Quote from Aaron:“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.” Yes objects
You’re of course entitled to your view about the artistic merits, but at the same time that’s not what the word “vandalism” means in English.
Vandalism has to involve damage or destruction to property. Painting something isn’t damaging it, and secondly the ownership of something in the public realm is also somewhat contested. In the UK anyway graffiti is legislated under the Criminal Damage Act, but largely because this was very hard to successfully prosecute (due to the contested nature of whether damaged had taken place and the ownership of the public realm) it was largely superseded in practice by the Anti-Social Behaviour Act in 2003, which allows graffiti to be classed as an anti-social activity and people issued with a fixed £75 fine. Meaning in practice almost all graffiti which is deemed an issue by local authorities is consider as anti-social behaviour and not vandalism.
This is important because in anti-social behaviour context is everything, it matters less what people think outside of the context, and is very important what people within/close to the context think. In which respect, on the specific example, in the UK people outside of the neighbourhood don’t get to have a legal opinion on it. If the neighbours and authority’s support it, then it cannot be anti-social behaviour.
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Vandalism is not about beauty. Painting something without permission of the owner of the object is still vandalism.
I understand your point, but Aaron mentioned homemade objects, not signs. Free libraries also fall under homemade objects, yet they’re widely accepted in-game. That’s why it’s important to apply the same logic consistently.
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Use the whole quote if you are going to quote him. He said “to gain Wayspots” - creating an LFL to serve your community is a different thing.
This kind of twisting what was said is why we can’t get clarifications that we need.
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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.”
so yes also homemade little paintings made by artist and homemade libraries 
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you are still ignoring the “to gain Wayspots” part.
Oh yes i agree with that. To gain wayspot is what we absolutely do not want But this is about homemade objects
We absolutely do not making nominations to gain a Pokestop. We do it just for fun and we love rejection basted on harrasments, bulling other players etc, is that what you try to say here?
You are taking things out of context. I understand you are disappointed by the fact that these wayspots are not considered eligible. It is frustrating that you did not get the correct rejection reasons for them. The staff has given us their stance on these homemade tiles. Let’s leave it at that because further discussion is not going to give any satisfactory outcome to you at this point
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Folks are obviously frustrated when nominations are rejected. But we have had a response from Niantic on this particular nomination. Please respect what they have said. And as a reminder each nomination and response should be treated as a unique case. We cannot draw conclusions about other nominations.
I’m thinking we should all take some time before responding further on this thread. Consider if further comments will be constructive or not.
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Get real approval from your community(not just verbal approval) and it wont be just homemade art anymore.
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No that was just stating in the post given.
Thank you for your message — I understand the importance of keeping things constructive.
I want to clarify that I was not questioning Niantic’s authority, but seeking insight into how similar cases have been handled — particularly where vague accusations were made that do not align with our actual behavior.
For example, it’s simply not possible to access or display other players’ personal information, yet that was implied. I asked for clarification on that point but received none.
My goal was to understand the reasoning better, especially since the nomination involved original, site-specific art with local support — not a random homemade object. I truly hope a future submission with more context can be reviewed fairly.
As I said, people can have opinions about the art, but you can’t really have opinions about the law or the meaning of words. They just are.
It’s certainly different in different parts of the world. In UK law the relevant law for vandalism is Criminal Damage and in the dictionary definition, as I said, vandalism involves damage or destruction. Painting something doesn’t meet this criteria.
Its partly for that reason the UK introduced part of the Anti-Social Behaviour act to more effectively fine tagging as a spot fine anti-social behaviour, because it isn’t criminal damage/vandalism in most cases. It’s also why prior to that, and still in some cases now, what people are charged with are often other crimes associated with the act of doing the graffiti - graffiti on trains/subways/bridges etc is often charged as trespass, because this is easier to prosecute quickly.
The ownership point you mention, as I said previously, is complex because the ownership of the public realm is somewhat contested. The public owns it. This is part of the reason that if you ever look systematically at graffiti its almost only ever done in contested spaces. It’s vanishingly rare that its done on occupied private property without owner’s consent. It happens in the public realm, on temporary structures and in derelict areas where although technically privately owned this ownership is absentee meaning there is little prospect of prosecution.
The idea of graffiti as criminal &/or a type of vandalism is a very recent thing which partly came out of the now widely discredited “broken windows” theory in New York in the 80s-90s and then became this dominant idea and is still now pretty widespread. In some ways its extraordinary it’s persisted so long and become so accepted given the reasoning behind originally treating it as criminal has been disproved.
I don’t really want to continue this conversation, but I just can’t let it go that graffiti doesn’t cause damage. It absolutely can cause damage to the value of a property. Graffiti on objects in the area can lower the value of your property. Graffiti on your actual property almost always significantly lowers the value of your property. This is not just about what can be charged criminally. It is about the fact that the owner did not consent to having their property defaced, therefore, it is vandalism.
Maybe you don’t own any real estate. So think about what you would do if someone splashed bleach all over your clothes. Would you be perfectly fine with that? They have ruined your property and now you have to invest money to have it replaced or repaired. How we treat the belongs of others, whether it’s small objects or large pieces of real estate, matters in society.
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The listed rejection reasons can sometimes be vague and/or confusing. Recently the were remapped and the one for Abuse is quite broad.
See this thread for an overall conversation on the new verbiage for the rejection reasons. Skip down to message 92 for Abuse.
In your case, I truly believe that the tile was marked as Abuse because of what had happened in the Netherlands a few years back.
Here is the list the community has put together focusing the updated rejection reasons:
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I will again ask that people stay respectful of other people’s comments and clarifications.
I understand your point, but what concerned me most is that I was also accused of things like sharing other players’ personal information and bullying — which I genuinely don’t understand, especially in the context of simply submitting nominations for objects. I still need to look up what else was mentioned.
When I asked for clarification, no specific details were provided, so I still don’t know exactly what I supposedly did wrong. I hope this process becomes more transparent in the future, because making a serious accusation like bullying is quite significant. Someone may feel a certain way, but that’s not the same as actually being bullied. Without further explanation, I was left to do two things:
- Rethink everything I had done and wonder which player this could even refer to,
- Conclude that if Niantic won’t give me any explanation, then the accusation feels baseless — I’m not asking to be right, I just want to understand the reasoning.
As for the discussion about art — I’m perfectly fine with debate. Art is always open to interpretation, and I respect that.
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You weren’t accused of sharing information and I don’t think you were accused of influencing other players - but you didn’t share the nomination so I am not sure of that.
The set of circumstances that alert you to an Abuse rejection are large. Using third part photos is on of the reasons. But that is not part of the statement when the rejection comes back.
I’m just keeping an eye on the larger vandalism discussion too…