Hello I need help Creating a Gym. Most recently I created a PokeStop and I have one pending that will most likely be accepted I was just asking if you could please like one of these two pokestops so I have a better chance to have one become a Gym please.
***Mod edit to remove location
Staff have called trying to manipulate the game by forcing a specific pokestop to become a gym to be abuse in the past. They haven’t repeated this on the current forum, so I will be following this post to see if they comment.
This area has 3 pokestops and one gym so needs 2 more pokestops to get a second gym. When this happens, each of the 5 pokestops (the existing ones plus the new ones) will have a 20% chance to become the gym.
Photo votes have no impact on gym selection, only on cover photos for that wayspot.
They used to, over a year ago.
@cyndiepooh it may be that because photo votes don’t influence gym selection, it isn’t possible to call this abuse.
I am not ready to confirm that is the case. Have seen too many current counter examples.
Hello
I shall consult but as a temporary measure I have removed the co ordinates since you are asking for likes.
I am not clear if this is or is not appropriate but am doing so as a precaution.
I was wondering how I could remove the post I was unware that you could not ask for likes I apologize.
I am pretty confident this is now the case. The last couple I have triggered a Gym have had different outcomes.
2 accepted within 2 weeks in what was an empty L14 cell. 2nd became the Gym. I have confirmed that the 1st does not host Showcases.
1 accepted to join a 6 year old wayspot. The 1st 1 became the Gym.
If it is not 100% random I believe it is a large part of it.
Edit: Forgot to add that none had any votes.
The last gym I witnessed going live did have the most votes in the L14 besides the showcase stop. I do not want to encourage people to commit abuse, but I do not want to give them false information either. I do believe that the algorithm to promote a gym is intended to be random, but I do not believe that it is.
Of course, this would be easy to investigate, but I am not going to commit what has been called abuse to check. None of those likes on that one that was promoted were mine.
With no votes and no extra photo the “old” system picks one at random
Presumably that was a third gym so there was a choice of 18 wayspots, making the 1 in 18 pick potentially statistically interesting.
How many conversions have you observed and how many have been of the most-upvoted pokestop?
no, this was a second gym where an existing gym was removed. i don’t track this mechanic. i hate to even talk about it here. but since you tagged me to tell me i am wrong, i replied.
There was never sufficient evidence to support this purported new “random” system.
The examples I’ve seen all involve very close votes, and often a small number of stops so it could be due to hidden Ingress likes or new likes/photos not counted. On other hand, there’s enough anecdotal evidence on my local group that suggests the “old” system is still used for the most part.
There is a reasonable chance of confirmation bias being involved. Expecting to see gyms being picked based on votes, so only seeing when that happens and not noticing when it doesn’t.
Without hard evidence - e.g., someone tracking all gym conversions in an area and looking at the total votes per wayspot across the L14 cell as soon as a gym is created - it’s hard to discount that possibility.
I also don’t get involved in this topic, but I don’t think we should spread misinformation here.
In my personal experience and from what I have seen from the community, I believe photos and likes do the same thing they always did, which was researched by the community years ago. That’s just made harder to keep track of with more PoIs nowadays, and showcases not becoming gyms.
Where other things are equal, I believe it is random.
Gyms are not a mechanic the forum is concerned with, as that is for Pokemon Go, not Wayfarer. We can give advice about updating photos with new high quality ones, and maintaining the quality of PoIs in that way, but gym behaviour, particularly not influencing selection, is not an appropriate topic for this forum in my opinion.