I agree. It’s tough when it would have been best for this to come out before the challenge started to give people time to read.
Do you have any good sample ones for things you think should have been included?
Agreed. I have 3 trail markers that were rejected for generic business and wayfarer criteria. Although they are similar to the other trail markers I submitted. I thought the old forum said boring trail markers are not approved, but I don’t recall. Was thinking of appealing them, but likely will wait until I get more nominations and resubmit.
Emily has not approved one plaza sign from me 
This is how this section is making me feel right now:
Thank you Niantic!
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Can we also have criteria clarifications for “locally common” objects like manholes in Japan, state survey markers in Australia, gates in Indonesia, etc.?
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Got you covered with state survey markers: Survey Markers
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I’m not Tintino but reading this:
Most public footpath nominations I see either have a completely made up trail name (such as ones shown by @26thDoctor ) or have no website/details of the route so wouldn’t be a great place for exploration or exercise to me.
Tintino does say:
Keep in mind that meeting Eligibility and Acceptance Criteria does not mean that the nomination should get all thumbs up in the review. Use your best judgment about whether a contribution is significant enough and appropriate for the Niantic map, and use available reviewing options as needed.
So it is down to you whether you think unnamed public footpath sign 765 is significant enough for the map and it’s up to the submitter to provide enough details to convince you of that.
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On the subject of “The supporting photo and website of the route will help verify this location”, is it acceptable for the supporting image to be taken with a GPS camera app so that the coordinates of the nomination are visible on the photo?
I know that would obviously not be allowed in the primary photo because watermarks/other marks are banned, but I wanted to ask specifically about the supporting image due to the facts that a lot of trails are in areas where both satellite and street view aren’t ideal, and adding photospheres to Google Maps like we used to is way too much hassle in 2024. A GPS camera stamp in combination with the trail map could definitely help with proving that something does in fact exist in the middle of that woodland, or halfway up a mountain.
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I use a lot the GPS Camera app in places where there is not Street View and I would love other people use it too. I encourage people to use it, as you said, in the supporting photo.
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Absolutely, I think anyone that’s been around for a while and active on the forums and groups knows this is the way to do it.
I feel it would be sensible to have it spelled out a bit more directly in these cases. You just know there are going to be a flood of people linking to this now and saying that all footpath markers are accepted “because Niantic say so”, we’ve seen people misrepresent these a lot and new reviewers won’t know better because it’s not clear enough, especially after Aaron’s nonsense comments and people being warned and punished for using their best judgement.
I think the whole idea of nuance needs to be better discussed and described by the team in the criteria to help people understand these things and avoid a whole lot of confusion.
I don’t think the Wayfarer team really get what these are the fact they are called ‘official’ tells me that.
Most submitters are not going to go the trouble of finding a link to the path as it’s not actually that easy to do. Sure you can use the ldwa or Scotsways which tracks these paths behind the wall.
They are maintained by country councils and the ‘official’ discs whether that is Kest, Humpshire or wherever might have a map of the paths.
Fine, I’ll reject them if the submitter hasn’t taken the time to put in a bit of effort rather than making up a trail name, saying the latest criteria says these are too be accepted.
I’m still going to get even more now in my review stream and my rating/agreements will probably suffer.
What about the three other types of public footpaths markers that have an ‘official’ county council name on them.
Do you even know what these are and what they do? @NianticTintino I would expect not since most UK people couldn’t tell you what they mean.
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Unfortunately I have been very busy, and didn’t have as much time to input in to this section as I wanted.
It’s also not intended to have it change at present as this was just gathering things together that had been said before.
Do keep giving feedback about it though. I did make a suggestion on this which I hope is implemented later down the line.
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It’s still not as odd as the cemetery, gravestones clarification though.
I can’t add the tomb of John Smith out of respect for, I’m assuming the family and friends since the dead don’t care, but I can add the grave of someone five feet away if they are well known.
I should just throw that human respect for the 600 other family members visiting the cemetery out of the window because famous and well known?
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Do I detect a certain, shall we say, footpath snobism.
More an understanding of what they are, their functions, their existence as much to do with legality as anything and how they can easily be confused with the many actual ‘official’ trails of England, Wales, NI and Scotland.
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We hope it will help.
With regard PROW:
Yes they are aware of Public Rights of Way, and the example used was from the criteria challenge. So including it here as an example of an acceptable marker is not new.
With all trail markers it is the trail that is important not the marker. They are meeting the fundamental goals of exercise and exploration. So you would expect a description of why this would be for example an interesting place/trail to explore. It is not just about what you see in the photo but the whole nomination. It would be totally impractical on a global scale to include absolute rulings on local variations.
My further comments about this.
For the PROW example used, as with all nominations you assess it as a whole.
This is at a clear decision point - do you go left or right, over the stile etc.
The description should say what interesting things you will be seeing, perhaps it’s a 4km walk, an off road route etc.
You would expect to see from maps, websites etc that this is official.
This is a rural location so you would expect a nice exploring walk. So a PROW can make a perfectly good submission.
A short PROW that is an alleyway in a built up location 60m long is going to be hard pressed to make the case that it would be a great place to exercise, explore or socialise.
It is about the whole, and there is nuance to consider.
As with every contribution there are no absolutes.
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Thank you for explaining this, it is good to know that the team do genuinely know what these are and are happy for them to be in their database. These clarifications help a lot.
While it is an important distinction to make that these are not trail markers themselves, I’m increasingly on board with the idea of using them to mark a particularly good part of a trail and will accept them if there is sufficient effort made to show this in the submission and if they are not being misrepresented as so many seem to be.
I do feel that more needs to be done to explain the idea of nuance and how to write a good submission with these things in mind, the in-game messaging is lacking. It’s all such a minefield when things are so subjective and leads to a lot of frustration, especially from new users who don’t have the benefit of information from these sorts of forum discussions.
Completely understandable that this can’t be done for every single variation around the world, perhaps a general nuance guidance section that explains this concept better is needed?
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Fortunately as Tintino said he was able to consult with ambassadors about the document and therefore for aspects such as this he had knowledgeable people to draw on.
I have replied to a previous comment about my own views.
I hope there will be good cases put forward of appropriate PROW as they can be great places that meet the criteria of a great place to exercise and explore. I say can, because you have to show that it does meet that criteria.
Will every PROW qualify I seriously doubt it. I can think ones I know that don’t. But I can also think of plenty that i my opinion do. I make cases for them by using trail markers as anchors, with good photos, descriptions and supporting information.
If people follow the guidelines I see no reason why voting should cause a rating to dip.
I am also hopeful that official bodies across England will continue to incorporate these paths into schemes that further promote healthy exercise and sustainability.
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Exciting stuff! Thanks for putting the hard work into these guides.
Some notes, from my personal reviewing experience:
- RE: military bases. I assume the criteria is relevant to many parts of the world; but in Israel, for instance, while some bases do include living quarters, it’s prohibited by law to take any photos on the bases’ grounds, much less post them online with geographic information attached. I don’t know if it’ll be possible to amend the military base criteria to include that, but considering the international nature of Wayfarer, I’d like to see that mentioned if possible.
- Seating benches - could that section please include a photo of a generic, mass produced street bench, as an example of an ineligible nomination?
- Unique art - could that section please include a photo of a non-artistic graffiti tag, as an example of an eligible nomination? Currently there’s only an example of an initially eligible street art that got graffiti’d over.
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