Have you read the criteria clarifications posts yet? Criteria Clarification Collection - Niantic Wayfarer Community
It really shifted the focus from “auto aprove these objects” to " really think about what object encourages others to exercise, explore, or socialize. Then justify it in the supporting info"
I get the point - also did some research and seems these building plaques may really just be a Hamburg thing. All I want as much clarity as possible and to know that I won’t lose my account because of some gray area nomination. You say the 2011 building doesn’t mean anything, but if you’re an architect, maybe it is interesting to be made aware of urban development as one aspect of exploration.
This is where I start to get mixed feelings about continuing. Of course I’d love to only submit slam dunks, but after 10+ years of Wayfarer this low hanging fruit is gone. There are only occasional new POIs or small details that people have missed. At the end of the day, one hand washes the other. If Niantic wants my free labor in building a a virtual map of the world, a real value for them, I want to know I won’t lose my account by focusing on difficult nominations for which arguments can be made.
I read every one of the pages - I love these. It’s what I missed in the years I was wayfaring up through late 2023. It seems like they are not getting enhanced at all since they were first created?
I submit quite a lot of more difficult nominations nowadays - as you said, the easier ones are already done! I am finding great success in appeals when the community is being difficult!
I feel that as long as I can improve a nomination, and as long as I can defend how I believe it meets criteria, then I am happy to resubmit. One of my nominations was accepted on the 10th try 
everyone told me I would get banned, but I didn’t believe I would as I strongly felt it met criteria, and I tried to change or improve each time. It eventually paid off. I am not recommending trying everything 10 times, but I am saying simply having to resubmit happens to a lot of us.
This is exactly how I was doing it! I had one nomination I believed in (a striped building facade) and submitted it 8 times - but finally gave up. It finally seemed hopeless. It took me 6 attempts to get a footbridge in rural Poland approved, resulting in a new gym as well. So that was a good feeling. It also led to me meeting another PGO player in the area who was riding his bike through all the villages doing raids along the way. Seems if Niantic disagrees with our judgement, we really could lose our account.
That is not what I said, and I in fact suggested highlighting the features that would make it interesting to an architect instead, and pointed out the actual date doesn’t really matter. 
I also suggested nominating the building itself instead of the plaque.
There are many discussions that can be had here along the lines of “but what if it is interesting to someone”, “but what is art”, “but what is a great place to”. We have them every day multiple times a day on the forum, and you are very welcome to start specific threads on specific nominations or types of nominations to gather different points of view and help sharpen your arguments. No one likes existing in grey areas, which is why we suggest always providing a maximum of evidence for your claims, not leaving the eligibility obvious only to architects, and making sure a nominator to whom the interest isn’t obvious or a Niantic reviewer who may not be from the area has all the information in hand needed to make a decision instead of relying on “what if”. My suggestion is only to make your case apparent in your nomination, maybe moving away from “but I see them as Pokéstops” and from “get approved” to “what is the information I need to provide to make this a slam dunk”.
I don’t think you risk anything by submitting that plaque, fwiw, if that’s your question.
I do believe I am getting better results in my usage 2.0 exactly because of working on better descriptions. For this particular nomination, the building plaque, I don’t see a way to submit it as a building alone - have had very bad experience in my usage 1.0 trying to submit an over 100 year old building with a unique facade (that does not have a dedication plaque) and I basically gave up because none of the argumentation I used worked. It’s also possible that the repeated nomination led to the vague warning I got. Probably I’ll leave this nomination and focus on ones with an easier case to make. There are a few difficult POIs I definitely do want to submit, and will take you up on the offer to get advice here in the forum.
Yesterday I had an unexpected success with a poster column for events (Litfasssäule) in the center of town. Apparently no one ever thought to submit it, or weren’t able to get it approved. I searched in the forum - and though there was no guidance on the Niantic’s clarification pages, I did find several discussions in the forum with different viewpoints. No clear consensus, but some saying they are justified as promoting cultural events (place to be social).
I still feel uncomfortable about the vague statements from Niantic saying you can get a warning or ban if the quality of your submissions is considered low. Believe me, I am reading all the recent ban/warning discussions to get a good idea of it. One of the Niantic employees unintentionally revealed the corporate view in which they (to their credit) reversed a 30 ban with the outrageous remark that they were doing it as a “good will gesture” - when the wayfarer in question did nothing wrong! (Was about a wrong “3rd party photo ban” because the Wayfarer posted their photo later on their own facebook.) That does nothing to reassure me.
Anyhow, thanks (everyone) who comment here - I think all my questions were answered. And even if I seem contrarian or skeptical at times, I do appreciate all the input/feedback.
I understand the phrase repeted low quality submissions to mean things like the submitter who keeps nominating thier couch, bed and yard ornaments or even selfies. Not the submitter who is making good photos and trying something in an eligible location. Even if the object is not commonly a waypoint. There have been shirtless and other inappropriate nominations since tge beginning of waypoints but there was a filter even then to weed out most before it got to reviewers.
This has to be a goodwill gesture as it cannot be seen as policy that a photo on a third-party website can be used for a wayspot submission.
There is a strong legal basis to this. A photo on a third-party website cannot be licensed to Niantic, but this is what you do when you submit a wayspot.
The only times Niantic have reversed suspensions for photos like this is when definitive proof has been provided that the photo was used first for the wayspot and then posted elsewhere and that it is owned by the wayspot submitter. In these cases, the submitter has unwittingly done this, but not knowing is not a defense in the eyes of the law.
If you want to submit something and post it online, take multiple photos and don’t post the submission photo online.
Is this true? I have a different view. To the best of my knowledge posting a picture after submitting it is still perfectly legal, don’t recall ever seeing a notice that I have transferred my rights to those pictures, naturally I do realise that I will also allow Niantic/Scopely to use these.
I do agree that posting the picture before the nomination is accepted, does make it more likely that the wayfarer will get a false positive result for using 3rd party picture, so I would not recommend it.
But technically, in my view the wayfare did not break any rules for using his/her own picture, and posting the same picture on the internet after submitting it.
The grey area for me is, when someone uses their own pictures, posted on the internet before the nomination. Again, there is no breach of using 3rd party pictures, but in this case someone uses a picture that can be found on the internet at the time of submitting.
To be fair, in my view wayfarer staff always look at the context, and I’ve seen most/all of these issues resolved correctly.
I can see that not much has changed since the Polish power Wayfarer in Gdansk got banned three years ago, for posting his own photos to google. As a contributor I just want clarity and am fine with avoiding the issue. I only use the throwaway photos when submitting wayspots and never uploaded an existing photo. But the feature in PGO and in the new Web submit feature (uploading up to 5 images?) invites folks to accidentally expose themselves to a ban if they shared their photos anywhere in social media or online galleries. I hope there is a clear warning about that.
There was a thread yesterday where someone had a suspension for using a photo that was also on facebook. They were able to prove it was their photo, and their suspension was removed. So staff are here on the forumto help and thry do read all the posts and respond where needed.
I really don’t think the risk of being suspended or banned is something to overly focus on. Follow the rules, follow the criteria, and come here with questions. Another point to clarify is that pictures posted here are supposed to be okay, so sharing photos here ahead of making a submission is something that can be helpful if advice is needed. Sharing them on a reddit or Facebook page though would risk 3rd party issues so best to come here.
Have a look at 5.2 Rights Granted by You - User Content in Niantic Terms of Service – Niantic Labs
This section starts with “By making any User Content available through the Services you grant to Niantic a nonexclusive, transferable, sublicenseable, worldwide, royalty-free, perpetual license”.
Exactly, it’s my right as a Wayfarer contributor to continue to use my own photos as 1st party owner. I don’t call it a “good will gesture” for Niantic/Scopely to actually honor the agreement (reversing false bans). It’s the “guilty until proven innocent” attitude that concerns me, because I was at the end of a vague warning once. But I’m glad that these issues can apparently be cleared up here in the forum. I will sometimes try to nominate edge cases, and want to do it the best way to avoid any issues.
The issue is that a photo on a third-party website is not linked to the wayfarer account of the submitter.
Since it is almost impossible to prove that a photo on a third-party website was put there by someone other than the submitter, it is not possible for this to be an “innocent until proven guilty” situation. The terms are there for anyone to read them.
(As an aside, the law does have situations where you are immediately guilty, bypassing completely the concept of “innocent until proven guilty” and even “guilty until proven innocent”. One example of this is the UK law around travelling on a train without a ticket in a penalty fare zone.)
Some people do use photos that they then post elsewhere. It’s simply a lot easier not to do this.
I did, and this confirms my point, also please note article 5.1 content ownership: “Niantic does not claim ownership rights in User Content….”
Edit: to be clear, I understand that I’m allowing Niantic to use the pictures, so I’m granting them a license, not transferring my rights.