I submitted this Wayspot the other day, and upgraded the nomination. It sat in the queue for 24 hours or so before I received an email that it had been rejected with the text “Unfortunately, our team has decided not to accept your Wayspot nomination.” It is my understanding that text implies it was rejected by the ML system.
I have sent in an appeal, but I figured it would be prudent to see if anyone here could help out with suggestions to keep from hitting this in the future. In reading this morning, I did see a suggestion to use less subjective language in the description, so I have already noted that in case I need to resubmit later.
I don’t see stage or seating for an amphitheater. Just because you COULD have a show there, doesn’t make it an amphitheater.
It just looks like a generic grass field. No way that’ll get past ML.
But you can appeal it with links to the park it’s part of. Try your city website to see if they boast about it. Maybe a news article about an event there.
I advise against upgrading before ML gets its shot. Wait 48 hours from when you hit “Submit”. (IOW, time on your phone as “Upload Later” is time that’s ticking the clock.)
If a nomination is going to be rejected by the ML model, it is usually around the 20-24 hour mark, so I definitely would not apply until after that time. But I would wait a couple of days at least anyway even without considering ML rejection before applying an upgrade. There is a grace period that fluctuates somewhere from 1-7 days where a nomination just won’t go into voting even with an upgrade, so there is no delay in waiting.
This honestly just does not look like an amphitheater. A field sure, but is it in a park or sports complex? Without goals, posts, signage, etc, it’d be hard to prove it isn’t just a green space with no identifiable purpose.
Others are explaining that we aren’t seeing an amphitheater, so that is probably why the ML model rejected it - it only detected trees and grass and not a recognizable point of interest. I hope you sent proof with your appeal that this is what this is.
This is fantastic information, thank you. I couldn’t find any info like that when searching before, this will certainly be helpful in the future!
These replies, and the rest of you pointing it out are correct: it’s is a recessed field area with slopes for seating around the sides - no actual permanent seats (yet, anyways!) Perhaps I’m stretching the word “amphitheater” more than the ML would expect, as I was thinking about it more in the terms of how the wikipedia page describes it:
How you’ve explained what the ML might not be seeing what it’s expecting makes great sense, it doesn’t know words after all, haha.
Given that it is a significant area for our small community, how else might you title a submission like this in a way that the ML (and would-be community reviewers) would more readily expect?
Don’t do this if you are concerned about revealing your location, but it would help us understand what this is and looks like on the map if you could give us an address or gps coordinates to check out.
Okay, I hate to say this, but I don’t have any great suggestions. There doesn’t seem to be anything manmade you can focus on as an anchor for the wayspot.
If this field is listed as a community amenity somewhere that you can link in your supporting statement, that would help. If your appeal is rejected and you want to try again, call it the same thing they call it there.
If there isn’t anything, I have used “open field” for something like this, with a photo when soccer goals were set up for the main photo, and a link to the town’s website saying the park has an “open field.”
I am sure that this is very important to the community, but big fields like this are difficult to get accepted without signs.
You’re spot on about not having a good anchor. (Given the size of the community, I’d wager they would even complain about trying to budget for a sign )
I will keep all of your advice in mind as this goes forward.
Thanks so much for all the effort you’ve put into helping me out!
It shows up in PoGo as a power spot occasionally, though. I am not sure how that system interacts with the standard submitted Wayspots though, so I haven’t submitted anything about it, fearing it may just qualify as a “duplicate?”
The powerspot imports are so weird to explain. They are imported from a database, and even though they show up with the toggle on in the nomination map screen as a ! they are not part of Lightship and can be submitted. Usually the giveaway for these is that there is no photo. If it looks like this there, then I would try to submit it.
It gets even weirder since other Wayspots that are in Lightship also can be used as Powerspots, and those can’t be submitted but those will usually have a photo: