I suspect Niantic removed the photo-like facility for selecting gyms partly because what would be good for one player or a group of players is not necessarily what everyone would like. It could be unfair to players outside of a clique to have the gyms created where the clique wants.
It might seem obvious in some areas that everyone would want the gym in the park, but that wouldn’t always (or ever) be true.
You can still control gym creation to an extent in less populated areas by submitting the first wayspots where you want the gym and later on submitting the ones you don’t want a gym at.
But it does not appear to have been removed, based on reports from people who admit to doing this. I haven’t tried it myself since Aaron called it abuse in a post on the old forum.
I am not talking about cliques or player preference - we have just had so much from niantic over the years about a preference for parks!
If it was based on player preference, ir would be things close to the road where they could pull over, obviously, because pokémon go is viewed as a driving game in many areas, so parks are bad
I definitely saw a gym form at the spot that had the most photos and likes - it is a beautiful pedestrian bridge that lights up in different colours and is very satisfying to take pictures of. I’ve added quite a few there because its just very pretty! So I wonder if the original intent of the photos and likes thing was to prioritise interesting or popular places that naturally make people want to take a pretty photo?
Ah, different playing experience here - people were trying to cluster the gyms in parks (and succeeded). I completely forgot about people playing by car.
My suggestion about the removal (if it has gone) still stands though
Hehe, here people were so angry that a gym by the road was deleted (pub closed), and was replaced by a gym like 100m away in a park they were irate that they couldn’t deposit things into something while waiting at the traffic lights anymore. Which is completely illegal.
Here is the exact comment. I don’t see any way to read this except that manipulating a certain Wayspot to be a gym is abuse. I would love to be convinced that it is NOT considered abuse so that I can go back to manipulating the best locations for the community to become gyms.
(Here is a link to the entire conversation, in case context matters: Gym creation — Wayfarer)
“It has never been an intention to manipulate (in the pejorative sense) the in-game map” refers to abusing Wayfarer (help chat, reports, etc.) towards a goal for a particular game’s map.
We are always manipulating (in the metaphorical sense akin to using our hands on a physical system) the in-game maps. That’s what Wayfarer is.
Nobody with good faith wants people to misrepresent stuff, delete real things, add or upvote fake ones, etc., while every Wayfarer wants to have an impact upon the maps.
It simply wouldn’t make sense to set up a causal chain comprised of allowable actions and then punish some folks for participating in that chain. I would label this an attractive nuisance and accuse the company of manufacturing the circumstances which formed the crux of their argument.
We at least need to know if this feature has been removed and if it was considered abuse. Either way I will continue to play and submit things regardless so it’s not the end of the world. I’m sure this goes for all of us
For the purposes of this conversation, since I’ve been populating areas without gyms, it would have been helpful if I had done some tests so that I could add accurate data. However, I literally don’t care which pokestops become gyms when I’m populating new areas, because these are simply never going to be high-traffic and it doesn’t matter.
It is not the only factor. A showcase stop will not become a gym. And there have been a few scattered reports that an active Team Rocket at sync time seems to prevent a Pokestop from becoming a gym. There also seems to have been a cutoff time for the photos and likes to have been made before the gym went live.
(edited to add that doesn’t even mention the possibility of trapped ingress votes on wayspots that predate lightship, which i assume you are aware of)
Yeah have heard all of those things can affect it, and with all that taken into account it was thought that its still about votes and pictures, obviously the other stuff adds to confusion and can impact if things are reported correctly ie will someone check ingress votes? Possibly not. And no one will know necessarily if the rocket thing blocked something (if that happens)
I think there is another topic somewhere on the old forum around this subject that I haven’t resurfaced, because I feel like I made a similar statement there. Why does the mechanic exist if we aren’t meant to use it?
I totally agree but after hearing of the “photo votes = gym votes” process I tried to test it out. The 2 waypoints are only 80m apart so easy to stand in the middle and reach both, they are not “couch stops” so they make no difference.
Accept these additional rules, I knew about the showcase rule but not about the “Team Rocket” rule (everyday is a school day).
My comment was more in whether “photo votes” are still used when deciding which will become a Gym.
In regards to the test, I did not start playing until 2023 but I used to walk Niece to the playground that was a stop back in 2016. I know She voted on the image back then as she would often describe what she was doing (and I pretended to care ).
When I decided to nominate a 2nd stop (it’s also a play area but for younger kids and totally separate with houses in-between) I checked Waypoint 1, can’t remember the number of votes but it was some. Waypoint 2 definitely had none as it didn’t exist yet but it was waypoint 2 that became the Gym.
they were irate that they couldn’t deposit things into something while waiting at the traffic lights anymore. Which is completely illegal.
