I had these two appeals rejected, but as far as I know they are valid things to nominate. The first one is a pool at an apartment complex, which was determined to be fine awhile back. It was originally rejected with 3rd party photo, which is not a thing I ever do. While annoying, it’s kinda of flattering that someone thought the pic was that good. However, the appeal reviewer then said it was a hotel pool; which it’s not. I’d heard hotel pools were also ok now, but I still haven’t tried any of those. I’ve still got plenty of other apartment pools to get to. The description isn’t my best work, but it didn’t seem disqualifying either.
The other one is a picnic area next to a playground. As far as I know those are also valid, so I’m not sure why they’d reject that.
Park benches normally don’t get accepted. But if you do the playground that would get accepted. I’m not sure why the pool got rejected it looks fine to me but.
Both seem to be bad appeal decisions to me, and I don’t know where someone got 3rd party photo, as I can’t find it elsewhere online with a reverse image search. Pools, even those at hotels, are acceptable per the criteria clarification below:
This pool is at an apartment complex, but I wonder if the appeals team thought that the HomeStyle Suites, which is listed as a furnished apartment building, makes it look like this is a hotel, even though they’re still apartments, just one with shorter stays. Here’s the website for the Palms and for HomeStyle for more context:
https://texas.weidner.com/apartments/tx/midland/the-palms-at-briarwood
Edit: I checked the Spatial/Lightship map, and the picnic area is already a Wayspot with your photo:
Are you trying to nominate the one to the east? I see on Google Maps what appears to be a picnic area west of the playground, and one east of it.
I agree that the swimming pool is in an apartment accommodation complex and should be approved as per current guidelines. Where I am, reviewers often reject these which is very frustrating. All mine have been accepted on appeal though. The having to double up though, causes me to not nominate these any where near as much as I could. Too much mucking around.
Unless there is something we don’t know this swimming pool submission should have been accepted on appeal in my opinion.
It is very unlikely that the picnic area would be accepted in my area. It would need a roof (gazebo) for me to be confident of acceptance here.
A gazebo or pavilion isn’t needed for a picnic area to be accepted; it just has to be a permanent fixture. Here’s one without a roof that I submitted and got approved.
Oh that’s interesting, I didn’t know that apartment complexes having some kind of arrangement like a hotel for certain buildings but not others was even a thing!
Now the picnic area is super weird because I didn’t have one of those errors where it double submits a nomination that I can tell, and it was definitely not rejected as a duplicate, and the appeal was definitely rejected, and it shows as a rejected appeal on my contributions. 
I know how you feel about weird local rejections. Our local group has been pretty frustrated because of stuff like that. None of the other groups in the region know what’s up with it either. I just know for some reason whatever group is doing it really hates pavillions & pergolas among some other traditionally 5 star stuff. We were all really happy that Emily was taking that kind of stuff. We miss her a lot.
It’s not a hotel, it’s more short term housing. We have apartment buildings that have units that are furnished, and typically those that live there are only working here for a a few months, maybe less.
In the end, it’s still an apartment complex, even if some units offer short term housing and others longer leases. Also, hotel pools are eligible, so even if this was a hotel, which again it technically isn’t, the pool meets criteria.
So I went looking through my emails about that playground picnic area and there’s definitely an appeal rejection email, but this showed up yesterday. I’m definitely not complaining, very grateful in fact; I wasn’t expecting anything to come from the post other than finding out maybe I was mistaken or that there was something I could improve upon.
this is what usually happens when the team reverses an appeal decision. they really do mean this:
Thanks for posting and letting us know!
Let us know if you get one for the pool, too.
Yep, staff does want us to post about appeal decisions we feel are wrong, so they can take another look. Hopefully they will take another look at the pool; I did see that the dog park there is a Wayspot, so the pool not being eligible would be quite strange.
Will do! I’m definitely happy to share that. I also do have a few more that I thought were strange, but the pool and the picnic area were the last two I did and they got rejected right in a row. Some of these are older.
That’s a fountain in a pretty nice Mexican restaurant that also has some murals. It was pretty nice and they let the kids toss coins in it for wishes. Great food too!
That’s a footbridge on a walking trail at a really nice park in Andrews, TX. Walking trails like that are great for exercise, and the bridges help ensure that people can use them in pretty much any kind of weather.
This one I wasn’t sure if the way I took the pics was the real issue, but there were people under it every time I walked by during that trip so I was trying to avoid having them in the pics. However I can’t say I’ve ever seen a pavillion exactly like that one so generic seems like a strange reason to reject it.
Overall though I’ve really appreciated the appeal feature. I’m very happy with it, and I’m glad I can see them in my contributions now as well so I can keep track of them and get an accurate count more easily. That Playground Picnic Area brought me to 70 approved appeals with only 15 rejected appeals.