Church name change rejected

Hello. I’m fairly new to this and I submitted a new image of a church sign because the church has changed its name from Farley Street Baptist Church to Pathway Baptist Church in Waxahachie, TX. The new photo was accepted, but the edit was rejected. I appealed and was rejected again with the following reason:

“Thanks for the appeal, Explorer. We reviewed your contribution and determined that it is not related to the object this Wayspot represents and as a result, we have rejected your submission. Please note that trying to repurpose a Wayspot is a violation of our policies.”

I probably submitted this incorrectly, but I don’t understand how to submit and edit to a place that has changed. Google Maps shows the new name on the map. There are several churches in town in the same situation and I don’t want to submit edits again if I know they’re going to be rejected.

The location is 1116 Brown St, Waxahachie, TX 75165, USA.

Can someone give me some guidance on how to submit edits to locations? I’m not trying to repurpose anything. I’m just trying to make location information accurate. It’s confusing when you’re trying to meet someone for a raid to tell them the name of the place and it is different on the map.

Thanks in advance for your help!



Unfortunately, not everyone who makes policies at Niantic is smart. Most people would look at this and see that one church is now another church and would update the wayspot appropriately since it’s materially the same eligible thing in the same place, just with a different name.

The official stance from Niantic, which isn’t properly published anywhere, is that this is perfectly acceptable if one mural has been replaced by another mural, or by a graffiti tag, or by a single color splotch of paint, but that for any non-mural wayspots, it’s abuse to submit edits that improve the existing eligible wayspot with information about the still-eligible thing that is materially similar and currently present.

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I tried to correct the name of a rotating art piece and they removed the Wayspot instead. I am livid. Restore Wayspot removed on title change request - #45
My advice would be to just leave it incorrect until they come up with a better system for updating.

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To correct it would apparently mean

  • submit removal request on the old church and hope that it is approved without trouble;
  • then make a new nomination for the new church and wait for it to get approved.
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Interesting. I guess I’ll just submit the new signs, since that apparently will get approved but won’t try to submit edits.

Thanks for your help.

Hey @TheJeters,

Thanks for the additional context. We were able to verify that the church has changed its name from “Farley Street Baptist Church” to “Pathway Baptist Church”. In light of this evidence, we have renamed the Wayspot to “Pathway Baptist Church”. You should see the changes reflected soon.

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