When submitting a Wayspot Appeal, make sure to include as much of the following information as possible:
Wayspot Title:
Blue Crest Hill
Location (lat/lon):
48.212559/-114.354490
City:
Kalispell
Country:
United States
Screenshot of the Rejection Email (do not include your personal information):
POI was accepted, then removed days later, no rejection email.
Additional Information (if any):
Blue Crest Hill point of interest was nominated following the nomination guidelines. It was accepted because it met the required criteria for acceptance. I do not believe this fits any criteria for removal. A request for an edit should be offered if someone wants more information but an outright removal of the POI is unwarranted. Blue Crest Hill appears as a landmark on nearly every mapping service I have tried. It should be recognized on wayfarer as well.
I’ve just had a look at the location. I’m not seeing anything that immediately jumps out as being eligible at those coordinates. Can you provide screenshots of your nomination?
Blue Crest hill is the landmark in the park area behind the mailboxes on crest drive. I had set the POI near the toe of the hill so that it would be more centered in the park and away from the road. These are the photos provided in the way point nomination.
That must be a fun hill to play on in snow and I bet a great green space to gather.
But it looks more like an area intended to collect water runoff than for general recreational use. I assume Niantic was auditing for some reason or received a removal request and removed it.
Do you have any supporting evidence or external links to help prove the intended use of this rather than it “just” being a vacant green space? That would help Niantic make a decision to overturn the removal.
Bing Maps won’t even bring up something in this neighborhood when i search
OSM has this labeled as “Blue Crest Hill Park” but that edit is only a year old.
I’m not sure which other map sources you’re referring to but this seems like a bit of greenspace primarily for functional purposes between lots. Not sure how or why it got approved to begin with tbh.
Here is a screen shot of the Flathead County Interactive Mapping Application which shows the zoning of each property. You will see the area where this point of interest is located is clearly marked as “Park”
I took the time to review the eligibility, acceptance, and rejection criteria to be sure that i hadn’t overlooked something.
As far as eligibilty goes the zoning on the property is specified as park land that is opened to the public. Which would count as a great place to exercise, or even a great place to be social with others and enjoy outdoor activities like sledding, cloud watching (this hill is perfect for it), or just running around in the open park area.
Regarding acceptance criteria this does meet the eligibilty requirements, it is a permanent physical location that is safe and has pedestrian access. The picture and description of the point of interest are accurate.
When looking over the rejection criteria this does not meet requirements for rejection.
The location does meet eligibilty requirements. It is safe and has lots of pedestrian access. It is on public land not privately owned, and is not impeding any driveways or personal property, emergency services, utilities, etc. It is not located on or near school or daycare property, it is not located in or near adult oriented businesses. It is not considered sensitive property nor is it an abusive location. It is not a generic business and the text and supporting photos are legible.
I firmly believe this location is fit to be a point of interest.
As a green space that is not designated as a park, it can be hard to convince people that it is a great place to socialize or a great place to exercise. It might be a place where people can do that, but it’s not designated as a place for that purpose, which might be why someone could have reported it as fake . There certainly doesn’t appear to be any recognized spot called Bluecrest Hill. Rather, it seems you took it upon yourself to name a hill in the green space area by the street name. It may be that to the neighbors the area is known as Bluecrest Hill, but there’s really no objective evidence. If you have any objective evidence I would share that with the nomination.
The issue I am having with this is that Niantic themselves are the ones who approved it. They clearly want the way point and want to add to these rural areas to better their mapping service. They clearly wanted it. Now it is being taken down because of an individual who can’t see it from their google map road view that filed a complaint. Who probably has nothing to do with this area or the activities the locals do in it. The area is designated as park land and is required by law to be designated that way as per the local housing plan. There is nothing in the criteria that says a park must have a sign. A landmark does not need a sign, landmarks became landmarks because they are the identifiable object. They are the sign. It is absolutely known by the locals in the area as Blue Crest Hill. I believe this is being removed for the sake of someone getting points in wayfarer. Especially since Niantic themselves are the ones who approved it just days before.
This may be awkward, but Niantic has a long history or accepting “categorically ineligible” Wayspots or rejecting those considered eligible. An internal audit of their system or user submitted reports are not uncommon. I have struggle agreeing with calling this “rural” but I’m not familiar with the area. I am very familiar with making nominations in Montana in hamlets that don’t even have a single traffic light. A conversation for a different time could probably help identify many other potential candidates for your town, but I don’t want that to distract from the real issue of this Wayspot.
This and your following summary are absolutely correct. However, for a long time, signs were explicitly required for eligibility. Newer criteria updates to be more inclusive - especially for “rural” areas - has pulled away from signage being required to help with acceptances. If I may say so, though, sometimes nominations really have to do heavy lifting and “prove” eligibility, even though it may seem unfair to have to prove yourself to outsiders. I really think a stronger description than you provided may have helped.
This is not a thing. Nobody gets points, karma, or rewards for removals.
I’m not sure if this is “enough” to “prove.” Your information is an assessor page, correct? I’m not attempting to challenge you, but I’m unsure if that’s truly a “city park” or just a city designator of undeveloped land. I challenge you, and in a sincerely helpful reasoning, to find a third party website listing or proving it as a park or a location for social gatherings. Does the city or neighborhood association host movie nights, social mixers, or similar? I think that would be more than enough to help cinch the nomination appeal.
We got off to the wrong start on this. You said Blue Crest Hill was a landmark on every map you knew of, but there was no Blue Crest Hill on Google Maps, which seems like the first one people would go to. Then the photos you showed seem to be of a green space, and you began calling it a park. Maybe you should show the original nomination with the Title, Description, and Supporting statement, and start over saying why you feel this nomination deserves to be reinstated. But you don’t have to do that, of course.
Thank you for clarifying and I apologize if I was out of line in my statement about removals getting points. This is my first nomination to be approved after a lot of work and it was frustrating to see it get deleted because of a complaint from an individual. I was inspired to create this nomination after seeing Blue Crest Hill on a map and thought “holy cow there is a landmark on a map i can use within the bounds of Cottonwood park”. I swear it even showed on the map in the niantic campfire app, but now i am trying to site my sources and, I am embarrassed to say, I cannot find it. I was able to find a list of Kalispell cities parks and amenities which does include Cottonwood park. There are not amenities within the park as per the table but there is a bike path, and it is a developed park recognized and maintained by the city of kalispell. I also included another screenshot of the welcome statement for the parks and rec website that provided the listing table. Although there is no official events planned for the area the statement seems to be encouraging the use of this park for bringing the community together with it being included in the list. The final attachment is another screenshot of the park zoning which is just another reference showing the area of the point of interest being a part of the Cottonwood Park.
No need to apologize, I never thought you were out of line. In fact I thank you for keeping your cool - it never feels good to feel like you’re being ganged up against or your integrity challenged. I can certainly see your side for eligibility and support it despite not being the one you have to convince. I’ll see if I can dig anything else and then tag a Niantic employee if they can help.
I appreciate that very much. I am open to suggestions from anyone on possible edits that need to take place or what should be done differently if i were to create a new nomination. I strongly believe this park is deserving of some recognition from the Wayfarer community and that it is in Niantic’s best interest to include this public space. If the mission is the optimization of Niantic’s mapping technology this is a great start for the area as it will continue to expand. There is tons of room to explore safely and legally here but there are not enough nearby way points to give it the attention it needs to attract new members of the community.
It’s unfortunate but without a dedicated “waypoint”(sign, structure) anyone could name any open field , a hill , etc as a POI . There used to be a “generic nature” option in the old version of wayfarer
