I recently appealed this nomination but received a rather confusing rejection. What does it mean that Niantic was unable to verify this Wayspot? It’s visible on satellite view, in a park, a public attraction for visitors…what other verification details should I supply? Sorry for using the Appeals format here but it works well for this purpose, I think.
Wayspot Title: Champlin Beach Park Swimming Dock
Location (lat/lon): 42.402785, -77.212868
City: Hammondsport, NY
Country: USA
Screenshot of the Rejection Email (do not include your personal information):
Additional Information (if any): Niantic’s note on this appeal read: Thanks for the appeal, Explorer! We are unable to verify Champlin Beach Park Swimming Dock. We would recommend to submit with the placemarker sign representing the Wayspot location/object which will increase the chances of this nomination getting approved. We also recommend that you review the Wayspot content guidelines: Content Guidelines — Wayfarer Help Center
Rejection Reasons listed are Generic Business and the dreaded Other Rejection Criteria. This is a swimming area dock, used by visitors to enter the water. My photo is NOT good, but does show the dock - I had hoped to get back there at some point to get a better photo, but I visited on a gorgeous day with lots of swimmers present and had about two seconds to take a photo without people!
Many photos of this scenic little park feature this dock. See Champlin Beach Park, Hammondsport - See Swim for examples. As this location is quite some distance from home, I’m unable to easily resubmit - especially when I don’t know what appeals reviewers are looking for in terms of verification!
Like I said, my photo is not great. This did, however, go into community voting and was rejected, then rejected again on appeal. Barring getting a better photo, which was impossible at the time, I don’t see how I could improve this candidate. My appeal statement did attempt to explain the difficulties with getting a good photo, including the fact that one can see the ripple from where the last visible swimmer submerged which was the only chance to get a photo without humans.
I can’t believe this was rejected in the first place. I would have accepted it without a second thought. (Unless there is something weird in the description, which I can’t imagine you putting there.) Is very clearly there on Maps:
I agree, this is a confusing one; I get a good number of docks for swimming/fishing, and always accept them. They are certainly great places to socialize with others, possibly get some exercise, and maybe even explore the surrounding area.
While your photo isn’t the greatest, it isn’t bad. You provided the dock as the anchor point for the beach, which can work in place of a place marker sign. Really, a place marker is just something at the location that can mark it, a meeting point of sorts, and a dock can certainly be a place marker.
There are also birds in the main photo, so I wonder if that caused the rejection in the first place. While we don’t want animals to be the focal point of photos, that’s not the case here; the dock is the focal point.
I mean if they wanted a sign because they weren’t clear it was a park, there is a portal for the park sign. And the sign indicating that this is a park is clearly visible on street view.
Maybe there is a risk element for this rejection. Perhaps they felt that encouraging players (who we all know aren’t always that good at keeping an eye on where they are going) to walk out onto a jetty was maybe a bit too far for Niantic to accept. If it were me, I’d have given it a green light, but very conscious that these guys do focus a lot on safeguarding.
I’m not too sure what the appeal reviewers were looking for - hence this post - but it’s not like this was a rock jetty or other pathway that isn’t safe for pedestrian access. It’s an anchored, well-supported, permanent dock with little ladders on the end for people to climb down into the swimming area if they choose. I think safe pedestrian access can easily be seen here, so if that’s the rejection reason I’d be both disappointed by the results and confused as to why the rejection email didn’t list No Safe Pedestrian Access as a rejection reason instead of “unable to verify”. Right now I don’t know why this was rejected by the community to start (granted it’s not likely to generate a Pokemon Go object, but Portals matter too!) and if those reasons match whatever the Appeals reviewers found - and why their rejection reasons in the emails are so vague.
Posts from other Wayfinders who have encountered similar confusing Appeals rejections here make me more inclined to bump my own thread so that Niantic might better see and identify the problem faced by active contributors. I won’t tag anyone in particular, though, because I want to see how the natural process plays out.
I really hope Niantic will look at this again, as I believe this is a case where the appeals team got it wrong. Requiring a sign for the dock within the park seems like an overreach. The sign for the park is clearly readable on Street View, and the dock is clearly there on satellite view. This seems like a wonderful destination to me, meeting social, exercise, and exploration criteria all three, and I am dumbfounded it was rejected in the first place.
@Shilfiell We’ve reviewed your appeal and have decided to revert the decision. Thank you for bringing this to our attention, and we apologize for any confusion.
