All 3 candidates were accessible and safe portals that were maliciously removed by certain players with the sole purpose of harassing and ruining the gaming experience for local players in the affected area. The portals had been around for a long time and were frequently used not only by the local player, but also by players who were traveling through the area, either by traveling to or coming to play in the removed portals.
Let me clarify that players do NOT have the ability to remove wayspots/portals. Players can report wayspots/portals to Niantic if they believe there is some problem with them. Only Niantic makes the decision to keep or remove the wayspots/portals.
These may have been removed based on where they were located. Or they may have been removed because they are not sanctioned art. Your native language probably does not distinguish between unsanctioned street art (graffiti) and sanctioned art (mural). English uses the word mural to designate artwork that is approved by the property owner. Since it is approved, it is considered permanent. Graffiti (in English) is done by random people without the permission of property owner. Graffiti can be lovely, as some of these examples are. But since it does not have the approval of the property owner, it is considered vandalism and is temporary.
Neither temporary art nor vandalism are eligible to be wayspots. If there are other unsanctioned art works like this in your area, they are all vulnerable to being removed by Niantic.
If you think these are sanctioned art (murals), please try to find a link to prove that. For example, there is a pedestrian tunnel in my city that is famous as a place for street art. The city allows graffiti artists to paint all the sections of the tunnel. After a few years when the images start to decay or people have messed up the good art with silly tags of their own names, the city will repaint the whole tunnel and let people start over. That tunnel as a whole is a wayspot, none of the individual murals are wayspots. There are a lot of newspaper articles and websites dedicated to this particular tunnel art, so it’s very easy to provide proof of the cultural value to the city and local art scene.
Those Wayspots as submitted are beautiful examples of street art imo. Current photos of them showing they still exist will help your appeal.
As well-stated by @seaprincesshnb , players don’t get Wayspots removed except by presenting evidence to Niantic. This could have been evidence that the art does not exist anymore, that the art was illegal grafiti, that the art was in an ineligible location, etc.
The place is a public area used by well-known urban artists such as Edgar Mali or FreddyArt. Every year or when their works are deteriorating, these people, together with other artists perhaps not of the same stature, go and leave their works on the same wall again.
And another thing, as you say, maybe my native language doesn’t help. But 80% of the existing portals that are about murals or similar have this type of name… If this is going to be the reference guide, then there will be thousands of legal portals that have been eliminated in an unfair way like these 3 that happened.
This was another legal proposal that I had deleted, luckily I applied again and it was accepted immediately, I did it because it was only one proposal. But now there are already 3 and who knows in how many weeks or months they could be accepted again. Not to mention that I have a long queue of proposals already submitted that are also waiting to be voted on.
I understand that you think that, but I am from the area and unless you are a highly reckless and very careless person, having an accident is very unlikely as long as you pay due attention, those portals have been there since 2021 and so far no player who has interacted with said portals has been injured or hurt.
Yeah, that’s why I phrased it as “Niantic may think.” You always have to remember that Niantic employees could be making a judgment call from across the globe. If you must have local knowledge to understand the location you’re submitting, you have to explain that really well in the submission. You may have done that, I don’t know, it’s just a good reminder.
I appreciate you taking the time to read the post and if you need any further proof of legality, I have no problem even when I go for a walk, which is usually my routine, making a video of how I play in that area to show that having an accident there would already be a matter of irresponsibility on my own part, not because of the location of the portals themselves. My only objective with this claim is to reverse these 3 eliminations that from my point of view and from other players who have written to me in particular have been “illegal” or at least they reported it with bad intentions and unfortunately what they wanted was fulfilled for certain reasons.
What we’ve discussed here are just my theories on why Niantic decided to remove them. Those theories are based on decent experience with approvals, removals, and restorations I’ve seen happen. Whatever proof you can post here could help them re-evaluate their decision, if they choose to do so.
Thanks for the appeal, @lLinuxl. After reviewing the additional evidence provided, we’ve decided to restore 2 Wayspots in question. We have taken another look but stand by our decision to retire the Wayspot “Mural Apache skull”.
