As others have discussed, there are several important clarifications that Wayfarer needs to make regarding “duplicate” Powerspots. I will reiterate them here:
If a POI that is eligible to be a Wayspot already exists as a Powerspot, will it be rejected as a duplicate if later submitted as a Wayspot nomination? As others have mentioned, this type of competition would be inadvisable. It could lead to the Lightship Wayspot database being throttled and reduce the number of Wayspots that would otherwise be added to the map.
If a hidden Wayspot that appears as a Powerspot later becomes unhidden due to valid map changes (e.g., location change), will the Powerspot disappear? Or will there be a Powerspot and Wayspot for the same POI?
There are many Powerspots on the map that correspond to the same POI as pre-existing Wayspots (e.g., both correspond to “McDonald Park”) but are pinned in slightly different locations on the map. Should these Powerspots be removed on the basis of being duplicates? If so, is there a mechanism to report these Powerspots as duplicates? Right now, the Powerspot reporting feature does not include a “duplicate” option.
Totally impractical solutions as there is no way to get the exact coordinates of the power spots (does not show on Ingress Map) and those things come and go every 2 days and may not come back before several weeks. Some Power Spot also have very long or inintelligible names, making retyping those in the chat impractical.
Adding a 6th or 7th option to report on the fly “Invalid location” or “Does not exist here” in the in-game Power Spot menu(*) would actually be a much more efficient solution.
(*)The Power Spot menu is currently accessible ingame by very inconveniently (works only half the times) tapping twice on the (?) button when inspecting a Power Spot.
So, there’s this recent post, and they nominated new Wayspots, both rejected as duplicates. They have had Power Spots in the past. I can’t find the locations based on the screenshots to check Lightship, but they also noted that the S2 cells are empty, and aren’t seeing any Ingress portals either.
I did let them know we’ve been asking for clarification on whether or not we can nominate existing Power Spots that meet Wayspot critera to be Wayspots here.
I think these datapoints (for example Courts of the World) were purchased only for PokemonGO. I think Niantic would have to pay the data owners (for example FourSquare) more to include them in other games. If so, it is not a decision by the Ingress team (or MHN, Pikmin Bloom, etc). It’s a Niantic budgeting decision.
The Courts of the World import was pain enough. These Power Spots are a MUCH bigger database, that Ingress agents can’t see in game, and now not even in an outside app. That’s huge!
I found a courts import in Myrtle Beach that was also in Pikmin bloom, super confusing why it wasn’t in ingress until I realized the import had actually applied to other games. I guess just the ingress team wasn’t interested
Could be. Or maybe it was inexpensive to add to Pikmin Bloom. Or maybe the Pikmin developers added it in a misunderstanding.
I start to despair about wasting my time, being blocked, not being able to see things, unable to create or contribute… and then I remember that Niantic often comes up with something great, if we can just wait for it. In this thread, NianticThibs said “You can expect additional improvements in the coming months.” So I’ll take this to mean I’ll see something awesome by the end of 2024. In Ingress. At least by April Fool’s Day 2025.
In the past, Niantic’s “months” has been 3-5 years (fixing emails, rewriting the review process with , reviewing edits). Sometimes it’s actually months.
I highly doubt that it works like this. Imported locations have appeared in pikmin bloom as well. If there even is a cost to niantic to bring in these imports, I doubt it’s on a per game basis. Ingress more than likely excluded them because a lot of ingress players are pickier about waypoint quality, and those imports are generally not high quality.
For some more context, via Wayback Machine, you can see NianticThia’s post about the imports first being added to the map and players comments here which are not great.
Please -one month has passed- remove that Powerstops’ pin from the map.
When starting a new nomination in a big city, it is quite impossible to determine a precise position in PoGo’s map, as it appears a jumble of red dots with strange names, offices and petrol stations among parks and historical monuments.
Wayfaring is a cool amusing hobby, but this is making thing very complicated.
It seems like the ability to edit Power Spots is live, at least from what I’m seeing on Reddit.
Edit: I can confirm I’m seeing some edit options, though not for picture contributions or descriptions. Also, rather confusingly, if you try to press these options whilst out of interaction range of a Power Spot, it tells you that you need to get closer to the Pokéstop (instead of Power Spot).
Some have had invalid Power Spots they’ve already reported removed via the Wayspot Removal link at the top of the forums, so you may want to give that a try. Here’s the direct link:
Keep in mind that we were never given an exact timeline for when the 2 teams would be merged into one, just that it’ll happen later this year. Both teams may need additional training before they can be merged together.
@NianticThibs Is there any update on when the 2 teams will be merged and start working on all PoGo removal requests?
Also, forgot to mention tnis, as to why some Power Spots do not meed Wayfarer eligibility criteria:
Many of the Power Spots where I live are at generic chain businesses, which is indication that they were imported from a 3rd party source.
Edit again: You can turn off the pins on the map in PoGo, as there is a slider in the bottom left of the map:
This Power Spot is at the apartment building across the street from mine, and I’m not close enough, so unable to submit edits. The location is at the back of the building, not the front, so could use a location edit.
Powerspot edit is completely useless, and mostly requires the use of Wayfarer Reports.
Because, not only is the Overture Maps-derived import data low-quality rubble, but most of even qualified powerspots are “duplicates” of existing wayspots, and yet their “location information is too inaccurate”.
In particular, most of the location inaccuracies are not within 10 meters, and the worst I have seen were off by more than 2 km.
Which is comparable or even more inaccurate than the FourSquare data you used to import.
If the Wayfarer and Lightship teams really want to improve the Overture Maps data, they should not rely on us.
Because only a handful of players, both Ingress and PGO, are interested in improving the quality of the wayspot data.
Instead, you should ask Google, Apple, or the OSM Foundation to purchase the data, import them into Overture Maps, and then sync them to PGO, which will be much faster, more accurate, and of much better quality.
Hmm, interesting. I wonder if these will be reviewed by ML, Niantic, and/or the community. For example, there’s a bank that has a Power Spot near where I live that has the wrong name, one that most don’t even remember it having. Another bank Power Spot has the name of an opera company (?), which for as long as I’ve lived in this area, has always been a bank.
I’m waiting to see if the Power Spots I’ve requested to be removed get so, especially the ones that no longer exist and the in-home businesses on PRP.
Edit: I can see that tomorrow the Power Spot at the Burger King that was torn down this summer will become active again, even though I have reported it as permanently removed. It could be that it could take some catching up, as I bet there have been a good deal of removal requests for Power Spots.
Edit again: I submitted a removal request for the Burger King, and it’s the same form as requesting a Wayspot removal. Since the comment box is there, I took a photo and provided a link to it to show the updated area. Email even came from Wayfarer.
Hey, just wondering if anyone has started to receive title/location edits for Power Spots while reviewing. I’ve submitted some, but haven’t received any while reviewing. I’d assume if they are being reviewed by the community, they’d look like other edit reviews, just no photo.
Outside of the edits challenge, I may be the only 1 in my area that actively submits edits. Found a new Wayspot for a restaurant near me that needed a description edit; I want to know more about the food and vibe there, not that it’s by a bus stop…
, reviewing edits). Sometimes it’s actually months.
then the 
