I have tried submitting 8 great locations, that perfectly meet all the stated criteria for acceptance. They all seem to get rejected with a blanket statement “our team reviewed and decided it did not meet the required criteria”. Since the community can’t be bothered to explain why it was actually rejected, it begs the question who rejected, why reject it, or if anyone really rejected it at all, and wayfarer is just AI garbage, or trolls just rejecting everything???
Hello and Welcome,
“Our Team” usually relates to the AI process which usually means that it can not see anything in your nomination that meets criteria.
If you would like to post details (I suggest go 1 at a time so not to get confusing) we will be happy to advise.
Photos, Title, Description, Supplements and Location will make it easiest for us to help.
Edit: People here will be happy to advise but please be respectful.
We will advise truthfully to the best of our knowledge, this may not be the answer you hoped for.
Good Luck.
Hello @chanzo3000
This community of fellow wayfinders are happy to help with issues, however please remain respectful in your posts.
Hi, I am a frequent Pokemon Go player, and was very excited to finally get to a level to help submit pokestop suggestions, that would hopefully help improve the game experience, for players in my area. However my initial experience and I can guess the same goes for many others by looking the community discussions , is that the initial AI review seems to reject almost every submission by default, and the the community posts don’t seem motivated toward being helpful. It seems strange the wayfarer community seems to be so much more focused on rejecting submissions than supporting the player community in adding great new submissions? Am I missing something? I don’t understand why the process has been made to be so unfriendly to new community members
Hello
I am merging this with the topic you have already started.
If you can post an example of what has been rejected we can try to help.
Welcome to the forum!
Yes, the community members who respond here the most are real people. You can tell by the tpyos typos.
There are very very few nominations that meet all the stated criteria, and that is not a requirement. Here is a link where you can read all the criteria: https://niantic.helpshift.com/hc/en/21-wayfarer/section/166-wayspot-criteria/
If you would like to post screenshots from your contributions page of one that you don’t think should have been rejected, we can try to advise on a resubmit or an appeal.
The people posting in response are experienced Wayfinders who are keen to help and support players new to wayfarer.
The best thing is to show us an example that we can talk through.
Sometimes people want advice on how to get their nomination accepted, when it really isn’t acceptable. We can’t help with that. Explaining that something doesn’t meet criteria is not unfriendly. Explaining why an accepted nomination isn’t a Pokestop is not unfriendly. When we have to tell someone, “This can’t be a Pokestop,” many of us will make the effort to look at Maps to try to find something that could. I don’t know how we can be more welcoming and helpful than that.
People are not going to post asking for help if everything went as planned. Many wayfarers have great success, there are people on here with thousands of successful nominations.
As you state you are new to Wayfarer and you have probably not seen the stuff that comes through to review when the AI isn’t working.
We are definitely focussed on adding great new submissions in the same way we are also focussed on not allowing nominations that don’t meet criteria.
Some people are just “please allow anything” believing that “more is best” but most wayfarers believe that “better is best”.
There are definitely quirks with Wayfarer and that is why we are willing to help.
As recommended, please post screenshots of 1 of your rejected nominations and we will be happy to advise.
With what you state it seems to be the AI process so could be something as simple as taking an image that shows the point of interest more clearly.
Please let us help…
Thanks Ellie for your responses, I have included a screenshot of my nomination, rejected by AI.
The most common response I see in looking through other posts related to rejected submissions advise to look at the following 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 - yes this is a spot on a nature path. On an existing POGO route
- A great place for exercise -yes
- A great place to be social with others -yes
-
Must be a permanent physical, tangible, and identifiable place or object, or object that placemarks an area -yes
-
Must be safe and publicly accessible by pedestrians (indoor or outdoor) -yes
-
Must contain accurate information in the title, description, and photo -yes
Thank you for the nomination.
Benches are the type of feature that can be difficult to make a case for, and rejections by the auto process are common. This applies to new and experienced wayfinders.
If you have not already done so It is worth reading the clarification around them
A bench on a trail is often a place to stop and look at the view. What is the view like from this bench?
Edited to add
Have I got the correct trail?
There are places along this trail with lots of wayspots / pokestops and others have less.
Hello,
Just want to make this statement so you are not disappointed later…
Is this “West San Gabriel River Parkway Nature Trail”
I was just about to state to @chanzo3000 this is nothing to worry about yet but just so you are aware that once you have a “Wayspot” accepted there is a 2nd consideration that means that they don’t all go in to Pokemon Go.
We can discuss that as and when it becomes an issue…
You have the correct trail. The portion I tried to nominate is a a half mile length , completely void of stops. There is a park on the other side of the riverbed with stops, but they are out of range when walking the route associated to this portion of the trail
Do you have the co-ordinates (shown in the email when you 1st nominate or by right clicking on google maps).
We can then show you a map of the area and maybe suggest some possible nominations.
Although there does seem to be a lot of nominations along the trail and the Residential areas are not easy to find suitable locations but we will try.
(33.834838, -118.094154)
Thanks, can you please help me understand why this bench is not acceptable? Looking at the additional bench criteria linked, the view may not be a majestic view of the alps as shown in the examples, but being in the city, it still appears to meet all the criteria . it is a distinct, unique, and safe location to meet, and exercise, and observe the trees, birds, and San Gabriel river along the path. It was not nominated as a memorial bench. It’s also not on/attached to any private residence.
You do seem to have some “empty” cells in the area, it’s just getting something “great” to nominate in the unoccupied cells.
In regards to the bench…
The AI is just seeing this as a bench which does not meet criteria.
The way I look at it is if the purpose of it fits at least one of the big three criteria.
- Exercise - No as it’s there to rest.
- Socialise - Vaguely but usually requires a group of benches to get through, Picnic benches are great for this.
- Explore - This is where the “View” comes in, you need to make it clear that the bench was positioned in this location so you can take in the view.
The comment I usually make is that the bench behind the supermarket has A View but it isn’t what the bench is for.
I always find “bench with a view” to be so hit and miss so I have never nominated (not want the hassle 
) . When Reviewing you see the full range from the standard road side bench with a description trying to big it up to the ones on the top of the Alps. If it gets past AI each reviewer has to decide where their line as. What is a Great View and what is just a View.
I know this sounds none committal but that is just the way it is with Benches (and other nominations).
Ps. It’s way past my bedtime 
(UK) so will take a look at any other questions tomorrow, I am sure others will have given answers before then.
Thanks again for your replies. No need to take this further. I do greatly appreciate your response and the others in the thread, and you have definitely changed my view of the community. However, while I was very excited to contribute and hopefully help improve some gameplay gaps in my community, the process still seems to be rigged against player contributions, that part I still don’t understand. I will leave it alone and maybe the wayfarer process will improve and be more rewarding in the future. Thanks again for your help
When you submit wayspot, sometimes you got rejection. Whether you got rejection by AI or community, you can appeal them. You have 2 appeal, each with 15days cooldown. You can appeal from wayfarer submission page. Niantic staff will review them. I suggest you to appeal rejected nomination which you think have biggest chance. If even appeal got rejected, you can post your nomination here in forum to ask people opinion. Sometimes(but not always) niantic staff might reverse the appeal decision and accept the appeal (depending on your submission)
I’ve been having a lot of “fun” too with a series of benches installed in a nature reserve and the automated process has rejected a lot of them, so I know how you feel! Don’t blame the automated process fully though, because often the community review process can also be quite frustrating 
I have more success with viewpoints marked by a bench than “just a bench”. Keep coming back here, we can definitely help you find good options to submit and hopefully ease some of the frustration (or just understand it and sympathise!)