Denied PokeStop Title Change

General Discussion
42

I decided to look things up, with regards to the age thing

Here’s what the UK government says. Under 18s can attend pubs and even drink alcohol in them with an adult. I did know this, but its nice to provide proof.

43

Officially the worst Wetherspoons in the UK…

1000004880
10000048801080×1855 128 KB

44

Thats a title to be sad about

45

Isn’t room temperature 58F in England? Not exactly ice-cold, but then it’s often 50-60 and raining outside, anyway.

46

Today was indeed 55F outside. It’s “Summer”.
I had the doors and windows open all day too.

47

can’t wait for this policy to be changed… there needs to be more allowance for “repurposing” that isn’t abuse. and I’m mad at those who abused the system in a way that made the policy necessary.

48

Hello there @NianticAaron and @ramennoods, thank you for chiming in. We appreciate it greatly. As I have said multiple times on multiple platforms. This is adding extra steps to the explorers experience. I am all about following the stated criteria and it’s clarifications.

I even understand and appreciate @ramennoods’s points. “If it was eligible and it’s changed names/description, is it still eligible?”

However, currently it is much easier for explorers to just turn a blind eye to name and photo changes because of the impact requesting removal will haveon the local players.

In my area, good luck with removal and re-nomination within a short amount of time. This hurts the players who are trying to keep the Lightship map clean. They lose a POI for an undetermined amount of time.

Is it in the rules? Yes, is it convenient? Heck no.
A replace and repurpose option would be a monumental change to Wayfarer. I’d personally go out and change several things I’ve seen in my city that I know have been updated.

As it sits currently, they don’t bother me enough to go through what I would consider an unnecessary and overreaching process.

Love the conversation and all the points and ideas from the community.
Happy Wayfarering!

50

It makes sense as a general ruling.

In this case or similar it makes no sense whatsoever. If I suggested to someone in the UK I was going to remove a pub Wayspot only to have it then go through the system to be readded under its new name they would think I had been drinking way too much.

53

If local players found out someone had been deleting waypoints that had simply had a name change and a lick of paint, the abuse would be so upsetting that person would not wayfarer anymore

I think Niantic forget that part of it when making these recommendations - people will be targeted and ostracised for doing this, if the waypoint is replaced in a week maybe not but in some areas it’s still taking months or longer and that would be pretty hard to explain in a way that didnt make people hate them

55

Pokemon Go players get angry about people deleting stuff that isnt there anymore ie a buiilding that got demolished

Imagine trying to explain they can’t have a pub for months because the name is different and it got painted :sweat_smile:

57

People make mistakes when put on the spot amd revert to honesty sometimes

60

I like rules too, I just dont see anything wrong with pointing out issues with those rules if I think they are not correct in some situations

I think if a pub is still a pub, a cafe is still a cafe, then it doesn’t meet removal criteria and should be edited

That’s different to if something that was eligible becomes ineligible and does meet removal criteria

61

:slight_smile:

India and Turkey are laughing in the corner.

62

I see both sides of this perspective. If something is incorrect on the map, it should be changed. If it’s no longer there or no longer fits the criteria for a Wayspot, it should be removed. But how far does this logically need to go? If a church changes its name or a different congregation moves in and changes it, does the original Wayspot need to be removed completely? Or couldn’t it just be changed from St. Elsewhere Church to Holy Church of Anytown?

Or if a well known landmark or place has a name change (for example: Olympic Valley, California, which hosted the 1960 Winter Games and changed the town name in 2022 to eliminate the racial slur from their name) should the original Wayspots that reference the original town name or the Olympics be removed and replaced? This isn’t like murals being updated, these could be permanent objects and places that have changed their names over time. Would it be considered repurposing them if someone were to change the names to the new one? Assuming they fit all of the criteria for Wayspots still, is it considered abuse? Some reviewers may not know that the town changed it’s nane two years ago and might reject the changes or flag them as abusive. Would the Wayfinder who suggested such changes need to worry about being abusive for repurposing a Wayspot if the Wayspot still meets all requirements but simply updated the name? I’m speaking hypothetically about Olympic Valley, but I’m sure there are other such Wayspots that this could apply to.

A text box on the edit submission could clear a lot of things up. If it’s a valid Wayspot that changed its name, the person making the edit could say so to clarify, or even drop a link to a website showing proof.

Of course, if the new Wayspot no longer meets the criteria for a Wayspot, by all means it should be removed. If the church changed names and now hosts a school on site, it no longer qualifies. In that case, why bother with the edit, just submit it for removal. In theory any Wayspot could become ineligible at anytime, whether by removal, change of purpose, addition of a disqualifying element, etc.

Sorry if this was rambling! I hope I made a bit of sense :sweat_smile:

63

You definitely make sense
I think this is similar to how I see it… a name change doesn’t tend to invalidate a waypoint, if it’s more than that ie the item completely changes to another item or ceases to exist then sure, remove it. But a name change just seems like a use case for edits

67

I can.

I didn’t say they shouldn’t do what they please.

68

here’s a good example of this; I had this wayspot that I submitted name and description edits for at the start of the year because it had changed of course. both were accepted by the community.
image
image

you could argue that the POI still served the same purpose - that it was a place of worship, where people of a common religion gather to express their faith. However, the common religion in question that it’s for has changed. does that count as changing the purpose? this is what needs to be clarified

69

Here’s another one: this time, this wayspot was originally of a Christian centre from 9 years ago. It changed to a different Christian place of worship at least 5 years ago (as there was a picture of it on the waypoint), and then changed later to this. So while it didn’t change from being a Christian place of worship, the business had changed (which submitting edits for is apparently abuse now…)

image
image1170×532 77.4 KB

On the other hand, when I submitted this for community review, it got rejected. So I appealed it to Niantic when you could still appeal on the old forum and they…
- Updated the title
- Added a description I suggested
- Added the photo I suggested
- Removed all of the other, older photos!

Where do we draw the line!

70

Many thoughtful responses here, including @aliccolo and @BlameJamal

But you’re thinking it of a database of points with names and titles, used for Ingress, PokemonGo, Pikmin Bloom, etc.

Niantic sees it as a collection of scans that they can sell to app developers, for an event at a park, a way to tour art, etc.

Say a city park little entrance sign is replaced with a big stone artistic sign. Same park, but the old scans now won’t match up to the new scans. Niantic would rather you delete the old one and add the new one. (Wait until the first is deleted, or reviewers would mark your nomination as duplicate.)

Same for the sign for a pub, church, anything. It’s about the scans.

One problem is that they assume the old thing is what has been scanned.

Say someone submitted a statue in a park in 2015, and that statue was changed in 2017. In 2023, someone wanted to grow their Scout and Controller badges, or wanted Overclock to be available on that portal. They scanned the statue 10 times a week for 5 weeks. (And perhaps tried to update its name and picture to be accurate.)
Then say in 2024 someone has that Wayspot deleted. Niantic loses 50+ scans of what is actually there now. Even if someone later nominates the current statue, whoever was into scanning in 2023 probably has their spirit broken and doesn’t want to start over.

IMO what Niantic needs to do is:

  • Compare new scans to old, and if they’re wildly different, just discard the old.
  • Let the community decide about name/photo changes.
  • On edit screens, have an option to say “This is not a valid Wayspot.”
71

Here’s a list I collected last year, of things using Lightship scans. I’m sure there are a lot more now.

Just to give you an idea of how Niantic sees Lightship.

Lightship apps developed by “partners” https://lightship.dev/partners/?hl=en including

  1. Cannes Lions Festival (examples of apps meant to have finite use)

In 2022 had these apps using Lightship https://nianticlabs.com/blog/niantic-canneslions-2022/?hl=en

  • Go on a WebAR scavenger hunt with Captain Doty
  • See Cannes like never before with the Niantic Viewfinder
  • Fly the Niantic ARship around the Cannes Lions Festival
  • Bring an NFT art exhibit into the real world using WebAR
  • Challenge fellow delegates to an AR game of Tic-Tac-Toe
  • Share your experience at Cannes by sending an AR postcard

In 2023 they added advertising https://nianticlabs.com/news/niantic-rewarded-ar-ads?hl=en