Depends on what good they were intended to be.
Not for wayfarer and not for the morale of wayfinders.
Have they been good for game play in the game they are intended to help? That is a different question, without a simple answer in my view.
2 Likes
Thanks for the clarification. Hope some of the other questions that have been asked will be clarified.
I also think where the imports are on the game maps can also come into play. A more rural area may appreciate the imported Power Spots, as maybe all of the Wayspots in the area are already used in the games. Maybe there aren’t as many Wayfinders in an area, but more game players.
In the rural area I’m from, most of the Power Spot imports are local businesses; the one at the Dollar General store opened up today. The Caribou Coffee Power Spot is for the coffee shop in the supermarket, which is quite a busy place in town, so that one gets played at quite a bit when it comes around.
So, yeah, there are pros and cons to imports, both for players and Wayfinders.
They are a damned infestation. From a PGO perspective I wish I had an option to hide them. It certainly suits some areas more than others.
But in my suburb most of them seem to be more private property versus the retail areas with more businesses and or waypoints that are not stops/gyms.
From a wayfarer perspective. It absolutely tells users they can nominate anything and everything because PGO says its OK. So I fully expect to see more rubbish being nominated. Between stuff like this and no clean up of the existing games DBS of waypoints that should not exist.
Why would you not nominate anything…? But yes I wish I could just hide the damned things.
As I have been subject to two imports last year, pokestops and imports I have to say as a pokémon go player they helped a lot. As a wayfarer though… They are a nigthmare and a topic that stressed me out last year with my own community and people that have and don’t have knowlodge of wayfarer.
Do you think the good in Pokémon GO has outweighed the bad in Wayfarer?
1 Like
I think so yes. It could help if they removed what the wayspot was and left a generic text, like campfire. They could say this is for pokémon go players but it doesn’t change wayfarer criteria in any way, if so I would be way more welcoming.
4 Likes
What a great question @PkmnTrainerJ
Yes. It has broadened the contributors. It has increased players. PGO makes Niantic more financially sustainable.
The main no I had is actually a Niantic issue. As the overall standard of what is nominated, accepted and imported is dubious to say the least.
It does not clean up the DB - in game waypoints - it is still poor (but better) in upskilling new and existing nominators and reviewers. And is very poor in coping with the reality of why some people nominate, it has not come to terms with the fact that nominating waypoints in some countries has become a challenge as so many of the waypoints are taken.
There are mainly Niantic issues. If you fill the game with poor waypoints then what do you expect. Human behaviour tells us what will happen. And if you increase the base of users then it is pretty easy for more coal to pour in. And PGO has made this last sentence more of an issue.
The main PGO no is powerportals. Poorly executed. Just feel it could have been handled better.
To follow up on this.
Two locations exist (one PokéStop/Portal and one Power Spot) for the same thing which I think I said was called “Elephant Cafe”.
I reported the Power Spot (which was in the wrong place) under the “Duplicate Power Spot” option even though there’s only the one Power Spot and explained that:
The Elephant Cafe already exists as a Portal and PokeStop
in my supporting information. The Power Spot report was accepted.
Using my handy dandy Wayfarer app, I can see that the Wayspot that’s a Portal/PokéStop still exists. I was worried it may get removed in error but looks like just the Power Spot which is good.
Again, just sharing for knowledge around Power Spots and removals.
2 Likes
Honestly they should keep the name of the place on the power spot. They are going to add photos eventually. But there needs to be a cleaning up to where they aren’t adding small home businesses to the mix.
Honestly reviewers should keep following the wayfarer guidelines even if people start submitting things due to seeing power spot locations that don’t meet traditional criteria it just gives more agreement points to reviewers for properly reviewing.
A lot of this locations here are in the wrong location or don’t exist anymore. We already had an import in 2021 and I didn’t see much of people here editing them to fix them.
They are a headache honestly. They are an easy reject but not helpful when we are trying that teach criteria to the non initiated.
One of my recent appeals was marked as a duplicate by Niantic. I checked the Lightship map, and surprisingly, there was no live wayspot connected to the nomination.
So, what exactly is it a duplicate of?
Hello and welcome @1EmuToman
I am merging this into the main powerspot discussion.
Is this fixed? Neither the one I mentioned here or another on SFPRP that has never previously rotated out are showing on the game map right now. Being preoccupied with the weather, I hadn’t noticed until just now, so I am not sure when they went away.
In late November, I tested nominating multiple POIs that appeared as powerspots but NOT as wayspots. Even though the POIs appeared on the wayspot nomination map as “!” locations (indicating that my wayspot submissions would likely be rejected as duplicates), my wayspot submissions were APPROVED by ML. Not only did ML not reject them as duplicates, it completely ignored the existing powerspots and approved my wayspot submissions outright. The approved wayspots now appear in the game normally alongside the duplicate powerspots.
It’s relieving to know that eligible POIs that exist as powerspots but not wayspots can still be nominated as wayspots and they won’t be rejected as duplicates. However, this is still of course confusing to Wayfarers because if the powerspot for a particular POI happens to be temporarily invisible and you go to submit that POI as a nomination, it’s difficult to know whether the “!” on the wayspot nomination map is an existing wayspot used in other Niantic games (in which case your nomination will be rejected as a duplicate) or a powerspot (in which case your nomination seems to ignore the existing powerspot and will not necessarily be rejected as a duplicate).
EDIT: Changed the wording in the second paragraph about the wayspot nomination map for accuracy, based on @cyndiepooh’s feedback.
4 Likes
TY for your observations. I submitted one to test, and ML did not reject it as duplicate, and it is still in voting, so it doesn’t appear to be appearing as a duplicate to community reviewers. But it does appear that the appeals team is rejecting duplicates of powerspots though.
And there are ! that are not powerspot imports that are not Ingress portals either. I have one near me. Ingress doesn’t show everything.
It is here:
This is one reason I am so upset that photos are being allowed to be added to the Powerspot imports. It is going to become impossible to tell which is a real Wayspot and which is not. This is a huge mess.
3 Likes
One of my edits synced. Then it de-synced.
I’m worried this will be like the old photo bug where photos that were removed from Ingress did not de-couple from Pokémon GO and later re-synced into Ingress.
I don’t want to waste my time with edits, now, if there’s a chance they won’t stick.
1 Like
Has anyone else double reviewed the same edit for a power spot? I voted on a title edit a few days ago and then just got the EXACT power spot title edit again. Given, it had 3 options so 2 edit request were made for it but isnt it supposed to group them into 1 edit vs 2 edits with 3 options? Wondering if this is an issue with power spots or this is something that can happen with multiple submitted edits and ive just never run into it before or noticed.
I believe this now depends more on when the edits are submitted.
Edit to add:
“A few days” could also be longer enough for the person to receive a rejection on the edit and resubmit it.
1 Like