When you tell people this:
that is not quoting the criteria, thats the title of the criteria. The actual criteria is:
Which is rarely quoted. Also great is not often used. That same page only has it show up four times.
****Mod edit to remove inappropriate comment
This is a difficult situation that you have.
And yes it is difficult to grasp the concept that a lot of Wayfarer is about grey areas that require judgement calls.
It can feel as if these all go against us, but they may work in your favour too.
It sounds as though you have set about trying to improve with a lot of different submissions all at once. What is then happening is that you are getting rejections across the large number which feels rubbish.
Can I suggest a slightly different approach.
Your previous strategy gave no space to learn from the rejections.
Try to do a few see what works and doesnât. Get additional feedback here and adjust and try again. It might sound frustratingly slow but it is much more likely to bring success in the form of more stops and gyms.
Can you access the neighbourhood parks? We can help plan out submissions.
The shopping areas may not have filled out but is there open social space? Groups of benches to sit and chat at.
Can you post a few pictures please.
You can fight the system if you want to make this point, but you will have more success if you look for things that meet the acceptance criteria:
Acceptance Criteria
Nominations and edit submissions must meet all of the following acceptance criteria:
- Must meet at least one of the three eligibility criteria
- A great place for exploration
- A great place for exercise
- A great place to be social with others
- Must be a permanent physical, tangible, and identifiable place or object, or object that placemarks an area
- Must be safe and publicly accessible by pedestrians (indoor or outdoor)
- Must contain accurate information in the title, description, and photo
The random spots where you can do those things are not âtangible and identifiableâ places.
We are happy to help you craft nominations that are not only eligible, but acceptable. But I have no interest in debating the criteria. I have the link to the Wayspot Criteria â Wayfarer Help Center linked in my profile here for handy reference to those pages.
Sidewalks have the problem of being generic and not distinct. This is what makes them not very suitable as wayspots - they are everywhere. How do you choose which specific piece of sidewalk is better than another piece of sidewalk?
If a spot on a sidewalk was eligible, then there could be wayspots littered across every piece of sidewalk everywhere. Imagine a city with sidewalks on every street and wayspots every 22m along every sidewalk.
Wayspots are supposed to be interesting. To be something a little out of the ordinary. Not just to be a great place to be social, exercise or explore, but to be distinct. Sidewalks just donât do this - not just here in the forums but also with reviewers.
The image posted by @RGTGO does a good job of explaining why a great place for exploration doesnât just mean somewhere you could explore, but is somewhere special, somewhere not ordinary. This summarised as a âgreat place for explorationâ.
This is the eligibility criteria. The acceptance criteria does contain the word âgreat.â Just being eligible does not mean something must be accepted if you are confused on this.
With a few exceptions I tend to change the wording of the criteria from âgreatâ to âprimarily forâ.
Side walks âcouldâ be used to meet criteria but are âprimarilyâ used to walk from A to B.
good suggestion! i like to think in terms of whether i would take a friend here to see this.
For things that are really new and might make a good wayspot, try to get something verifiable into the supporting photo. For example, if thereâs a playpark that doesnât show on StreetView or satellite view but the streets are marked on the map view then try to include the street name sign in the supporting photograph. For example:
That lines up with the map like this:
Communal facilities in gated areas are often acceptable. You only need to get within 80 metres of the wayspot in PoGo to interact with it, so those are a possibility.
It does sound like you are making a commendable effort, just for practice you might want to explore further afield to get some successful nominations in which might help you find out what is easily acceptable and how to frame the nomination so that itâs appealing.
While completely agreeing with you, this does open you up to accusations of interpreting the criteria the way you want to interpret them instead of the way Niantic intend. However, these accusations tend to come from, hmm, bad actors.
To make it clear - the wayspot has to be accessible at zero metres, but not necessarily to everyone, which is why wayspots in gated communities are eligible.
In order for it to be worth submitting such a wayspot for your own use (assuming you cannot get into the gated community), then it simply needs to be within 80 meters of publicly accessible land to make it worth your time.
Itâs a different way of wording it but I believe that the results are the same.
As the OP stated the sidewalk from his house is a âgreatâ place to exercise. I do short walks for exercise and most start from my house, very convenient 
. Looking at it as âprimarily forâ stops the argument where you can pick any object and âforceâ it in to one of the criteria.
It is also why I stated âWith a few exceptionsâ as with most things Wayfarer it is not 100%
Just to add for the OP the useful GPSmapcamera app to the discussion.
Itâs a free app that prints the location on the photo which is fine for the supplementary and useful in situations where you will find proving location tricky.
Iâd see that than CafĂ©s, Restaurants⊠will get in trouble. Their primarily focus isnât being social. Than you have to defend against generic business again.
I did imply those accusations would be unjustified
As I said, itâs not 100% but as a lot of people visiting these are going there to be social I still believe it still works.
âLetâs meet up for a coffee and have a chatâ, âLetâs invite some friends to go to the Restaurant for your birthdayâ.
I will admit that I am quite strict with these and I see plenty in game that I would not have agreed on but if others have Accepted and they do not meet removal criteria then I am not going to complain / report.
Example: Their was a lovely âsandwich shopâ near my previous workplace, lovely staff etc. I saw this as a place to pop in, grab your sandwich then go somewhere else so personally would not have Accepted but it is in the game.
This is where someoneâs skill as a submitter comes in. If you can sell the wayspot as a good place to socialise by writing a convincing description then you have a better chance of acceptance. At lot depends on the luck of the draw when it comes to reviewers though..
If you can work together with your community to create art work, that might be eligible. I have seen flower mural or bug replica in pole before. you could set up little free library in park or other public place (dont put at single family private residential property)
Perhaps you are not a regular reviewer, the actual acceptance threshold for the reviewerâs perspective is just âgoodâ
But we just said titles didnât matter? 
Good spot. Niantic should consider amending this to match the criteria. @NianticAaron can you have a look?
