lol our new CA had to consult me to find a place left he could put his stop. I pointed him to the only two spots left that I hadn’t been able to fill XD
Welcome!
Hi!! 
Knowledge is power, @seaprincesshnb said it best. Having the information is ok. Because it can cut down on frustrations for newer Explorers and Wayfinders. If you were going to submit two possible POI’s and you knew ahead of time only one would show up in the game you played.
You might make a decision about the other one. What happens frequently, is people come to the forum, upset and disappointed that their hard work will not be able to be interacted with in the game they hoped.
By appropriately using the tools that have been created they can legally place the POI where is supposed to be and have it appear in the game that play the most opten.
Humans are human and some are going to cheat and take advantage no matter what. This is not limited to Niantic games. I don’t think you need to live worrying that someone may use some information nefariously, because chances are they will. Again, this is not limited to this forum or these games.
We have a fantastic group of Ambos that take their time and energy to carefully explain how to use these tools, so they are used in the correct way.
I read this as
- Avoid using 3rd party tools and plugins
- Also avoid depending on others for how to vote
Given you can be banned from games for submitting/editing, I think I am too wary to do something like use a 3rd party tool unless Niantic specifically say its okay (which they never will)
@frealafgb It’s 100% up to you and your level of comfort. If you don’t want to use the tools to see the cells. That’s cool. Remember, they were created by an ambo and to my knowledge. No one has been banned for using them in the correct manner they were created.
But if you feel more comfortable not using them, that is your choice and no one can judge you for that.
You would not be alone in that. But they are very careful to include the “to decide on how you vote on a nomination” and not just leave it at “Avoid using third party tools/plugins” which they could easily do.
I will not try to convince anyone that they should install tools, but I have posted that I use these many, many times here, and have never had a reply from Niantic that using these tools is anything I should not be using, and have even liked some of my posts using these tools to explain why an accepted Wayspot is not a Pokestop.
Use pogomap.info it is a separate website you can access from any device with internet access even your smart TV. So it doesn’t break TOS because it is a website that does nothing to change the game and simply shows S2 cells and the locations of submitted icons by other people.
I use it everyday to check my placement locations
And i am a moderator on it now which took me 3 years of inputting locations on it.
Pogoma.info can be unreliable as you’re at rhe mercy of others inputting data accurately. The map isn’t the same map ised when nominating so accuracy can be off, and S2 cells have been shown to be inaccurate.
That is why it is upto you to check all existing poi are plotted corectly using GPS co ords accurately.
Anyone can check these in the info of each poi plotted.
If it doesn’t match mark it for delete and resubmitt it correctly. Your mod with do this and check it and delete the wrong ones.
Or ask a mod to relocate it. Use a private marker to plot existing poi too if you want as well.
It is not the same overlay but it is still very close and accurate.
I’m sure they are working on matching the map overlays now as it was changed recently.
There was never a disclaimer about this previously.
IITC is just better, and I say that as someone who has used PogoMap. The fact it’s fully user sourced results in inaccuracies, as stated by @RoIi112 , and whilst you might know how to source coordinates yourself, a lot of users don’t know how to do that. IITC already has most things on show, and they’re in the correct locations. It also uses Google satellite imagery, which is much better quality than what PogoMap uses.