I’m writing to express my deep frustration and discouragement regarding the repeated denials of my Wayspot submissions, despite ensuring they are entirely compliant with the criteria outlined in your guidelines.
As someone who has taken the time to follow the rules, research eligibility, and contribute meaningfully to both the Wayfarer program and the broader Niantic community, it’s disheartening to have valid submissions constantly rejected. These denials feel arbitrary at times, and it’s becoming increasingly difficult to stay motivated as a contributor when efforts go unrecognized — or worse, dismissed without clear reasoning.
I joined the Wayfarer program and continued playing Pokémon GO because I believed in the value of community-sourced exploration. However, this experience has made me feel like my input doesn’t matter, and it’s making me seriously reconsider my involvement in both Wayfarer and the Niantic ecosystem as a whole.
I would deeply appreciate a review of how submissions are evaluated and whether more transparency or support can be provided to help contributors like myself feel more empowered — not penalized — for following the process correctly.
Hi! Sorry to hear you are experiencing many rejections. I think your experience is shared by many in the community so I am not sure to what extent open letters will help. What I can say that it is very much possible to be successful with your Wayfarer submissions and that the community here (after all, the community are also the reviewers) would be happy to help you improve your experience and help you understand why the rejections happened. I would suggest sharing several rejected nominations in full (complete screenshots), redacting locations if you would prefer, and we can take it from there to establish if there is unfair treatment of some kind or if they can be reworked for better success.
I’ve already tried reaching out to the Help Center for support, but unfortunately, they weren’t able to assist me. The responses I received were very basic and didn’t address the specific issue I described. Since that route didn’t lead to a resolution, I’m turning to the community in hopes of finding someone who’s experienced something similar or can offer more targeted help.
If you share your complete nomination we might ne able to suggest something. Please know that your rejection might come from either AI machine learning , niantic team, or community. In general community review majority of it after AI screen it.
Yes, you have come to the right place. The help center will not provide further details on why (and how) your nominations were rejected. There are many super experienced users here, they will help you if you give them material to work with.
I can’t really see how a common flagpole would fulfill any of those requirements, and this one with the explanation doesn’t showcase it’s significant to be accepted - so I would also reject this one.
That doesn’t matter. If it’s a single family residence private residential property, Niantic’s guidelines are to reject. Doesn’t matter what the owner says.
It could get approved and have a new owner in a few months who doesn’t want people there.
Flagpoles are so common that they really are not of note. Now if this flagpole has a dedication plaque that is honoring a significant person (or persons) to the community, the plaque could be eligible.
A place you love to venture out to; a destination or a placemark of local interest and importance and which makes our communities unique and shapes its identity. Somewhere or something that tells the unique story about a place, its history, its cultural meaning, or teaches us about the community we live in.
That’s where art and statues fall under in my view. Cultural exploration and the history of the statue/person/art.
