May I ask please, do you know who makes the decision on whether a stop is approved or not? Can the player making the submission get to find out who is making the decision?
When you make a nomination, it will stay in queue for around 24 hours so that you can check and edit text. You can put it on hold if you want to be sure it doesn’t release before you are ready.
At around 20-24 hours after you submit, the “automated process” - an ML (machine learning ai) model - can reject it.
If the ML model does not reject it, then it will usually go into community review,* which is review by other explorers just like you, and the status will show as “in voting.” The decision email will say “the community” in the body of the message.
Your nomination could also be sent to in house review for staff to decide directly. This will show “Under Review” (or something like that) with a Niantic balloon. The email for these decisions will reference “our team.” There is nothing to worry about if this happens, as it is standard procedure for them to directly review some nominations.
*The nomination can spend more time in “In queue” status after the ML model check. That length of time varies. When I read over what I had written, I realized that it sounded like it went directly into voting.
That survey marker does not look like a destination for exploring. And it’s not a trail marker for exercising.
It looks like it’s mass produced (even if the detail numbers vary), and put every 100 meters (or some distance), to mark land ownership or utilities or something. You even said “I could see other very similar waypoints used just like this one”. I think they’re not made for passersby to even notice. I would mark it as not distinct.
Aahh thanks for this!
I look at as many submissions as I can & if I recognise the area, I will go through it & progress/reject.
If you don’t know the area, do you trust what is being submitted & make a decision on what you can see & read?
Like I noted earlier, we are asked to use our best judgment. Most of the areas I review I have never been to, or maybe don’t know that much about. So, I do my best to fully research the submission before deciding to accept or reject.
Keep in mind that it is the burden of the submitter to prove that a nomination meets criteria, so even if you get something that seems like it does, make sure to do a little research as a reviewer. I think many of us have gotten what appears to be a good nomination only to find an issue, such as it being on K-12 school grounds, having a 3rd party photo for the main photo, not being at the location the submitter says it’s at, etc.
See the links that I provided in this post if you need further info:
You use the information provided by the submitter and what you can see in the review to make the best decision you can. You will be provided with a pin on Google Maps showing the location where they submitted it. There is a balance between trusting what the submitter has presented, and trying to verify that what they said could be true.
For example, just because I can’t see something on Google Maps does not mean I should reject the nomination. But it is on the submitter to convince me that it could be there. They can prove it with their supporting photo, and/or links confirming the point of interest is there. If I am not sure, I can rate it “I don’t know” under accuracy. I would only reject for location if I can clearly tell that it cannot be there.
So I do
but i don’t completely
Some easy tools…
If you click/tap the proposed Wayspot’s title, it’ll open a new tab with a Google search on those words. Not helpful for “Church Playground”, but helpful for something distinct, like “Birthplace of President Fulmore”.
Also, you can click the Google logo on the map, and it’ll open a new tab with maps.google giving the same view. If the nomination has a place name on the map, click it and it’ll show the website associated with that place. Helpful for many things, for example, whether the church has a school that meets there. Or if the restaurant is still open.
Also you can right-click on a picture nominated, and use Google lense to do a reverse search - to see if maybe the picture was stolen from somewhere else. Like maybe the apartment website shows the pool.
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its pretty fun using the street view in the maps part. Most times i can clearly see what/where the landmark are, and sometimes it seems like a older google pic so i try match their supporting image with the google image to confirm its the same location just with a updated touch. And if i cant match location after all that i just say “i dont know”
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Sorry for the delay in replying, I’m in the UK, and it was bed time for me ha ha
I’m very grateful for all the advice!
Thanks soo much!