We’re repeatedly being told across multiple avenues that wayspots must be “original” or “significant” or “unique” or not “normal” or “generic”. We’re seeing wayspots that are none of these things and meet 1 or more of the 3 key criteria being removed from the game map. We’re seeing appeals of nominations the community would widely agree are eligible and acceptable being rejected for these reasons.
And yet Niantic’s own reviewers are approving the garbage posted above. And not only that but we are unable to remove these ineligible wayspots:
https://community.wayfarer.nianticlabs.com/t/invalid-wayspot-report-rejected-the-mens-warehouse/6682/25
This is an unacceptable state of affairs and must be addressed.
We need consistency now. Pick a side.
Are these types of nominations eligible? Then write criteria that allows for that.
Are they ineligible? Then allow us to remove them, especially when it’s your internal review teams deciding for all of us that they should forever be on the map.
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Jinkies this is frustrating…
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Hi public! Some of that wayspots were shared by me besides a long list with other examples 
I could add many neighborhood signs and memorial benches with plaques to this list, but this is a great start.
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And yet our trail markers are rejected/removed for being generic and not significant 
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So frustrating, that’s for sure!
Oh, I love when submitters try to disguise the chain business in some way. I think my favorites are when they try to nominate painted logos inside as art. Ugh…
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I don’t think any of these were disguised in any way, nor was the reviewer particularly deceived.
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I’m just expressing one of my reviewing pet peeves. No, that star painting is not art; it’s the logo for Carl’s Jr/Hardee’s inside the restaurant.
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@tehstone One of those POI’s looks eerily familiar… 
Zoink! Some are just bad and then they create other bad nominations by example.
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This happens a lot while reviewing, I flag most of them as inappropriate using the generic business option.
Still, Wayspots are accepted by reviewers so technically niantic is not the one to blame for these nominations existing. Maybe we can report them but sometimes it’s hard to get them removed once they are accepted.
Here are some examples of ineligible boring wayspots I have found and I wonder if they can be removed for that reason.
Pilar
This pilar has nothing special, it’s just a pole existing.
P14 Stone Monoliths
This one is just a concrete cube that has nothing special as you can see here. This one and the 1st also have terrible quality photos.
Circulo Rojo
Most of the times these nominations are accepted because they ask others to approve them and also because at least in the cases i’m exposing, people posses more than one account both in Ingress and PoGO
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Still, Wayspots are accepted by reviewers so technically niantic is not the one to blame for these nominations existing.
Niantic has been reviewing Wayspot submissions for most of the history of Wayfarer, and they’re reviewing now more than ever (both with their AI and human staff). I’m willing to bet that most of these Wayspots were approved by Niantic, since apparently they have a hard time training their staff.
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This post is specifically about wayspots reviewed by Niantic staff.
This will always be an issue and highlights a major problem in the current criteria and AI assistance.
What’s relevant, unique and interesting in one country isn’t necessarily the same in another. But the system doesn’t adjust for different locations.
So at the moment, the UK is being spammed with Fish and Chip shop nominations and generic bench plaques.
The bench plaques are very annoying as they contain personal information. Usually commemorating the life (death) of a non public figure. Issue is, there are so many of these in almost every town. By default, they are becoming less unique and should be rejected anyway based on their content.
But plaques commemorating a key community member in other locations can be unique and interesting, so the current system favouring plaques is good for these areas.
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Always been an issue?
Most of the dead people benches I see are pre Wayfarer.
The cultural point makes sense though. Dress For Less and Auto Spares are much more relevant to somewhere like… India.
This type of acceptance by niantic absolutely pre-dates the ML reviewing. In fact i don’t think any of the ones i posted were recent enough to be ML.
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idk if anyone remembers Newer Starbucks I posted about on the old forum.
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Wait… is that the description?
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