This is untrue.
There is an existing phenomenon where Ingress 
votes do count and of course new Ingress votes mean nothing, anymore. And gifts don’t always update photo as we’d expect.
But I’ve definitely flipped many photos of my own added contributions.
I submitted a new photo to one of the Wayspots on September 12th and only received it today. I think you’ve confused the words “minutes” and "months.”
There was no talk about Ingress.
I understand, unfortunately there must be an understanding of Ingress to understand all scenarios around how photos work in PoGO.
What I mentioned is one of the more common reasons the primary photo don’t take place on a PokéStop when expected, since there appears to be something going on that is causing a misunderstanding.
The ML was down for a while, thats probably why
Most of my photo additions are added almost immediately nowadays when the ML is working, and I can immediately thumbs up my new image, and it changes over later that day. If I need more thumbs, I send the gift to friends and they upvote it too if they agree the new picture is nicer
Way, way back in the day, Ingress was the database for what we now call Wayspots. Something had to be a Portal in Ingress before it could become a Pokestop. Likes could only be made in Ingress once upon a time.
When they shifted the database from Ingress to Lightship, votes made on photos in Ingress became trapped. Now Wayfarer and Ingress are completely separate, but those trapped votes are still stuck, and there is no way to see them or eliminate them.
Firstly, you yourself claim that ingress no longer has any influence. Secondly, I have an understanding of how ingress has had an influence in the past. My experience with changing photographs is based on the fact that I changed photographs in my own nominations, since over time the objects were modernized/restored. There are no Ingress players in this area. The objects had no Ingress likes at the time.
Noted. Like I said, there seemed to be a gap in what you recognized as happening and intended behavior and offered the most obvious answer at the time. If you wanted, you could make a detailed post of that experience and I’m sure we could figure it out or present it as a Bug Report if necessary.
This is verifiably untrue. Literally this weekend, I flipped photos that I submitted by adding my own thumb “vote” to the image I added. If you were not able to flip a photo you added, that is almost exclusively due to “trapped” Ingress thumbs on the older photo. There could be some other bizarre problem happening, but that would be something not “working as intended.”
To echo some of the others here, I think these are acceptable photos but not necessarily good photos.
At the moment only PoGo players can vote on photos, and I am frustrated about how few players in my area choose to do so. In Ingress (no longer part of Wayfarer), each portal has an individual link that you can share - so there are groups of people who vote for the best photo on portals anywhere in the world. In PoGo it’s really limited to people who walk up to the pokestop or receive a gift from it. To that extent, I wish that somehow between the PoGo and Wayfarer teams that they could find a way to encourage players to submit and vote for better photos.
It’s not just new wayspots, some of the photos are 12 years old when phone cameras were a lot crappier than they are today.
Ouch. Somebody there probably thought that it would be easy to fix a bit later..
Doubtful at 12 years old, unsure edits were even possible and camera phones would have been very limited. The old pictures can be absolutely dreadful. There are more criteria and expectations around images now
i’ve come to find community voting is just a waste considering the final vote is with Niantic anyways. Don’t even put the fact that your area is dead, that seems to get your post insta denied. Genuinely if you don’t live in a metropolitan area. You’re smoked.
1st I will say Hello and Welcome,
2nd I will state that you are wrong.
The majority of Accepted community voted waypoints are added to the database. The majority that are then not added to the game by “Niantic” are due to the proximity rules.
As what is already in your area as no bearing on Criteria.
Many examples on the forums where Rural Areas have become excellent game locations due to players putting in the time to nominate locations that meet criteria.
