How to best submit very remote waypoints along dirt roads

I am doing some off-roading along remote areas and when I have time I am submitting waypoints for future explorers. In almost all cases, I will never come back to these places, so I don’t really feel strong about what gets accepted, but I put in some work, and would like to get advice on how to make them more successful going forward so I don’t waste mine and everyone else’s time.

This is quite remote, so there are no structures. The only thing man made are often trail and other signs, which should be acceptable. I also submitted a survey marker on one summit. All of these places are typically on public land, accessible on foot, bike, and motorized vehicles can get there, or close to it.

All of these were far away from Pokestops, but I didn’t check if there were waypoints that are not in Pokemon. They are all rejected for “Wayfarer Criteria”

Here are some that were rejected:

Waypoint, top of mountain, plenty of room, accessible to the public.

Entry sign to a recreation area. Again, accessible on foot, bike, motor bike, car. Plenty of room. Is this too boring? There are plenty such signs in Pokemon Go, but maybe criteria changed?

This is slightly different. Reason was “low quality or inaccurate title” Yes, there is a typo, because mobile. But I cannot edit this title. How can I fix, and should I resubmit?

Below are some that were accepted, btw.

How can I maximize the value of such submissions?

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I have little experience nominating things like this. But a few folks around here may have more insight on these types of nominations. So I’ll tag @Trollfarer and @WoodWose

I’ll read through in more detail and respond more if I see other areas of improvement.

Also Welcome to the Forum @buebelis

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Hello and welcome,

I also have little experience nominating anything like these. However, I would like to note some general things:

You can edit a title of a Wayspot nomination after submission and before it goes into voting in Contribution Management. Here’s what it looks like when you click on the Edit button for a Wayspot nomination (this is for 1 I have in queue currently):


Any text, i.e. title/description/supporting info can be edited before a nomination goes into voting; photos and location cannot be edited. If I wanted to change Centre in this example to Center, I could, but I’m not, as Centre is the correct spelling.

Some of the descriptions are very vague. For example, I’d like to have more info on where on Bald Mountain, in general, the survey marker is. Is it on the north side, south side? How far up is it, which may be on the marker? Just saying it was surveyed in 1970 is too vague, and more context needs to be provided. I’d also like to know what kind of recreation activates take place at Deep Creak and Hungry Valley, like if there are hiking/biking trails here, scenic views to check out, etc.

Once a nomination has been rejected by ML or the community, it cannot be edited or resubmitted for community review again. It can be appealed to the appeals team, but we only get 2 appeals every 20 days, so it’s best to use them wisely. Some of these might be better to resubmit than appeal, imo.

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Thank you for quickly responding

If I enter these in Pokemon Go, is there a way after submission to not send them to voting, so I can edit them when I get to a laptop and better internet?

So for the typo and survey marker, should I do a new submission, by downloading the photos on laptop, and uploading again and fixing typo and such?

You can always access the Wayfarer website and your Contribution Management to put nominations on hold, as well as edit them. Contribution Management can be found at this link: Niantic Wayfarer

You cannot upload nominations via a computer, only in-game. You may just want to resubmit again, fixing what needs to be fixed, and you can use the photos you took previously, as long as they haven’t been uploaded to any other places, as then they would be considered 3rd party.

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If you go to your Wayfarer Contributions page you can put nominations on Hold before they go into voting. If they are in voting, there is nothing you can do.

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Yes, I am looking at the contribution management page right now, but it’s a few days later as I am back home, hundreds of miles away, and they all have already been decided.

I guess I could open the web site from the phone while in the field and immediately put nominations on hold after submission from the app and then later review from home before releasing them. Typically I am at a place that has nothing in game at this point anyway.

And make sure there are no typos in the original.

I don’t think I can resubmit “remotely” when I am no longer at the location.

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You will have to be probably closer to the location to resubmit than you will be at home (based off your comments) so your concern for trying to make sure they are as well formatted as possible is valid. Would definitely help to put them immediately on hold until you can do more research/have an easier time writing it up on a pc. @DTrain2002 gave some excellent advice in their post. As someone who doesnt always vote on trail markers, the ones I do vote on typically have similar details to what they pointed out. You want to make it as easy for someone to say yes as possible. Wish you best of luck on your future submissions & welcome to the forums!

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There is a limit of 10 km to submit a nomination remotely in PoGo; in Ingress, the other game where nominations can be done, it’s 25 km.

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Survey Marker (AI rejection) - I would appeal this. In the appeal text, explain what a survey marker is, as if you’re explaining to someone in a country that does not have them. (Because you may be.)

West Entrance SVH (AI rejection) - I’m afraid this one uses “vehicular” too much to recover. Waypoints must be pedestrian accessible. If you can find a link talking about hiking in that area - you could appeal with the link and explanation in the appeal text.

Welcome to Camp Creek (community rejection) - you highlighted that it is non-unique. I don’t think you’ll talk your way out of that in an appeal. Plus, appeal reviewers will see that the community said it’s a low-quality title. I don’t think you’ll talk your way out of that either.

I think my main suggestion here would be to lean more into the descriptions and supporting information to really drive at least one (if not more than one) of the Exercise/Explore/Socialise criteria home and to also help provide context/evidence that what you are submitting exists in the location you are submitting it.

You don’t have to do this in the field (I almost never do) but once you get back home or to a more stable connection, you can edit in the additional information via the Wayfarer website. If you’re going to be out for a bit, just put the nomination on hold until you have time to make the edits.

As an example, this is a description for a Survey Marker/Trig I submitted a couple of weeks ago:

TS4868 WYBUNG is a Trig Station survey point situated atop Wybung Head in the Lake Munmorah State Conservation Area. This permanent structure marks a prominent location on the Australian coastline and now sits alongside the Munmorah Lookout. Trig stations like this one played a critical role in surveying, serving as reference points across Australia during the country’s mapping history. Although satellite technology has replaced these tools, efforts continue to preserve them as historical artifacts.

And this is the supporting information I provided:
This historic location is actively used in geocaching - more information about it can be found here - TP1671 - Wybung by Geocahing Australia - Geocaching Australia - Free and Open Global Geocaching . This survey marker also appears on NSW government SIXMaps and the DCS NSW Topographic Map. The survey mark sits alongside a lookout and marks the highest point of the Wybung Head landform.

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Thank you for the insight!

Side note - I love that you kept your avatar from the old Forum :heart_eyes_cat:

I don’t know about pogo but in ingress you can also ask that your submission be uploaded “later”. Saves time, especially on weak network locations.

It also means that you can wait until you get home, upload them, and immediately go edit them or put them on hold until you have more time.

Upload later is also an option with PoGo. I tend to only use it if there isn’t good cell service in the area.

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@buebelis

I always select upload later. Get home. Open wayfarer. Open my contributions. Then open game. Click upload contributions. Then refresh really quickly to see my nominations and put them on hold.

I then edit at will :slight_smile:

But with Emily (the machine learning) I also make the noms with basic info. Just in case Emily gets to them in the seconds I have uploaded and not put on hold.

This process has meant I have been able to do all my homework, get the supporting info and so on.

Re the survey marker… They are are nightmare blight in some countries and there are hundreds of thousands of them if not millions…

So Niantic has addressed. And it looks to me (and I am not a fan of these) that this should be appealed. Niantic clearly state markers on mountain tops etc can make the grade … Survey Markers - Criteria Clarification Collection - Niantic Wayfarer Community but in your appeal really address the beauty of the spot importance of marker, ease of public access and include link to the above link … In the future if you find such spots focus on the view and do the marker in supporting photo (with view) and link to the government website that lists the marker (in supporting info).

Remember upload later is your friend :slight_smile: as others have hinted. It transformed my success rate.

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That was yours… I had a couple of Trig stations recently. Yes I accepted them

As many others have said… upload the submissions later, then go into Wayfarer and place them on hold. Then you can check the spelling, add details and find supporting references if needed.

If the trail is a named one, then it’s good to find a reference to it and include that in the supporting notes. This might be a government or parks website, OpenStreetMap (OSM) or basically anything at all. OSM is great because you can submit direct links easily that highlight the route. This can be really helpful if the wayspot is in a wooded area, as satellite view is of little help.

The gold standard for any remote portal is a photosphere in Google Maps, but Google make that really difficult these days. Otherwise, create a supporting photo that shows both the proposed wayspot and as much of the surrounding area as you can. It can also be useful to say which way you are looking in the supporting text, e.g. “the supporting photo looks south-east, you can see the farm buildings in the background”.

If the proposed wayspot is going to be unclear in the supporting photo (e.g. partly hidden by vegetation), you can take a photo and use markup tools to circle or highlight it and then submit it as an existing photo rather than taking a new one. You can do that in the field.

I would caution against calling photospheres gold standards. It is definitely another option, but as you have noted it’s prohibitively complicated to make one these days. This is not to challenge what you have said, but just to point out for full context that they can (and could in the past) very much be faked or misplaced.

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Here is my favorite example of a poorly dropped professional photosphere. The photographer clearly did not care about accuracy, and it didn’t matter for his purposes.

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It’s been cold here recently. I used it yesterday so I didn’t have to stand out in the cold waiting for upload. I queued. Then uploaded when I got back to my car. These were scans, but the principle is the same and the volume was higher.