Would you mind sharing screenshots of the rest stop and little free library and the text you included with both?
I will say, you really should’ve read the criteria properly before submitting some random rocks and a generic street light.
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I can’t find a copy of it anywhere to check right now, but this wording does sound familiar as a standard email they send listing examples of activities that could be considered abuse. If it is that one, it isn’t trying to say that you did all of those things.
I have received the “opportunity to learn from mistakes” email, and totally get that the emails are scary, and the answers are less than reassuring. I like it when the reply to my response is “Please disregard the warning notification,” because that is clear.
From the examples you have posted, it does seem like you do need to review criteria if you do ever decide you want to submit again. If you would like to post here in Nomination Support to see if we see any criteria issues if you are considering a new nomination, we would be happy to help. But I completely understand if you don’t want to participate.
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Hello,
The reasons you have given sounds like the standard bullet list which simply states it could be one of these.
I don’t think it’s a well worded email as we repeatedly get people posting here who read it as that is what they have been accuse of.
I too have had one of these and the language used is unpleasant to receive.
From the examples you have been kind enough to share I do agree that you need some assistance. I can also see why you are finding the wayfarer experience frustrating. We all had to go through a learning process so there are many here happy to help.
If you are able to create a pokestop or gym it is a very satisfying feeling.
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It’s possible that some reviewers viewed all the game references in your Supporting Info as trying to influence reviewers. It is irrelevant whether this would make a great Pokestop, gym or route. Your supporting should explain why your nomination is a great place to exercise, socialize, and/or explore - already, for people who don’t play online games.
Also there’s context we don’t have… did you nominate the same thing over and over? Or nearly identical things, like different street lights? By the time I got to reviewing 3 or 4 of the same thing, I’d be marking them abuse.
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Whilst there are many legitimate reasons for rejection (as the good people here point out) there are also those who wish to prevent new wayspots in places they consider “enemy territory” - or reject reports when they are helping a teammate keep a wayspot near their property.
Appealing often has no effect, as the appeals go to people who play the games.
This is based on me:
Submitting wayspots on 4 continents and having most accepted, but then finding every single one in specific locations has to be appealed.
Spending 5 years getting one portal removed when it was literally a picture of a private garden.
Spending several years getting others removed for similar reasons.
Spending 4 years (so far) reporting a bird box on a telegraph pole, which is behind a fence in a private garden) (and may not even exist any more as a tree has grown around it)
Dont give up. The community is mostly good and honest, but be aware that it might not be a problem with your submissions.
Perhaps I’m misunderstanding what you mean, but for clarity sake:
Appeals (Nomination appeals and removal request appeals) go to Niantic staff. They often play but may not be dedicated players to one, more, or all of Niantic’s games. They may or may not be local to your region or even continent.
They do get things wrong and it’s really easy to point out their mistakes.
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This is not true. Appeals go to offical Niantic Reviewers. The community of players have no say in appeals.
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I can possibly see where Niantic thinks you are creating fake submissions, which is considered abuse, as neither of these meet any criteria.
Natural features and regular infrastructure, like what you nominated, can be seen all over so many different areas of the world; there’s some rock landscaping and light posts in front of the building I live in, for example. They aren’t worth exploring, being social at, and I don’t see them meeting the exercise criteria either.
Wayfarer is looking for unique places where you can be social at, get in some exercise, or explore in your community, not places that are indistinct and generic around the world. There are a good list of examples in the eligibility criteria section:
You may want to review Wayspot criteria as well, to make sure you are nominating places that do meet criteria and are not ineligible:
Reviewing criteria will also help with how you review, not just submit. There is also info on how to review Wayspots and edits here:
I think we can all understand wanting more Wayspots, especially in sparse areas. However, there are guidelines and criteria that has to be followed, so not everything in our world is eligible. I’d love for my building to have something eligible, like a playground or a dog park, but it doesn’t, so no Wayspot right where I live.
I tried to be very clear, and I think you understand. Any misunderstanding would be a difference of opinion based on how appeals are processed and by whom. My opinion is based on the experience I’ve had, and the knowledge garnered from players in the region.
I have certainly pointed out mistakes before now, but I have never seen them corrected.
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To be clear: players/ex-players in my area are (some of/all of) the official NIA reviewers
While they may reviewers, reviewing is limited to nominations and edits in the community voting.
Appeals are not sent to the community for review. They are processed by our in-house team, always and every time. Hope this clears the confusion.
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I’m convinced that you are absolutely sure that what you are saying is 100% accurate.
I also know for a fact that in my area it is not.
Many of my local teammates have tried to raise this concern with NIA over the past several years, to no avail. I see little point in rehashing it here, I was merely trying to help the OP understand why they might not be as successful as they expected.
Also, the in-house Niantic team reviews removal requests, abuse reports, more than just appeals.
On some occasions, for quality control purposes, the Niantic team may pull new nominations and edits from the community queue and resolve them, which is listed as Under Review in Contribution Management.
The review community only sees new nominations fir Wayspots, as well as new edit suggestions, such as a new title edit or photo submission.
ML usually gets the 1st look at anything new. If ML doesn’t make a decision, it moves on to be reviewed by humsns, usually the review community, but in some instances, by staff.
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It’s not possible at all.
Are you sure you’re talking about appeals?
“And yet it moves” Galileo 1633
There is no point continuing this here, as I said, you’re convinced of your truth.
Feel free to have someone contact me if they really wish to investigate the abuse in NR02-JULIET-06. But I’ll be shocked if anyone does, as we have always been palmed off up until now. The last time was after a portal on a military base was illegitimately removed, and later restored after a lot of hard work from my teammates - and no one at NIA would tell us why it was originally removed.
Could you show one example where an appeal was sent to the community for review?
Are you saying that appeals went to the community to review, or that these community members are employed by Niantic to review appeals?
I don’t think you have a good understanding of how Wayfarer works.
Step 1. Players from either Pokemon GO or Ingress submit a wayspot through their game.
Step 2. Machine Learning processes the submission.
a. Some are rejected immediately because they don’t meet the eligibility criteria according to the model (some reasons we will never fully understand).
b. Some are accepted immediately by the ML processor. (This has been turned off for now.)
c. Some go to the community to review.
d. Some go to internal Niantic review.
Step 3a. The community of other Wayfinders (people like you and i who play Niantic games) spend their free time reviewing submissions from all over their region and country. It takes some unknown number of community members to agree to accept, reject, or mark the submission as a duplicate.
Step 3b. Internal Niantic reviewers are employees who perform reviews. Their votes count as the final answer to accept, reject, or duplicate.
Step 4. If the community rejected your submission, you can appeal it to the Internal Niantic reviewers. You write an additional statement about why it meets criteria. Those Appealed decisions do not go back to the community. Once an answer has been given on an Appeal, it is meant to be the final answer. In some case, the Internal reviewer may tell you to make improvements and submit a new version. This will go back to step 1.
Step 5. Approved nominations may or may not show up in your game, depending on whether they meet that game’s inclusion rules.
Your locals are participating in Step 3a, the same way all of us on the forum are.
The person you are arguing with WORKS AT NIANTIC. I promise you they know more about how it all works than you do.
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Would like to add that a resubmission is different from an appeal.
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Could you please try to understand that I am not talking about community reviews.