I’m feeling a bit frustrated and honestly extremely annoyed. I submitted a Waypoint for a family business (a confectionery-bakery). I placed the pin inside the bakery, which confused the community because they thought I had set the location incorrectly.
Because of that, I submitted an appeal and explained that the pin is inside the shop, and that this can be clearly seen on the map. I even uploaded a screenshot of the map section to prove that the pin is placed no more than 2 meters inside the shop from the street view — to show that I wasn’t making anything up or trying to fake something.
However, the Niantic reviewer rejected my appeal and accused me of mocking people or submitting abusive content.
So I’ve come to the conclusion that the community rejected the Wayspot because they believed the location was incorrect and that it wasn’t historically relevant.
But the Niantic employee then labeled me as hostile or abusive, and as a result, I received an account warning. All my active nominations were automatically rejected right after that.
At this point, whether anything happens or not honestly doesn’t matter to me anymore. Alongside my full-time job, I’ve spent a lot of time looking for interesting locations, taking good photos, making convincing supporting photos with geographic references, writing thoughtful descriptions, and providing solid arguments for why these Wayspots would be valuable and meaningful for the community. I even did online research and actively uploaded everything — not to mention the countless hours spent reviewing other people’s nominations.
I did all of this voluntarily and purely out of interest, wanting to provide the community with a better gaming experience. That’s why I’m deeply shocked that an employee — who is being paid for this work — made such a serious and unfair decision and labeled me as someone hostile toward others.
If I made a mistake with the pin placement, that’s fine — it wasn’t on the wall outside but rather inside the shop. But to be humiliated like this is absolutely unacceptable.
This phrasing is one that often gets misunderstood, because it’s very badly phrased in all languages. The abuse in this case is the location issue.
It is unusual to place a wayspot pin for a cafe inside the cafe. That you did it only 2 meters inside the shop and definitely did this deliberately suggests you were trying to squeeze the wayspot into a cell when it wouldn’t appear if it was on the entrance. I can’t be sure you were doing this, but that is how it will seem to reviewers.
Even if it is only two meters, when a wayspot is deliberately misplaced to gain an advantage in Pokemon Go, that is considered abuse.
I’m not sure you have been humiliated by Niantic, because the responses from Niantic were just to you. Hopefully someone who can read German will come along and confirm what Niantic wrote.
I have to disagree on that. The question about the pin is really more about where exactly it should be placed. I set it inside the café because that’s where people are actually supposed to gather. Nobody is meant to just stand outside staring at the wall.
Besides, the pin would at best have become a PowerSpot — nothing more — since the cell is already occupied.
When I click on the link to read the guidelines, I’m taken to the section that says you must not upload content that is disrespectful or demeaning toward people.
I’m just saying how it appears. I haven’t checked the location to see the cell boundaries and non-Niantic reviewers can’t do that either. They will just see that there are nearby wayspots and that this location is curious.
Combined with the wonky supporting photography, which isn’t a showstopper but is a problem, and the difficulty of convincing people that a bakery is eligible, this may be enough to put reviews off from accepting. Choosing location error is therefore easy even if not the full reason for rejection.
Appeal reviewers tend to stick with the community decision unless there is clear evidence of a mistake, which there isn’t. Therefore Incorrect Location = Abuse, which explains the messages you got.
Thank you, I understand your perspective. I believe I simply didn’t explain in enough detail what I meant.
I want to emphasize once again that the first time the community rejected the nomination, the reasons given were “no historical relevance” and “incorrect location.”
It was only after I submitted the appeal that the part about “disrespectful or abusive content” was added.
And that kind of classification can only be made by an employee, not by the community.
I understand the problem and why this has bothered you. I just don’t think the Niantic employee has added the part about being disrespectful or abusive. It’s an extremely badly phrased standard text that Niantic use whenever abuse is indicated and the phrasing in no way indicates the many possible things that could have been considered abuse.
The “Abuse” rejection narrative can be flagged for a nomination for any of the following reasons:
The photo is not yours (e.g., taken from streetview, found on another website)
The photo is fake
The waypoint is fake
The text itself is abusive
The nomination is controversial and likely to be offensive (e.g., a mural of terrorists)
Another nomination was abusive and all of yours have been flagged as a consequence
The wayspot location pin is misplaced
The wayspot is deliberately misrepresented (e.g., on school property but pretending it isn’t)
I can understand everything and I have read the AMA. Therefore, I can see that it’s not always possible to explicitly provide a reason for each individual case, especially since there is often a gray area. My main issue is that, unfortunately, I don’t have a screenshot of the community’s decision at the time it was made, because the reason given for the rejection was “historically irrelevant and wrong location.”
Since I believe this decision was incorrect, I took a screenshot of the map showing on Google that my pin isn’t much farther from the business, and I clearly explained that it was taken from within the store. Even if my Wayspot had been rejected, that would have been completely fine. However, the reason I eventually received—that it “disrespects people”—is not accurate or fair, because I should not have received a warning for that. It is a matter of principle for me to have this clarified.
That is disappointing. Following the comment from @NianticAaron, a closer look at that area shows that the marker in your images is approximately 30m from the front of the shop, definitely makes the wayspot eligible to be a powerspot and might even drop it into an empty cell.
Putting the wayspot pin anywhere normal, at the front of the shop, would block it from being both a pokestop and a powerstop, as existing wayspots are within 20m of the shop.
I don’t think 2 meters should be enough to warn someone, 30m is more clear-cut. And it’s natural to place the point in the middle of a location, although yes, we are guided to place at entrances or edges.
But on this one, based on the satellite imagery it could maybe be classified as abuse, but it’s making an assumption about the intention of the person who submitted, which certainly as we have seen previously can be wrong sometimes. I rarely report submissions for this reason. I feel uneasy about the wording and certainty the warnings have, with a lack of clarity on which point you violated sometimes. It’s how Wayfarer is, both exciting and fulfilling, but very often disappointing due to the subjective nature of a lot of it.
I have the same problem, I suggested a pokestop of a graffiti, which had gradually received incomprehensible reasons for rejection and today I was warned about “poor quality.”
I don’t think putting a pin inside a shop rather than exactly at the door would get anyone flagged for the wrong location despite what may be ideal.
It sounds like the location was quite far off. Only you will know if that was a genuine mistake or trying to manipulate things for this to show in game, which is considered wayfarer abuse, and is what your warning appears to be for.
You didnt place the pin 2 meters inside the shop. you placed the location well behind the shop in what appears to be an attempt to get it inside an empty S2 L17 cell and got caught doing so.
