Deeply Affected by False Accusations – Seeking Understanding

Review Support
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Dear fellow Wayfarers,

I’d like to share my recent experience, as I’ve been deeply affected by what happened around one of my nominations. It involved a handmade artwork — a painted tile with butterflies, created as part of a local neighborhood initiative to brighten up our street. Despite clear photos showing the painting process, differences between the tiles, and its community context, the nomination was dismissed as “mass-produced” and flagged for abuse.

As part of my appeal, I even sent an email to Niantic with documentation of the creative process — showing it was hand-painted and not mass-produced. Unfortunately, the nomination was still rejected for the same reason.

This left me wondering — if something is really mass-produced, shouldn’t it be traceable somewhere? For sale online or in a store? I tried asking this question, but never received a direct response. To me, this only reinforced my belief that the rejection was not based on actual evidence of mass production.

What hurt me the most, however, was receiving an official warning from Niantic stating that I allegedly shared personal information about other players and was harassing nominators. This was incredibly upsetting to read — mentally, it really affected me. How could I possibly share personal data of people I don’t even know? I had simply submitted a location edit appeal for a PokéStop I believed to be on private property, which I understand is not allowed according to the criteria. I don’t know who nominated that stop, nor was there any malicious intent behind my action.

When I asked for clarification, I was told they could not provide any further details and was referred back to the criteria and guidelines — which I genuinely try my best to follow.

I’m sharing this here because I hope others can relate. Being part of this community and contributing with care, only to be suddenly treated like an abuser, is heartbreaking and feels unfair — especially when you’re not given a chance to explain or defend yourself.

I don’t mean to point fingers, but I do believe that how we treat each other in this community is just as important as the rules we follow. Feedback is fine, but false accusations are damaging.

Thank you for reading — and hopefully, for your understanding.

Kind regards

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Mod edit: removed personal information

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Creating objects to gain Wayspots is not something we promote. Moreover, these home-made objects do not meet any criteria. We stand by our rejection.

That is a generic reason that pops up when a nomination is flagged as abusive.

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After looking at your nomination, I strongly recommend that you revisit the criteria pages they referred you to. FWIW, they were not incorrect.

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Sorry to hear you got impacted by this. There was a time when people all over the Netherlands started to paint/mosaic tiles to gain in-game benefits. This resulted in most wayspots being removed, as this is not the spirit of Wayfarer. As you will not find this to be among the guidelines. Wayfarer is about exploring the environment not adapting it to impact the local gameboard.

I believe you got this feedback before: My insect hotel cross-shaped was rejected – looking for feedback

Sorry if I did not do a good job in explaining it :frowning:

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Just to illustrate how inconsistent things can get: a friend of mine ordered a set of stickers online and placed them on a lamppost — purely to create a Pokéstop. It got accepted.

So when I see something like that succeed while my handcrafted, neighborhood-initiated tile (which I put real thought and care into) is labeled as “abusive” and flagged with serious accusations, it’s hard not to feel deeply discouraged.

This isn’t about jealousy or wanting every submission approved. It’s about fairness, consistency, and the emotional impact of being treated like I acted in bad faith — especially when I did everything transparently, even sending an explanation during the appeal process.

If this sticker qualifies, but mine is “mass production,” where’s the line?

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Yes but that was more that the pictures were a little blurry. So made better pictures and got accepted.

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The reason stated in the rejection might not accurately reflect the exact reason why your submission was rejected.

As iFrankmans stated hand hand-painted and mosaic tiles have been abused quite a bit in the Netherlands. Specific groups started creating them with the community and spread them throughout towns, sometimes with the approval of the municipality. They did this with the intent of creating more in-game locations which is not allowed by the wayfarer team.

If the stickers are placed as a fake hiking trail to create more wayspots I suggest you advise your friend to stop putting them up. This will get them banned for sure.

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I completely agree, but I was more looking to hear from others who’ve experienced the same. The accusations were harsh and disproportionate. And when you ask for clarification, they’re nowhere to be found. Now this topic has been marked as a solution, while I was actually hoping to connect with others in a similar situation.

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I find this interesting, because adapting the environment to have an effect on the gameboard is not as far as I can see against the criteria, or even the spirit of Wayfarer. You could even argue the exact opposite.

The issue here with the tile (and the bug hotel previously submitted by the same person) is the objects are of questionable interest and permeance. In both cases they’re clearly only ever fitting into the “exploration” part of the criteria, and they simply haven’t done nearly enough to convince anyone the objects tell people a unique story about the area.

Where I think the idea of creating things to influence the gameboard is misleading is if someone is motivated to make a community garden, and forms a local group, creates a new cultural moment in their area, partly, or mostly motivated by the idea of making it a Wayspot it seems illogical to say that’s abuse. The thing exists, it’s real, they’ve created it. Assuming on it’s own merits its a good nomination I don’t see why it would be abuse if they nominated it, but fine if someone else did.

As a real life example I am a committee member on my local version of a parish/community council. We have may local events and things happen, and we as a committee have some influence on them. Some of these are public art related linked to a cultural action initiative.

Now if an area has no eligible wayspots, this also means it is by definition lacking in visually/culturally interesting things, by definition there is an overlap between gaps in the gameboard and gaps in culturally interesting objects in the real world.

In the past I have offered opinions on where objects could be sited mindful of the state of the local gameboard. If a certain number of things can be created and the project coordinators have no strong opinions then at worst influencing the placement of one or two of them into wayspot sparse areas has no impact, but more likely it offers a greater geographical spread of cultural initiatives into otherwise forgotten areas.

As it turns out on the occasions where I have had an influence someone else I don’t know had already submitted the new objects and had them accepted as wayspots before I could even think to get around to it. This is obviously fine, but are we saying if I had submitted them this would be abuse?

Similarly a park in my area is very sparse for wayspots. I am working with a local charity to try and get lottery culture funding to install a history trail, with proper signboards and audio history recordings. This is in part out of a sense of community, but I’d be lying if I said there wasn’t a lot of additional motivation in transforming the gameboard of the park. If we get this funding and the boards go up, would it be abuse if I sub them?

I would argue, far from being abuse, this is a fantastic example of the power of geospatial gaming can be used to enhance local communities for everyone.

Edit: Just to be perfectly clear, I am not defending or supporting the tile nomination here. I’m raising the wider/general issue that real world actions tied to the gameboard are inherently abuse.

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We have removed the Wayspot in question.

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In regards to the Painted Tile, was this done on an official basis with authorisation from the authorities. If so and you have evidence (official site, news item etc) then you have a chance otherwise it is seen as creating something just to gain a wayspot. Technically it would likely be deemed as vandalism, although nice vandalism.

Lamppost: This should be reported as “Abuse” as a Fake waypoint. Niantic can then take a look in to it and take appropriate action. (Edit: Action already taken whilst typing).

As stated above, sometimes the rejection reasons do not seem appropriate. Abuse can just be that you abused the wayfarer system by creating something just to be a wayspot etc.

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Thank you, Kruddel. Your perspective really resonates with me and articulates something I’ve been struggling to explain. I never intended to “manipulate” the gameboard in a malicious way — quite the opposite. My intention was to bring visibility to small community-led initiatives that often go unnoticed, especially in neighborhoods with few or no Wayspots.

I understand concerns about “questionable interest or permanence,” but I had hoped that the context — a neighborhood-driven creative effort to bring some color and identity to the area — would be seen as adding local value and encouraging exploration. It’s disappointing that rather than a dialogue about criteria, the response I received included harsh accusations of abuse, including sharing personal information and harassment — things I absolutely did not do. That hit hard, especially with no proper way to defend myself or receive clarification.

Your examples give me hope that there’s still room for nuanced discussion. What you describe — aligning local cultural projects with gameboard enrichment — is inspiring and aligns with how I approached it. I just wish the process allowed more space for intent and context to be considered. And i do understand about if you agree or disagree about the tile. I am glad to see someone more open.

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Thank you for your reply, Slimboyfat71.

To clarify the background of the painted tile: it started with a small creative act — I painted a cheerful sunflower on a marble drain cover (a knikkerputje) in the neighborhood. A neighbor filed a complaint about it, and shortly after, a few people from the municipality came by to take a look.

Instead of rejecting it, they were actually positive and open to the idea. After a conversation between them and myself (and a few other residents), we received verbal permission to continue adding hand-painted tiles to brighten up the area. We were told it was a nice initiative and were encouraged to carry on. We were even given a business card and asked to send a follow-up email so we could possibly arrange something in writing after the summer holidays.

So at this moment, the project is locally supported, even if the formal documentation is still in progress. Our goal isn’t to manipulate the gameboard — we genuinely want to bring color and local identity to the neighborhood, and if that also leads to recognition in-game, that’s a bonus, not the primary goal.

Thanks again for raising your point respectfully. I hope this adds some helpful context.

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Thank you for taking action, and I truly hope we’ll see less of these stickers and more genuine artwork in the future.

We could spend endless hours debating what counts as “real art,” but I think most people would agree: just slapping a printed sticker on a lamppost is not the kind of community engagement or cultural value Wayfarer was meant to highlight.

Handmade creations — especially those tied to local projects or stories — deserve a fair chance. I’m glad to see the system can still correct things when necessary.

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You raise some excellent points in the creation of wayspots to influence the game board. I think the biggest difference between your examples and the hand-painted tiles is the scale. All of your examples are large(er) scale POIs and things that require cooperation between the city and community. It is great to see that wayfarer can help identify areas that receive less attention for cultural development.

The public art and history trails you mention enrich your local community and, at least to me, are a meaningful addition to the public space. If I were you, I would 100% nominate these without a doubt.

The problem with smaller street art, such as hand-painted/mosaic tiles, is that they are like graffiti. They are low effort, low cost to place, hard to verify if placed legally, often hard to locate and prone to abuse by players. I feel like any wayspot that falls into this category is problematic, so I often reject these while reviewing.

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What @kruddel is talking about is improving the local area for its own sake, but with the knowledge that this will create something that can be uploaded as a wayspot.

What @AparticleArtist and the fake lampost marker person are doing are creating items specifically to get wayspots, which may or may not be improving the local area.

Although there’s no clear and absolute boundary between those two concepts, there’s a reasonably clear difference. The former is OK while the latter is abuse. Submissions that fall in-between will come down to reviewers discretion.

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Thank you for your response. I understand the nuance you’re trying to highlight between improving an area “for its own sake” and creating something “just to get a wayspot.”

But with all due respect, I believe what I’ve done falls much closer to the first category than you suggest.

This wasn’t a case of making something just to get a stop. It started with painting a cheerful tile in a quiet neighborhood — before I even knew whether it would be eligible. When the municipality came to inspect the first piece (after a complaint), they gave us verbal approval and encouragement to continue. We’re now working toward written confirmation after the summer.

So yes, I submitted it after placing it — but that doesn’t make it abuse. The art was created with and for the neighborhood, and the Wayfarer nomination came later, as a way to recognize and share it. That’s very different from placing a mass-produced sticker just to get a pin on the map.

I agree it’s a spectrum. But I do hope people take the time to look at intent, local support, and the effort behind some of these community-led creations before making assumptions.

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The problem with Verbal Approval is that reviewers only have your word that these are approved.

Until you get something official, maybe even an “Art Trail” that passes all the items with an official webpage etc I believe that “Rejection” is the correct course of action.

I have seen people image a pokemon soft toy sat on a wall and call it “Official Pokemon Statue” so criteria has to be “No Official Evidence, No Wayspot”.

Good luck for the future.

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Even if there is evidence of this being a legal set of art tiles, the wayfarer team decided these types of tiles are not acceptable wayspots.

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Thanks for the honest and fair reply — and yes, I had to laugh at the “Official Pokémon Statue” example :joy: That really puts things in perspective.

I completely understand the concern around verbal approval — reviewers only have my word for it, and that’s not always enough. We’re currently waiting for someone from the municipality to return from summer break so we can hopefully get something in writing to formalize the project.

In the meantime, I totally get why the current rejections happened. I just wish the process allowed a little more flexibility for genuine, small-scale community efforts like this.

Thanks again for the encouragement — and good luck to all of us trying to walk the fine line between creativity and criteria :wink: