Hi All!
I took all your advice and thank you to all of you who provided me quality feedback for nominating pokestops. I have one of the three I’ve nominated in voting/review now.
I have a couple that got rejected and I’d like to learn from these mistakes. Here are two pokestop nominations I’ve submitted and gotten rejections for:
Rejection 1:
Rejection 2:
Thank you all for your continued help! 
Both of these were rejected by the automated process, which is a machine learning model, so neither has been seen by a human yet. I am surprised that it rejected that bench. Maybe a square crop to put a little more focus on the bench in the middle:
Hi there,
Thank you for the reasoning. I have submitted an Appeal for the bench to see if they can give me more insight, or approve it, since it has not yet been seen by a human.
Second, for the dog park, the second criteria is “a great place to exercise”, and people walk their dogs along this trail, so it’s more of a trail than a park. Would altering the submission to a trail marker make it more likely to succeed? If it won’t work, I’d understand. Just based on their own criteria, technically, this fits.
Thank you!
based on my experience I gained over all the years (even when submission was only possible through Ingress), such bench is not really unique POI but some generic bench you can find everywhere in parks, hiking trails and further. It could be considered POI if there would be some engraving or information plate, but this #1 may also get rejected by Niantic review team.
And your #2 is not really fulfilling any type of criteria. Just random nature with dog-shit-bag dispenser. Also no/very little chance to get this approved by NIA reviewers.
So if it gets rejected a second time, I should submit the bench as a Memorial Bench? There is an inscription on it that reads a memorial inscription, which I showed in the supporting photo.
Standard Memorial Benches are not eligible…
https://community.wayfarer.nianticlabs.com/t/seating-benches
The only chance is the “Bench with a view” option.
I am not a big fan of these as all benches have a view so different reviewers will have different opinions of which views are “good enough” to be accepted.
In these cases you are nominating the view and not the bench in the same way as a Trail Marker is nominating the Trail and not the Marker.
Good Luck.
I actually like this bench with a view, because it does have a great view.
I would try with different variants of that main photo.
The memorial inscription can be mentioned, as you did, but does not assist with eligibility, so focus on the view.
I really like your bench. It seems like a place people would seek out to sit and enjoy the view. I’vehad quite a lot of success recently with viewpoints anchored with a bench. Appeals can be successful, and its a shame that the ML rejected yours since I think human reviewers would have liked it.
I am not sure, but I think the ML seems to like the bench to be quite prominent in the picture, and it seems to pick up better when the bench stands out against a background that isn’t too green?
For example, these 2 benches are in the same park, one is just further up the hill than the other, and the path is behind it rather than in front. Im 2/2 on ML rejections on the meadow bench, but the other sailed through with no issues.
I hope your appeal goes through. If not, I would try this again with some variations on the pictures like cyndiepooh suggested, and hope that you can get it past the ML. It always feels worse when you can’t get things in front of community reviewers to at least see what they think.
Sorry, dracomedia is giving you advice from how wayfarer worked years ago. The current best practice for benches is to link them to scenic views as you have done. Memorial benches only qualify if the person was provably significant to the community.
My comment was not meant to be about this nomination in particular more that I am not a fan of the concept due to its difficulties in decided where the line is drawn.
Deciding where the line is drawn is part of what reviewing is about - allowing the community to make the decisions in the grey areas. if everything had a solid line between eligible and ineligible, acceptances by the ML system would be possible.
For example, there’s a grey area in murals and graffiti, not a solid line, as some graffiti can be artistic enough to be eligible. This difficulty is not anything that should ever stop high-quality graffiti from being submitted.
I have a simple criteria for bench-with-a-view submissions - would I sit there in order to look at the view.
Obviously different people have different levels of “would I sit there”, but that’s fine as a principle.
We are straying from the OP so will just say I agree with you exactly.
Personally I would prefer if things where black or white but I know that is not how Niantic (and life) works.
I would change your criteria slightly to “would I go there for the view”, with limited walking range I sit at many benches / bus shelters / garden walls. Once I sit there I will always look at the view no matter what it is
