Not Permanent?

General Discussion
21

yeah, might have gone a little too far on this, but I had my share of those people in real life as well as here on the platform (in form of false warnings towards me when it should have been to voters).

Im just very frustrated about this, and I really feel Niantic should do something about this.

We were discussing in my community that it would be useful (and awesome) to have a “Hike trail challenge” where people could learn how to properly submit them, how they should be rated in general, whats an easy accept, whats a weaker candidate wich would need a bit more consideration, why trail maps are important… all those things.

And I stand by my statement that people who repeatedly reject Hike Trails should be warned, and if they don’t change their abusive behaviour, banned from wayfarer. I dont see any issue with that, it would be the same for people who Auto-reject playgrounds or statues.

This having to walk every trail i want to submit three times before its done frustrates me. A lot. And justifiably so. Noone would accept to walk to the same playground two or three times just because some people in the community decide they dont want playgrounds as wayspots. Why should we hikers accept that we are treated this way? I feel its disrespectful. anyways, im getting angry and frustrated on this topic. I let it rest for today. have fun discussing :wink:

1 Like
22

If I anticipate your Nickname correct when sometimes meet on an Trail between LDK and MKK and rant half the day about those persons together.

It was the last I was trying to giving my negative feelings to someone else with this raised issue. Try to see it positive you are not alone there are other people outthere that feel the same about this specific issue wich is hard to understand for non hikers sometimes.

Have nice day and hopefully an enjoyable hike tomorrow on 1. of may.

1 Like
23

I have admitted several times on here that I am one of those people :frowning:

In the early days before I had read much of the forums I would reject the “Arrows” as not distinct.

I quickly found on the forums that they are eligable (at least if not over done) but I could not get past my bios so now I “Skip” them. This way I am not causing them to be rejected.

Now the “Welcome to ABC Trail” signs at the start / end points and the information boards “You are here, look out for the following wildlife…” are a different matter and If I see evidence there are legit points I will vote on them.

24

Skipping is fine I do this myself with some stuff reoccurring regularly.

And yes it depends in an already crowded city these signs are not necessary but in wood and open field where nothing is around I like them a lot to bring people out of their hometown a bit.

25

I am probably in the sweet spot, walk one way I am in fields / woods, the other I am in the town center.

I am also relatively new to PoGo (2 years) and I am not one of the “I must have all the pokemon”.

Due to health issues I am not going to be doing any 40 mile hikes anytime soon but I do use local 2 mile local walks for exercise. With this I will pass approx 10 stops and 5 gyms which is plenty for me.

I just see that SOME people seem to be using the simple arrows so they can walk a short distance and get masses of items.

I am more in the quality not quantity camp…

26

Totally agree with the Quality over quantity at some point in the old part of town we got serval intresting Spots there an arrow makes no sense.

Bit if you live there n newer parts with only family homes and even intresting garden installations get rejected people get bored. Before we started to enter some hiking rout spots the closest spot was nearly an mile away. And we walk a lot but back then we often reached home wich close to empty bag and been not able to catch some stuff in the evening. Now we can go on an short route every evening and spin three Stops two times and this problem is solved. There are still parts of our Hometown were no stops at all apear or an single playground at the end of an cell is the gym with now spot in 10 Minutes walk distance so you place a mon at the gym and sometimes it sits there for 20 days cause nobody will go there..

I just play for close an year now and try to make the Local community move more around in town make some stops to remote gyms and make it more interesting for everyone.

Before we had one Hotspot middle of town were all the Raiders meet and it was the only comfortable place to play. Now its much better.

27

Well, maybe i can convince you otherwise.

You see, the first thing you need to know is that you are not voting for a Trailmaker, but for the Trail itself, wich is a valuable permanent installment to get people to excercise and explore together.

Its like when people make a picture of the entrance sign of a park Area. The sign itself isn’t interesting at all and should not be a wayspot, but it serves as an anchorpoint for the Area where a wayspot can be placed down. Same is true for Trailmarkers.

For people who don’t like to go hiking, they’re just stickers, little pastic plaques or small paintings that dont look particulatly appealing and even mass produced. But for Hikers, they are valuable orientation points they can spot from afar to stay on their trail and know their path. Also each trail has their own unique colored symbol to refer to it, so plaques, stickers and painted signs aren’t mass produced at all, but unique to their respective trails and can only be found there. They serve a valuable purpose and make hike trails visible in the real world, so everybody can enjoy them.

Rejecting them is like rejecting fitness stations because you don’t like fitness and to you, those are just ugly metal installments with no artistic value.

Simple Arrows are rarely real Trailmarkers though. Trailmarkers normally have a symbol of the trail on them (wich needs to be verified with a source linked in the supporting info) or the trail name on them.

Another thing you say bothers me a little: You seem to think you have to decide how many wayspots can be in a certain Area, but thats actually not the case. The Amount of wayspots in an Area is nothing that should influence your decisonmaking normally (unless someone is spamming trailmarkers of the same trail every 100 metres or so).

Its fine that you don’t need lots of wayspots. But if there are eligible things in a forested Area, like hike trails, theres no need to be against that. Just like you don’t accept a Rock beside the road in a small village just because there are no other wayspots around, to make the opposite argument.

I think people need to understand that the density of wayspots is nothing that a reviewer has to decide about. “No pokestops around, please accept” is no reason to accepting a Wayspot (quite the opposite, actually) as well as too many spots in an Area is no reason to not allow other, new, criteria abiding spots there. This is simply nothing we as a community have to decide, it is not how the criteria is intended. You wouldn’t decline a nice playground just because “theres already enough stuff in the Area”, and you shouldn’t decline a hike trail just because you think in a forested Area two or three Wayspots per square mile is enough.

Also I strongly oppose Hike trails beeing “low quality”. Hike trails are very good wayspots, as they encourage exploring and sport in groups (all three of the acceptance criteria). This is what is important for a wayspot, not that they’re nice to look at.

When reviewing wayspots, such personal preference should not decide what we vote for or not.

For example, I personally am not a religious person, and therefore can not see the value of a religious community building for wayfarer purposes at all. I could see a beautiful church for its artistic value, but i can not see how a gathering room of a religious group encourages beeing social, as no one not sharing that belief is all to welcome there. Still, I can see that for religious people (and some others too) those places are important to socialize, so I accept them no matter if they’re beautiful buildings or just backyard praying rooms.

Same is true for Hike trails: You personally might not be much of a hiker, but you should understand, that for hikers, those are valuable places to excercise, be social and explore.

So thats my two cents on the matter. I hope you get my point.

Also i want to say that I can appreciate you not decling them anymore and just skip them (if you like to reject some, theres plenty of them submitted without map or verfication of the trail sign that are easy rejects - go for it!), but I think from what you are writing you are willing to learn and broaden your views if you get good arguments to do so, so i felt it was a good Idea to provide you with some.

28

Just to add it:

some people live in a House where they can reach multiple Spots from their couch.

Should those spots be removed because others don’t have that luxury? I think not.

Also you could just go to the town center and fill up yout item bag easily (some just drive there and pollute the environment just to colloect items, not to excercise and be social). Its not what I think is cool behavior, but i’m also not the one who has to ration items for people or decide, when and where theyre allowed to get them. This is not the purpose of wayfarer. We don’t need to force people into certain behavior, just to rate the wayspots they submit based on the criteria. And if someone happens to live in a house where they can reach 5, 6 or even 7 Pokestops, that’s just none of my business.

1 Like
29

I agree with so much of what you’ve said.
For so many years I’ve felt like I was risking my rating by voting positively for trail PoIs and I love that they’ve been mentioned as being examples of great places to exercise now in critieria clarifications. I really feel they are great candidates for all 3 criteria

If people don’t like them, they dont have to nominate any, but don’t reject/skip stuff just because you dont like it, that’s not fair and not what Niantic want. You need a better reason to skip/reject than personally not liking the category of PoI!

1 Like
30

As stated, these are my opinions and I am aware that they are not the wayfarer rules.

In that case it could be argued that these are duplicates as they are all for the trail???

Again, in my opinion I would not nominate multiple signs plus the park itself but it happens.

I do like hiking, current health issues mean that smaller walks on hard surface are easier for me.

I have seen many nominations that are just “carry on” half way along the only path…

If you have a 40 mile hike, how many “Left”, “Right” and “Straight ons” would they be.

As stated, I do not reject. I “Skip” them. Just because I am not a fan I am not going to stop others from voting if they wish to.

I have stated elsewhere that it would not upset me if Niantic changed the rules and did have a max limit of ocupied L17 cells in each L14 cell but they are not the rules.

I am not against wayspots, it’s just my opinion that there are too many of the “Not Distinct Arrows”. Most trails will have an information board at the Beginning / End. Larger trails may even have distinct sections such a “Riverside Section” or “Big Hill section” which may have their own information boards plus the “What wildlife is in this area” / “locations of demolished industrial buildings” signs. I see these have 1000% more interesting.

Nothing in the rules state that we must Vote on every review we get, that is why there is a Skip button.

Not at the moment :frowning:
When I did i took more notice of a route plan / map then the “Arrows” which I found to be too risky due to missing / completely faded / overgrown.

Agreed but I never once called out “Hey everyone, come and have a look at this plastic arrow” :slight_smile:

Think we have both given several Dollars :slight_smile:

It’s now automatic, see the arrow, click skip.
As stated they are many that don’t have verification, those that do may confirm the trail passes the location but no evidence that the marker is there.
Me skipping may slow down the result slightly but they are all going to get the result at some point.

As a final note, I have read many of your posts and I can see that you are passionate about your trails and markers and me avoiding certain types of these is not an attack on you personally.

I would feel an hypocrite if I had stated in several posts that I personally have a distaste for certain types of markers but still vote on them just for the numbers…

31

I got that you are not rejecting them blindly, wich I personally would call abusive reviewing, but that you are skipping them. That is totally fine with me, what I tried to do is provide you with information on where the community (and Niantic) stays on this topic generally.

To your argument that multiple wayspots on the same trail should be considered duplicates, the community had lots of lengthy discussion involving Ambassadors and Niantic staff before we got were we are now (those happened way before my time, but members of my local community where involved).
Hike trails are not like most wayspots, as they’re not at one distinct place, but cover long stretches, and therefore it was decided that a single Hike trail can have multiple wayspots.
As stated before in this thread, Niantic has decided in this Forum (on a single spot, so thats not a fix rule) that a hike trail can be marked about every 200 metres. That’s a good rule of thumb in my opinion. Multiple Trailmarkers in the same trail are not considered abuse or violation of the rules, as it is logical for a hike trail to follow a certain path, and to mark this path in wayfarer with multiple wayspots is the best and most logical way to do it. This is not just my personal opinion, but the outcome of a lot of deep and thorough discussions here on the Forums regarding this topic.

Of course, Information Boards are cool. But not every trail has them, and they’re good wayspots on their own, even if not bound to a hike trail. Trails themselves are more than infoboards, wich encourage just exploring, they are about beeing social and to excercise, wich infoboards do not encourage at all. Those are different things, even if they belong together, just like picnic tables and statues in a park can be wayspots even if the park itself is a wayspot.

I think I want to pick this one out: As stated, its not about the Marker, but the trail. I would certainly tell people: “Look, theres an awesome hike trail here, it leads over there and then to this or that destination”. We are not talking about “plastic arrows”. It totally misses the point of what those hike trails are. And its also a poor way of washing away good arguments by belittleing and glossing over them and ignoring them to just keep believing what you already do.

I also don’t really get your fixation on “arrows”. Theres a lot of ways trails can be marked. Arrows are just one of them. In my country, germany, you rarely see any arrows, but colorful signs, stickers and painted markers with fix symbols for each trail.

Wich leads me to something else: Trailmarkers are not the same in every part of the world. We in germany (and most of europe actually) keep good care of our trails, so they are always safe to walk and damaged signs will always be replaced by trained volunteers who are obliged to walk their assigned trails at least once a month to check on them to be safe to walk and be marked properly. In other countries, trails might not be in that good of a shape, trailmarkers might be missing or damaged and stay that way, trails might not be walkable because they are overgrown or otherwise damaged. You should know your local Area a little to know if Hike trails are safe to walk and marked properly where you live. If Hike trails are in general unsafe to walk and poorly marked in your Area, they would rarely meet the criteria and should therefore not be accepted. That’s what personal judgement means. There is no definitve answer on each hike trail in every part of the world. Each one has to be judged on their own merit.

You see, i get your personal distaste, and therefore I have no problem at all for you to skip them in voting. I’m not attacking you for that, nor do I want to get personal with you. My intention was to provide you with knowledge that might change your mind, wich I sadly seem to have failed at doing.
If you really feel that much of a disgust for a certain type of wayspot, skipping is certainly the best way to go about it.

I think there is no further fruitful argument to be made here, just two opinions, and i find opinions generally boring. I like arguments. Because they can bring a discussion forward end encourage learning from each other, while having an opinion is nice, its not much of a discussion to just look at each others opinions without intention to learn, grow or understand each other more. Its actually the oppisite, and I feel our friendly clash of opions here is hindering the discussion happening more than it benefits it and takes away attention from the topic at hand, wich another user has posted for a reason and should not be overshadowed. So I’ll leave it here.

32

I will also make this my final post on the matter.

I have probably done the discussion (and myself) a disservice as it’s not a distaste for trail markers, just a distaste for a certain type “the dreaded arrows” :slight_smile:

I am reviewing in the UK and there is definately a massive amount of them. I can quite easily go through 10 reviews and 8 will be the arrows. :frowning:

I have also seen too many where it has faded so much no writing / logo is visible, ones that are broken so all you have is 1/8th of the disc and a dis-coloured circle on the wood. :frowning:

I did go through the following…

  • Reject as not distinct (as I didn’t know then)
  • Will accept when I did think it was suitable but majority where bad such as Title: Trail Marker. Description: A marker along the trail. Extra: Trail markers are eligable so should be accepted plus need more stops in this area. Paraphrased but I have had this several times. :slight_smile:
  • Too much grief. I am going to skip.

Just to confirm I have read and do understand your comments and agree with most of them, just in my review area they seem to be excesive and seem to include a large percentage of the bad nominations.

Thanks for listening…

2 Likes
33

I’m breaking my own word to end this in a friendly and productive way, as i always try to:

I don’t know the UK situation, but taking what you describe serious:
It seems pretty horrid, yes. And I would defintiely reject nominations like those you mentioned.

We in germany also have lots of bad nominations with bad titles, bad supporting infos and bad photos. I think rejecting those is certainly justified, not because hike trails are bad wayspots, but because those individual submissions are badly made.

This is a different argument from how to rate trailmarkers in general. Of course, lazy nominations shouldn’t be accepted, and also, as I said, the local situation should be taken into account. If you need a bushknife to follow a hike trail, its not good for a wayspot, that’s for certain. And if trailmarkers (and trails) aren’t properly kept in shape, that also something to consider.

So I do understand you better now. As you provided info and arguments that I can work with, not just opinions. And I don’t think our opions differ too much, we just have very different local circumstances. I think you’d like german hike trails, actually, and i think if the situation is like you describe, wich i just decided to believe for the case of the argument (as i do not actually know), I might even feel the same as you, even knowing and believing everything I do now.

I’d even understand if you keep rejecting those bad submissions, and it would be justified in my view. But that might hurt your rating in the Land of Postboxes and Plastic Arrows (just overexaggerting a little here), so i would feel as discouraged as you I think.

Edit: @Xenopus maybe, as this topic has taken a different path in the middle, it might be cool to split it into two topics? Just a thought, though.

34

The type of arrows I think that are being referred to are these

ylArU9XKQ4S9M6Jz2YLk8D4DVoTS8lcm0ILTQehNxKt6M7LpTvNQNfZf3gUp5GSKiy5kHm3UnTTphJCOo0BG3OR9LReU7JAAj3zQy10YcTHd-FX_ryuTa_NY7G1BXcTZAPaeDgFZmO9aMYS4SAcXLIo
ylArU9XKQ4S9M6Jz2YLk8D4DVoTS8lcm0ILTQehNxKt6M7LpTvNQNfZf3gUp5GSKiy5kHm3UnTTphJCOo0BG3OR9LReU7JAAj3zQy10YcTHd-FX_ryuTa_NY7G1BXcTZAPaeDgFZmO9aMYS4SAcXLIo239×322 35.3 KB

This is taken from the criteria clarification on trails and trail markers as acceptable.
I respect @SlimboyFat71 as they have been clear that they chose to skip. That is absolutely fine, and the right thing to do in the circumstances they describe.
To be clear nominations that are eligible, which trail markers such as this are, have to then be considered as “is it acceptable?”
Has the submitter made a good enough job of presenting the case for this point of interest on the map.
This is where a number of eligible nominations can fall down. The issue then is not of a poor reviewer, but of a poor submission.
There is no need to write a lot of irrelevant fluff about a simple trail marker, it is not designed to be an object where you stop and consider the beauty of that little yellow disc…..
But it helps you follow path - give its official name or number, describe what you will see on this trek across the fields through the town and into the woods.
I am very glad to see those humble discs as the route sometimes is not clear and I can see the overgrown stile.
It is a case of use you best judgement as to whether this is a good enough nomination :+1: or I don’t know. If the description or title or photo are just not up to scratch :-1:
If you can’t decide or are not prepared to vote then skip.

35

Just to clarify: I’m not saying that those english trails are not eligible, I just wanted to believe the user, that there are a lot of badly made submissions in their Area.

So I agreed that, if many people try to abuse the allowance of Hike trails to submit lazy submissions, or even fake ones, reviewing can become frustrating. Also I stated that the shape a trail is in can have an impact on how to rate a specific trail. Wich i think is legit.

Of course, I don’t think all english trails can’t be accepted, just wanted to meed the user halfway.

Just wanted to clear that out, as im still a strong supporter of hike trails beeing presented in wayfarer. And of course, markers are a minor point in how a trail should be rated, but sadly theyre also “the hot topic” on this issue, where discussions and clarifications are needed.

I too am aa bit frustrated by a lot of bad submissions without trail names, maps, proper description and supporting info. That doesn’t mean I don’t want hike trails to be submitted, theres also bad submissions on other wayspots as well. Just because Hike trails are pretty new and pretty unique, i also udnerstand that many people don’t know how to submit them, and I also see that, with time, nominations of trails in my country are getting better, as bad submissions get rejected often.

Also Trail markers do have some impact. If the user states, there are many broken plaques where the trail name can’t be read anymore, those are, imo, not good for wayspots, as one can not verify this marker belonging to a specific trail. I’d never submit a trailmarker that’s unreadable, just because it makes it impossible to verify to wich trail they belong. A bit damaged is fine, destroyed to the point its barely recognizeable is, in my opion, not.

My intention surely wasn’t to fall in the back of people like you faithfully subnmitting good nominations in england, I just wanted to try to understand the user’s frustration.

Im all on Team Hike Trail still :slight_smile:

And notw its time for pour 1st of may barbecue, followed by our traditional 1st of may Hike. sadly I have no submissions left, so i think today i’ll stick to a trail I already marked ^^

Have a nice Holiday (if england celebrates it, don’t know) and good hiking!

36

I am firmly on team trail markers - they are good and fundamentally get you exercising and exploring.
Enjoy summer hiking

1 Like
37

I think it’s reasonable to keep the comments here as it is still fairly on-topic to what the original question was? If OP is opposed to it or anything starts going badly we will intervene of course. And thanks all for the productive and respectful discussion. :hugs:

1 Like
38

I have to interject here as this is also a game utilization problem, not a Wayfarer criteria one. How each game utilizes wayspots are left to each app. If an app were to exclude particular points or limit a wayspot of each category per area, that is not an issue on eligibility. This quality of the map (how challenging it is) is left to each app’s algorithm currently. If you are concerned with this, it is better a suggestion left to the game team.

Strictly talking about Wayfarer, quality and quantity are not mutually exclusive. The quality should be measured by how well each wayspot fares as meeting the eligibility criteria. The quantity of these wayspots are relative to how many of those exist in the real world.

In places with lots of trails, each one of those does not lower the eligibility of another. IMO it goes to show that some regions are skewed towards doing particular leisure activities than others and have an abundance of said venues likely due to the demand and the want for variability.

2 Likes
39

As stated several times, these are just my opinions.

I don’t think that reviewers should just reject them.

I am aware that my views do not align with the rules that is why I use my right to Skip. I do not reject them as I am not trying to spoil the game for others.

I have explained the situation in my review area where I regular get batches where the majority of reviews are for the “Arrow” markers.

A lot of these can be difficult to review due to…

  • No map evidence due to location.
  • Poor descriptions / Extra Info (evidence).
  • Poor markers (100% faded / broken with only small amount remaining etc).

For these reasons I prefer to skip past them and get to other reviews where I will get more enjoyment.

2 Likes