buenos Aires or its metro area, which is my reviewing area in Wayfarer. That's means that any upgraded nomination of mine is going to be evaluated mostly by the same people that review the same nominations I review on Wayfarer.
Why is that important? Because I have an agreeement rate upwards of 60%. That means I can say, with a high degree of confidence, that other reviewers in Argentina evaluate wayspots more or less like me. If the majority of reviewers agree with me when reviewing but I thought this would be a good nomination and it was rejected, what failed?
So lets go back to the rejection reasons. We can dismiss PRP and URL. There's always going to be a minority of misguided or inexperienced reviewers. If your nomination can't survive them, it wasn't a good nomination to begin with. The real reason, as it happens in most of this kind of rejections, is the first one given: "The proposal does not meet the acceptance criteria", also known to the reviewers as "Other rejection reasons". The nomination is seen by the reviewers as generic and uninteresting.
Is this true? When discussing this nomination with a local reviewer before it went to vote she said. "I'd reject it. A building just because it's old isn't elegible. Otherwise we should accept most buildings in the city." (Yes, I see Europeans rolling their eyes to a building from1969 being called old. Should I remind you that Mar del Plata, which I consider near Buenos Aires, is actually 400 Km away and there's nothing but cows and 8 very small cities in between?)
There are nominations that are slam dunks. Everyone knows they should be approved so they're approved. But in this case its clear the nomination needed some selling. Did I do it right?
Nomination Improvement
When I go back to the nomination, the first thing I know wasn't good is the pictures. Unfortunately I only had a few minutes in the city and I was in a hurry. I took the best pictures I could given the situation because I didn't want to miss the opportunity, just in case there wasn't another one. I intended to come back later in the weekend with more time a do a better nomination but unfortunately I couldn't. Covid restrictions mean that I probably won't be able to go there again until the next (southern hemisphere) summer.
Pictures are very important because they set the mood in which the reviewer will evaluate your nomination. A bad picture will predispose them more to find the flaws in your nomination rather than to see its good points. For difficult nominations like this one, every little thing counts. There's also the issue of how prominent you make certain claims. Should I have mentioned in the description that it's #5 in Trip advisor list of architectural landmarks of the city? Maybe it would have helped.
In the end, it pays off to try to see a rejected nomination as disappasionately as possible and try to understand what reviewers might have seen in it. It's obviously interesting to you. Is it for the rest of the reviewers? Were the pictures good? Was there anything to add or take away that would have helped to get approved? Then try again. And again, if needed. But also know when to let go.
In the end it isn't Niantic who decides what becomes a wayspot. Your fellow wayfarers who do, for their own idiosyncratic reasons. Try to understand what those reasons might be and you'll have a much better chance to get your nomination approved.
Comments
Wow that whomps. TBH if you get the chance to submit it again, I would take out the tripadvisor link. A lot of reviewers don't consider it a good travel guide. Wikipedia link seems like it should make it legit enough. Hopefully not upgrading it might help too cause local reviewers might be more aware of how iconic it is for the local area.
April 1? Oh right, the upgrade. Well, considering that it may be locally significant, many other nominators outside of the area will not have a clue. It looks like a really well-curated nomination attempt. You unfortunately would have gotten bad reviewers.
As a skyscraper enthusiast, it looks pretty darn amazing. Seeing the sign on top, the history well-explained, it's great really. It also celebrated its 40th anniversary in 2009 with a nice ceremony, not all buildings get that sort of treatment. Also annoyed with how an entire apartment block is considered to house a "single family" and that there really is no URL/html whatsoever in the description, lazy and uneducated reviewers.
People really just don't know what "private residential property" is.
If you mention a "poster adorning the building" then show the poster. With the greatest will in the world, I would not rate a "generic skyscraper" very hightly at all. If there is something special, show it.
the more !!! the less i will tend to read all this.
wow. it's a generic skyscraper. i would not rate this highly.
as others said... take out the tripadvisor link. anyone can add to tripadvisor so it has lost all value.
Sounds more like a post of frustration then a newbie post to be honest.
It would be allot destressing if pogo users were able to remotely resubmit like Ingress gamers.
@Lechu1730-PGO yeah... no. generic skyscraper.
try other stuff in the same L17cells
and i advise to user 2-3 phrases max in the support text.
nobody reads that amount of text.
Stop reviewing please.
That’s how I feel. Makes me not want to be involved here anymore just reading the comment above yours. People need to treat one another better here. This isn’t the place to treat people like garbage or for users to make their own rules or use spoofing apps to fake photos
You might be right about the trip advisor guide, but I wanted to provide reviewers an idea of the relevance of the building compared to others in the city.
I'm not sure upgrading it changed much its fate. The building is well known in Argentina. It's part of a skyline that's kind of a symbol of summer.
While I'm aware of its significance in the English-speaking world, April 1st has no particular meaning in my culture. It just happened to be Easter Thursday, which is a holiday.
I can't show the lights installation on the top without relying to a third party photo. As you can expect, it's quite difficult to take a good picture of something on a 40th floor when you're at ground level.
Nevertheless, and as I said in the post, you're right that a rushed picture that wasn't very good is probably the main flaw of the nomination.
I hope you take the time to read it. It may surprise you.
Actually, I'm not frustrated. I kinda expected the outcome because I knew the picture wasn't good. I wrote the post more with the idea of using it later to explain others how to view rejections differently.
Remote submit won't change much in this case, unless you're allowed to submit from 400 km away!
Thanks to everyone commenting here. Unfortunately the post was held in moderation a couple of days so it's release caught me unaware and I couldn't reply in timely manner.
I wonder about what problem found in the post those who disagreed with it, so if you explain that it'll be most helpful.