I requested this Wayspot to be removed because I recall that generally speaking, generic franchise stores and restaurants should not be approved as they are not unique, local, or culturally significant. This Wayspot actually highlights two multinational franchise restaurants: Wendy’s and Tim Horton’s (which was added to the the building later as they had the same owner)
There’s lots of other Poke Stops in this area, including a legit Wayspot with artwork just a few meters away
First, I am not staff. Second, removals have different criteria than approvals. It mostly likely shouldn’t have been approved, but will not meet internal removal criteria. I am going to set this to “Watching” to see what staff say.
There are conditions under which a chain restaurant could be eligible. We don’t know what was in the original supporting statement.
Thanks @cyndiepooh for the quick response and posting the helpful link to the post about Generic/Non-Generic Businesses.
I agree this Poke Stop probably should not have been approved in the first place. Were there Wayspots in the past approved by AI? Possibly the AI was not aware what “Wendy’s and Tim’s” referred to?
For more context: this is an urban Poke Stop within the city limits of a major Canadian city. Tim Horton’s in Canada are almost as ubiquitous as Starbucks in the USA. There are 113 Tim Horton’s in Edmonton (including one just 3 minutes away from this one) and 21 Wendy’s here, and I’ve never seen any of them have a dedicated Poke Stop.
The main issue to me is that this Wayspot gives an inconsistent impression of what a “regular” Poke Stop should be as corporate ones like McDonald’s and Starbucks Poke Stops clearly show that they are sponsored.
It was able to approve in the past, although it can’t now, and that very well may be how this was accepted. But I have seen similar locations be accepted by the community well before the Machine Learning model was around. So idk.
(You may want to remove the “Solved” check mark to leave that for staff.)
Community reviewers often accept things that are not eligible under the criteria rules. Alternatively, sometimes something looks ineligible until you read the information that the submitter provided.
Thank you @NianticAaron for your prompt response and I respect your decision! Generally speaking I am always in favour of more Poke Stops available for players, and happy to see this one stay now that we know it was approved for legit reasons. It just seemed incongruous for the reasons I mentioned above.
For future reference, could I humbly ask the team to let us know why this particular franchise location was deemed acceptable? Thanks in advance.
Removal criteria are stricter then acceptance criteria. Niantic have not stated the removal criteria explicitly, but it’s along the following lines. Removal is accepted for any of the following:
not safely accessible
on SFPRP or other strictly ineligible location
something that simply doesn’t come anywhere close to key criteria (Exercise, Social, Exploration)
This means that borderline and edge cases will rarely be removed, as they are not categorically against criteria. This is why (e.g.) memorial benches for someone who has no meaning beyond their family stay in the game once accepted and will not get removed.
