Over the past 2-3 weeks, 50+ of the famous/infamous NYC ‘Antique’ emergency call boxes have been removed, mostly from quieter/more suburban areas of Brooklyn/Queens. Love them or hate them (I think they’re kinda mid), they were at least accepted by the community. I’m curious if these deletions are central actions by the Wayfarer team or the result of a targeted effort to report them by one or more individual players. If the latter, might I suggest that a better use of that energy might be to go around the city in search of cool new things to add?
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I’m not in NYC, but I think there was a previous discussion either here or on the Wayfarer forums on Vanilla that these don’t meet criteria as they’re not a good place to explore, socialise or exercise.
As for someone cleaning up the map, I don’t see a problem with that. Maybe you could use your energy to find better things to nominate to replace them?
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Hello and welcome,
I’m also not in NYC, but it’s possible it could be either Wayfarer or users that are requesting removal. I think staff would only know for sure, especially since it’s not uncommon for Wayfarer to clean up certain areas of Wayspots that may no longer meet criteria.
None of the removed waypoints are in my local neighborhood. I’ve used plenty of my energy and personal time to add things to the map in my area or in places I’ve visited. I’ve come across lots of dubious waypoints here and there as I’ve traveled but I’ve never been motivated to report something harmless.
From appearances, if this isn’t a Wayfarer team action (which, their map, they get to do that) then it looks like an individual wayfarer or wayfarers going out of their way to visit multiple different neighborhoods just to remove rather than add. It just seems churlish.
I’ve rejected many many call boxes through reviews. I’m not particularly defending them as nominations. But I’m hearing from many friends who live in these areas and suddenly have less to do. Congratulations on your pristine game board that is now less engaging for folks to play?
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I just want to emphasize that only the Wayfarer team can remove wayspots. They usually do so at the request of an individual, but only after confirming that the item is worthy of removal. Unless it’s a property owner request, which wouldn’t be the case with something as far spread out as these, they don’t just comply like robots when someone asks to remove a wayspot.
Now, could the person have misrepresented the reason the wayspots should be removed? Maybe. But, again in this case, these were not strong contenders to begin with. They were probably accepted based on the “more is better” philosophy and once a few were accepted, locals declared they were 100% eligible and people just clicked accept without thinking about why. I’ve never understood how these meet criteria.
Keep up your good work of submitting things and noticing when something fishy might be going on. I don’t think that’s the case here, but it’s not a bad thing that you asked.
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People find joy in maintaining an accurate map, whether thats through fresh submissions, edits and/or removals. Coming here trying to shame someone is very petty when you dont know if maybe the person has a great submission history, but even if not, nothing wrong with reporting things that meet removal criteria. Specially when a community goes rogue submitting and approving them with false claims that they are inactive.
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I want to add that after Roli and I chatted about these, I found proof that these are supposed to be functional. So any claims that they block emergency services are legitimate and these should not be wayspots.
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Doesn’t this claim suffer from a logical problem?
If you gather in front of a firehouse, any emergency response in the area is impeded. You are delaying access to the service.
People are allowed to gather in normal public spaces whether there’s an emergency call box present or not. Anyone can holler “Fire! Somebody pull the alarm!”, pull it themself, or just use their cell phone. To a certain extent, more people present means the call is placed more quickly.
Emergency services may come and do their thing at the actual location of the fire. The signal is separate from the service, and the emergency must be dealt with wherever it is, not by turning off the switch.
The logic behind keeping these active was so that persons with disabilities can access them. It is my opinion that Niantic should not have something that might attract a crowd to stand around these which could impede the access to a person with a disability reaching the call box. Could a crowd naturally form near one? Sure. But a crowd forming near one by happenstance is different from creating an attraction that inherently draws crowds.
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Fire alarm switches are generally installed at the height of a standing adult’s face. They cannot be reached while seated in a wheelchair or mobility scooter.
People keep trying to extend the concepts they find in Niantic’s criteria in various novel ways. Do you know of any reason why your hypothetical person wouldn’t have access to the same facilities as everyone else, but would be able to pull a fire alarm, and then would be able to disperse a crowd or prevent one from gathering?
It sounds as though somebody simply latched onto the ‘emergency’ concept and then didn’t think it through.
Blocking the source of assistance slows response to a call for help. It would be nice if we always knew the destinations where help was needed, so we could keep them open. But we don’t.
The city never painted curbs red at fireboxes. They didn’t circle them with paint or put up signs that say ‘Keep Clear’. Responders don’t need these features in the virtual world, either.
So let’s assume that they don’t obstruct emergency services (I disagree that they don’t),
we are back to the @PkmnTrainerJ comment. What makes them a good place to explore, socialize or exercise.
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In any case we need to comply with the acceptance criteria without running afoul of any rejection criteria.
I would advocate we do this thoughtfully. Where the writing is clear, we follow it scrupulously. We try our best to understand the underlying reasons, but we don’t stretch or extend anything beyond reason.
While I am rather envious of the Brits with their blue Peverel Pennyfarthing phone booths and regency postboxes I don’t know what would make a standard-issue U.S. call box worthy of nomination.
I simply don’t wish for everything that’s red to go in the rubbish bin. Folks here have tried to say art in a public store was too near to a fire extinguisher or exit sign, or in Scandinavia a public dock intended for swimming blocked emergency services. I felt that their logic in such cases was fatally flawed.
I really didn’t want this to turn into a thread litigating whether or not the call boxes are good nominations. For the record, I think they’re pretty bad nominations. Also for the record, my understanding is that many have existed on the game board from the very beginning, so dismissing them all as the work of a ‘community gone rogue’ is unfair.
The original point I was trying to make is that we all have limited time to devote to wayfarer or the various Niantic games. We each get to choose how to use that time. I know players that purposefully go from area to area in NYC looking for worthy way spots to nominate to add to the community. These recent deletions seemed to have the hallmarks of the opposite - someone(s) making a concerted effort to go from neighborhood to neighborhood like Bizarro Caine from Kung Fu to report pretty garbage but harmless wayspots. (And I do think they’re harmless - there are 15,000 call boxes in NYC and the FDNY gets less than 1,500 valid alarms from them a year, so arguments that they obstruct emergency services are mayyyybe letter of the law true but in practice untrue)
The Wayfarer community gets a lot of criticism from non-Wayfarers, a lot of it unfair, but I think it’s worth reflecting on how activity like this gets perceived by the broader player base. It’s not wrong in the sense of being ‘against the rules’, but I think we’d all be thought of more highly by the community if we thought about things like this with Little Free Library rules. Instead of ‘take a book, leave a book’, if you’re reporting something you believe to be invalid, take the time to nominate something you think is valid in its place. Otherwise, leave well enough alone.
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To many of us, a game board full of locations that should not exist is not “well enough.”
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I’ve wondered that as well.
I’m not in NYC, but I’ve known these were accepted in NYC in the past. With this information, years ago, I submitted one of the antique, out-of-service call boxes in my community, and it was rejected.
If the NYC call boxes are being removed, score one for consistency at least. I never understood why they’d be eligible there, but ineligible in suburbia, and no one seemed able to clarify the difference.
Personally, as foreigner,the object looks odd and interesting although as emergency service, it is a strict no . but again from local point of view, its probably very common as well.