Hi there,
I want to ask about a massive purge of pokestops in Kraków, Poland.
Most of the pokestops in the Main square disappeared.
Is this a work of some abuser or a controlled action by Niantic?
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Hello @pluszak90
As shocking and disappointing this is for your community, it is likely part of Niantics recent efforts to clean up past abuse.
Here is a similar thread where they confirm this:
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I heard that is work of toxic player, who shifts the blame on community ambasador.
It happend in a lot of diffent places.
Also made a topic about it, but still no answer back about the 2 that disappeared here.
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What else places? :o
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Hi @Gita, let’s avoid making assumptions or blaming specific individuals without evidence. If you believe there’s been any abuse, please report it using the Help Chat (chat bubble icon) by logging into your Wayfarer Account. Thank you!
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I don’t know other places where that happened but in krakow it’s true there is one toxic player who is doing that, I wish it was possible to somehow report him for this
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Welcome to the forum - read the post before yours:
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HI, @ pluszak90
The maps that we have seen with the “before” and “after” screenshots show that the Pokestops that were removed were in violation of the density rules of the S2 grids - that is, one Pokestop per L17 grid square. In the ‘before’ shots it looked like there were some grids there with not just one, but sometimes up to four active Pokestops.
How they got that way or how long they have been that way, we don’t know, but I can tell you from the comparisons and the geo data that the locals have shared in our chats that the updated map now reflects the density rules that the rest of the world plays with. Believe me they are just as mad about it as you are.
I think this is a case of your local players not knowing the rules of the game. The players making the reports of the manipulated waypoints geolocations are not the abusers; the players who cheated the system to increase density of Pokestops illegitimately were.
I am not accusing you of anything, I just think you should understand that you have been on the benefitting end of a coordinated and intentional effort that someone made to cheat at the game. While this may seem like a serious loss to your community, I think you should take a moment to reflect collectively and be glad that you were able to benefit from it for as long as you did.
Cheers!
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Hello @Studnicky,
After seeing your reply I read about those S2 and S17 grids you mentioned, and it seems like the amount of pokestops was in fact too big.
It seems like this purge was indeed a fair thing for Niantic to do.
I am not mad about it (I won’t speak for other players). It was just confusing, because of lack of any information and because it happened so suddenly.
It would be good if such info was in some way provided to local communities when things like that happen. Lack of information seems to cause a lot of tension and negativity in the community, and that’s why I reached for clarification on this platform.
Thank you for the reply!
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Nie chcę w tym miejscu pisać o działalności tej osoby bo i tak nie zostanie to w żaden sposób wysłuchane przez Niantic.
Ostatnio dużo miejsc w Świętokrzyskim zniknęło i można zakładać że to ta sama osoba dokonała zgłoszenia. Ta osoba jest znana dobrze większości graczy ze swojej działalności.
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Hello @Kuba12664
I’m sorry you have this feeling. It sounds like no fun.
But I don’t think it’s reasonable for that to be happening. Niantic does not accept all removal requests. They look them over in great detail before removing. It also seems unlikely that one person (even a multi account) could have this many places removed through individual reports.
It seems that Niantic is identifying abuse clusters and is having Pokémon Go reset using its own inclusion specific rules. This is not abuse.
But if you do have proof of abusive reporting you can use the form here to alert Niantic directly: Reporting Abuse in Wayfarer — Wayfarer Help Center
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Please be civilised on the forums.
As stated above by other comments, this action is only being taken because some people in your area cheated the system. It’s not like you’re being completely locked out of playing, you’re just having the rules enforced correctly after the cheaters messed your area up pretty badly.
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If you want to defend your meetup spots you should AR scan the waypoints together as a group. It’s very hard to file reports of waypoints being invalid if Naintic has a 3D map proving that they exist at the right spots.
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Same here in Riga, Latvia.
A lot of valid pokestops disappeared a couple of days ago, thought it was a bug at first but it seems to be more than that…
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Hello @NaotaXD13
Assuming that Niantic is cleaning up an abuse cluster in your area, you should see Pokespots and Gyms re-synching. But they now will follow the density rules established by Pokémon Go.
In the past people were taking advantage of a loophole with move edits not rechecking the density rules.
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AR scans have 0 effect on removal reports.
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Hello,
Community ambassador from Kraków here.
We lost our pokestops over two weeks ago. We are aware why this happened (even when there were only few cells with more than 1 pokestop…). But what is an estimated time when we will see them back? Because half of our play area is empty now.
Fortunately it didnt affect spawnpoints, so events like CDs are stil doable, but it had MASIVE IMPACT for todays Research Day.
There is another one in a month from today, so it would be really nice if we got them before that 
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How did you achieve the ambassador status if you dont understand rules of the game? You are and you should NOT get them back. They were wrongfully created by abusing the system. I know this the first hand since I visited Krakow in june for a week and I was amazed how many dense pokestop clusters there were, especially in old town and around Vavel castle. It was clear to anyone who knows the rules that they were made by cheating the system.
When you say you lost your Pokestops, do you mean they are ALL gone? The way I understand the abuse clean up by Niantic, is that within a few days Pokestops should repopulate based on the inclusion rules.
If there are NO stops at all this is a problem. Can you share a map of the area where there are no stops.