I appealed this nomination but the appeal was denied, despite being eligible as per the criteria clarification:
Submission (machine translated)
Memorial stone for Ernst Bloch (1885–1977), a famous Jewish-German philosopher. In 1961, Bloch accepted a visiting professorship at Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen, where he passed away at the age of 92. On the day of his death, approximately 3,000 students gathered for a torchlight procession. He was laid to rest at the Bergfriedhof cemetery in Tübingen.
Appeal Notes
According to the criteria clarification for cemeteries, “gravestones belonging to historical figures or significant community figures can be eligible if the nominator provides evidence for their historical importance”. Ernst Bloch is a very well known and beloved philosopher, over 3000 of his students gathered to mourn his death when he passed away in the 1970s, people still visit his grave frequently. This is also evidenced by people leaving stones on his grave, as is common in Jewish culture. Visiting is encouraged, which is why a bench was installed directly next to his grave. Psychoanalyst Joel Kovel has praised Bloch as, “the greatest of modern utopian thinkers”. Ernst Bloch - Wikipedia There’s a museum dedicated to him: Dauerausstellung - Ernst-Bloch-Zentrum A newspaper article about his grave as a POI: Tübingen: Kolumne „Übrigens“ zu Blochs Grab: Des Denkers Andenken | swp.de The cemetery also considers his grave as “worthy of preservation”. There are many photos of his grave online, proving people visit it frequently Grab von Ernst Bloch, Bergfriedhof Tübingen | Tübingen. Tübi… | Flickr
Niantic Note
Thanks for the appeal, Wayfinder! The Wayspot nomination in question is in a cemetery, which is an ineligible location under the Wayspot rejection criteria. We recommend you review the Wayspot rejection criteria before submitting any more Wayspot contributions: Rejection Criteria — Wayfarer Help Center
Reviewers provided these top reasons for not accepting this submission:
That is definitely a poor appeal review decision. Just going by the size of the wikipedia page, Ernst Bloch is a significant historical figure. Just going by the photo, this is definitely not a sensitive location.
For Scopely Explore to state that [all] wayspots in cemeteries are automatically ineligible under the Wayspot rejection criteria is inexplicable.
Hello @wooperIooper
I appreciate that this will be frustrating but where a topic is querying an appeal decision there is normally no comment from staff. Either the wayfinder gets an email giving acceptance or there is no response.
Hard though it may be, my view is that you need to accept that the decision on this submission is final. As such this is one that you need to move on from.
Sorry.
Hi that’s fair enough, however staff has been known to miss my posts and I really do feel this is a case where they need to know that someone is apparently not following their official guidance. Because what use is the criteria clarification if staff doesn’t follow it?
I think this is a major failing in communication and respect on Scopley’s part. I know they almost never respond to these and that should change. Even if the response is “due to our policies we cannot overturn this decision”. Most of the times when we post these, what we are looking for is an “I was wrong, sorry”. Even a “there was not enough evidence to convince us” would work. Overturning it would be nice but acknowledgment that an employee made a mistake and it was discussed is very important. Employees can be retrained or if that fails then fired if they are not doing their jobs correctly but no would would ever know there was a problem if the public doesn’t speak up.
There is no official process to appeal an appeal. Decisions on appeals are final and it’s not feasible for us to re-review every case.
We already have, and we stand by our decision. Please note that this is a one time exception and I won’t be able to engage with such requests everytime.
By saying there is no official process, you have left a little wiggle room. Is this intentional?
We have previously been told by Scopely Explore staff on this forum (I think it was you) that if an appeal decision is egregiously wrong, we can submit a post onto this forum asking for another look.
I have done this with a chain gym location which the community rejected, the appeal reviewer rejected and you then accepted after I posted on here.
Clearly not every post about a rejected appeal deserves or gets a response from Scopely Explore, but is the principle still correct that we can request a re-evaluation of an appeal?
Hmm. I have no idea how to search through this forum for a post made around 6 to 12 months ago in a thread that I cannot remember the title or topic of. It is however a post that several people have referenced, not just me.
I have found the thread about the gym and my memory was wrong - there is no specific staff member who commented. Appeal Rejection - Pure Gym
Hey Aaron, I personally remembered an instance where you said something, which I interpret as you telling us to go to the forums with such wrong decisions for staff to notice:
Hopefully that’s not something I’ve gotten wrong.
Apart from that I’m also only aware of the old AMA which sounds like a call to go to the forums with bad appeals:
“Let us know when we got it wrong” is not a promise of a re review. Its internal feedback with perhaps a goodwill gesture of overturning a decision. (Thats the way I see it at least)
I see Roli’s point. However the current system is that there is no response at all to these posts. Not even acknowledgement that they were seen by staff. We were asked to let them know when we thought there were issues but it usually feels like they never saw it. It would be great if there was at least some kind of “ we read this”.
We have said it in the past as well, but please allow me to reiterate it again. We read every single post/comment/thread on the forum and intervene only when necessary.
we read this”.