When submitting a Wayspot Appeal, make sure to include as much of the following information as possible:
Wayspot Title: Earlham Savings Bank
Location (lat/lon): 41.593741, -93.808278
City: West Des Moines
Country: USA
Screenshot of the Rejection Email: NA - see details below; refer to Ticket 39613919
Additional Information (if any): Aforementioned Wayspot meets no criteria and was created using a third party image (evidence below). I reported it (with appropriate evidence) and received the feedback “We have reviewed the report and have made the necessary changes to the Wayspots in accordance with our policies.” I was quite surprised to see (even after waiting a few days) that the Wayspot is still live in PoGO.
We have taken appropriate action as per the policy. We have retired the duplicate Wayspot. As for this Wayspot, it doesn’t meet our criteria for removal.
If you could submit an image for this Wayspot, we will be happy to fasttrack the review and remove the current image.
No, thanks. I’ve always found it rather offensive asking us to add our names to l̶o̶w̶ ̶q̶u̶a̶l̶i̶t̶y̶ ineligible abusive Wayspots.
I see it remains policy to leave abuse. I’m not sure how that’s fair for the greater community trying to uphold your “standards” I assume were broken by Niantic reviewers, but ok.
Looking at the object that the wayspot represents, I can see the problem Niantic have. This bank might not meet eligibility criteria and the photo used was definitely abuse, but the bank itself does not come anywhere close to meeting removal criteria.
Removing this wayspot because of the abuse, which doesn’t affect the wayspot’s eligibility, would be wildly inconsistent with everything else we see Niantic doing in response to forum posts.
The best solution would be if the stolen photo could be removed from the wayspot and the submitter tagged with an appropriate sanction. The former appears impossible because Niantic won’t let a wayspot have no photo (once it has one) and the latter will not be publicised.
I only see a problem with Niantic’s decision to retain the Wayspot. A user had a Wayspot approved through abuse of submission (which would likely have resulted in a warning if caught during the review process) and/or ignorance or direct reviewer abuse. Removing the Wayspot would not require explicit punishment to the user at this time - it gives them the opportunity to resubmit and feature the candidate through the same process as everyone else - giving them a more fair and accurate representation of the Wayfarer process as well as maintaining fairness for the rest of the community.
Abuse most definitely does affect acceptance. The community was not given a fair chance to determine eligibility - or they were and an appeal decision overturned that.
I don’t follow this logic. We have seen posts of players receiving warning/bans that I am pretty sure both you and I commented on, both for submitting third party photos and for submitting low quality nominations. How does it make sense that a Wayspot which could earn a reprimand for the submitter should be allowed to remain on the game board?
When a POI has been eligible and has been accepted, but abuse has been committed during the submission, resulting in the submitter being warned/banned, do we have knowledge of the wayspot being removed?
I know we have seen comments that wayspots have been relocated and submitters given a penalty, but it hard to know whether wayspots remained. It is easier now, if you have certain add-ons, so it would be possible to check this.
My suspicion is that abusive behaviour for an eligible accepted wayspot doesn’t result in the acceptance being reversed. I’d be happy to be corrected!
(I’m disregarding the potential of the bank’s eligibility in this post.)
I think we are saying similar things. Given that they don’t remove accepted wayspots even if abuse was committed as part of the submission, the consistent action here is to not remove the accepted wayspot.
Removing this wayspot would be inconsistent with Niantic’s usual responses.
The reason for removing it would be the abuse, not because the bank meets removal criteria (since it doesn’t). The stolen photo affects the legitimacy of the submission but not the wayspot, since a new photo would fix that without changing what the wayspot is of.
Are you saying you think this is the way that Niantic should proceed in these cases? I do not think this approach is the one they should take. If it should not have been submitted and should not have been accepted, then it should not be on the game board.
No, I’m not. I’m saying that removing it would be inconsistent with how Niantic have treated similar situations, so on that basis I understand why Niantic haven’t removed it.
It is very possible to understand something without agreeing with it
So you were explaining how Niantic thinks to an Ambassador Alum who has worked directly with staff and spoken directly to them? It came across as your opinion that this was the right thing to do. Apologies.
I was aware that the ambassador was an ambassador I also noticed their annoyance and was attempting to provide a balanced viewpoint with no skin in the game - understanding why things happen is an alternative to getting annoyed by them.
(Doesn’t work with everything.)
My actual opinion is that Niantic are in a bind. It would be great if ineligible wayspots could be removed without such strict criteria, but I can see how this would open a massive can of worms and create new problems.
Related to that issue, a thread just appeared where a wayspot might have been renamed to something that is temporary, then removed because that temporary thing is no longer there, despite the original POI still being there and still being eligible. I can imagine that sort of action (which might or might not have happened with that wayspot) being much more common if more wayspots could be removed.
As a Wayfarer Program Manager once told me, “never feel the need to defend Niantic decisions,” and I encourage you to do the same. I’m full aware of why staff makes this take and how they tend to operate, I’m also full aware I can dig out inconsistencies.
I am still justified to call out their actions I disagree with and feel I should be able to without being talked over.
You said “I see it remains policy to leave abuse”. I found it hard to leave an inflammatory statement like that without something for other wayfarers to see as an alternative viewpoint. That shouldn’t be a problem.
