Does anyone else experience what seems to be spite or troll down-voting?
I am an adult player in the game for 6 years and have sumbit over 50 successful nominations. I always try to submit the best quality POI I can find, so I honestly never expect to receive a good reason for a nomination rejection. While turn around time has greatly improved (I had many nomiations in voting for over a year in the early 2020s) the voting still seems to be heavily broken due to an inconsistent community.
My last three nominations have been picnic area/grills and a mural in a healthcare facility. Both picnic nominations were immediately rejected by the community, requiring Appeals for both to be approved. Obviously these were instantly approved by Niantic once they were in voting.
I’ve now had a mural rejected 3 times in a row for no good reason. Even the reason in the Management page says “Wayfarer Criteria”. While I know my nomination is exemplary, not knowing the details of rejection makes it very difficult to adapt and “improve” the nomination.
I have developed the habit of saving my nomination photos so I can easilt resubmit when they get rejected. Unfortunately I am out of Appeals and am now forced to resubmit my nominations until I get paired with better voters. This is the biggest morale killer in the game, especially for players who enjoy the ability to build interaction potential within the game.
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I’ve just had 3 picnic/grill areas rejected by the community.
I always try to re-evaluate my own submission to see how i could make it better. One of these was the 4th in a series of 4 in a city park. It was the weakest photo of the 4 that i took. And i have gotten so used to ML accepting things that sometimes i don’t write out as much in supporting as i should. So, im goong to appeal that one and then wait for cooler weather to go back and submit that one if the appeal fails.
But the other 2 were picnic/plaza/break areas in office parks. They are really nice amenities for the employees. They are located behind the buildings but they can be seen on satellite. I wrote realky good justification for why they make good wayspots. Its just disappointing when voters ignore the criteria. I will appeal them but thats often a gamble. I can’t really make these nominations or photos any better. I polished them nice and shiny.
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Did the emails for the “Wayfarer criteria” rejections get decided about 22 hours after submitting, and say “our team” instead of the community? That would be the ML (machine learning ai) model rejecting them. There is no point in submitting the same photo again if it has rejected it once. If you want to post the nomination, we can make suggestions.
As far as appeals go, I wanted to make sure you are aware that we get 2 appeals now, each on a 20 day timer. It’s a long wait, I know, but way more than we used to get.
I don’t know. It is faster to thumbs down one of the four questions that will reject a nomination than to thumbs up or ikd all the questions to accept one. So I do think there is a bit of that happening.
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Oh I’ve definitely had some malicious downvoting, and then oddly the same wayspot seems to come up from some different submitter.
Often - if you are convinced that it’s a good wayspot - resubmitting it works, especially if you leave it a week or two,
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Nominations are randomly allocated for review and can only be reviewed once by any particular reviewer. If you consider that any nomination goes through up to 10 different reviewers (my best guess) before a final decision is made, then I think that the whole review system is very fair and equitable.
Nominations at review do not show the name of the submitter which prevents any personal agenda being pursued.
The AI system is a “work in progress” and I believe that it will continue to improve given time. I assume that when the AI encounters a nomination that it is not programmed to recognise then that nomination is referred to the human review queue. There is obviously a bit of a trade off with getting quicker system based decisions on nominations. Unfortunately, that trade off appears to be some acceptable nominations being declined.
I like the fact that you can appeal a decision and get an answer very quickly.
I know that is very easy to get frustrated (I’ve been there) when a nomination gets declined. Just don’t let it stop you from submitting new nominations. Be sure to keep up the good work that you are already doing in your community.
Cheers
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They’re not really that random though, you’ll get more reviews for your Hometown Location and Bonus Location than any other. If there are a relatively small number of reviewers, then it’s quite possible that some of those reviewers have an interest in the wayspot being accepted or not.
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I have been soooo frustrated with my nominations being rejeceted even after appeals and seeing other pokestops that really should’ve never been, that I tend to get angry to the point to acutally considering quiting the game after being at level 43 and spending $$ and time in the game. I just wanted to update that a new restaurant took over and the pokestop pic and info changed and I can 't even get that made. It’s absolutely ridiculous and absurd. Trying to get decent support help is nearly next to impossible because you have to answer so many multiple choice questions that don’t even address the issue, and you can’t submit unless you pick one. One time I picked that the Pokestop was in the middle of the water just to have something so I could continue to submit my problem. Shouldn’t be this hard. If you find a solution, I’d love to hear it. When it’s more frustrating than fun, it’s about time to quit I think and I’m walking that line.
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If a restaurant has closed and a different one opened in its place, you’re expected to request removal of the old one (by reporting it as no longer existing) and then submit the new one if you believe it meets the criteria.
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I had this happen locally. A pub turned into an indian restaurant.
Since its too close to other waypoints, its lightship only. So i have no way to delete the old one or even look at it - I only realised it was there when I went to submit the restaurant!
So I just submitted the new one to “update” things and maybe one day Niantic will let us update the stuff we cant see
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One of my nominated Pokestops wasn’t accepted because the Wayfarer person said it needed to be “historic” to be a Pokestop! I didn’t categorize it as historic and a place doesn’t have to be historic to be a Pokestop. Appeals don’t seem to matter either way.
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Maybe you could share your nomination details here. It’s odd that they would deny it for being historic if it’s new and newly nominated.
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And to follow on it would not matter how it was categorised,
Wayspot Submission for Sly Fox Coffeehouse
Belton TX
Not Accepted
2023-05-19
Rejection CriteriaNot historically or culturally significant
Other Rejection Criteria
DescriptionIt offers a variety of hot & iced drinks, breakfast & snack food options with freshly baked pastries. They use ethically sourced & sustainable coffee that gives back to the community food banks, Autism Society and Austin Pets Alive
Location
201 N East St, Belton, TX 76513, USA
Its housed in a box car. It gives back to the community. Its a great meeting place.
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Been there my friend
I been nominating a lot of good spots having most of them accepted. I even try to get cute pictures to have cool postcards in game and try to put enough and accurate info to make locations with actual facts.
But sometimes it looks like the person reviewing doesn’t know the whole criteria and go straight to the thumbs down buttons.
I would say the hardest ones are the small business with something cool because people go straight to the generic business, I know its hard to prove why its valuable but it hurts the most whenever you pass an actual generic business with their own wayfare.
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That looks cool and tasty 
. I’d likely vote positively for this, assuming no map issues.
Out of curiosity how long ago was this rejected? We haven’t had to vote on cultural significance since they switched from stars to thumbs. Though some of the terms have confusingly been carried forward.
Another question, could this be a duplicate?
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Here’s this one: Just as a side note, There are parks where I live that literally every tree has like a 9inch rock and plaque sponsored by a random person that is a Pokestop. Literally dozens of them! And I can’t even get this updated. Why can insignificant mass number of rocks be Pokestops and not a place that has lines wrapped around the building?!#### Wayspot Submission for K1 The Bloom
Belton TX
Not Accepted
2024-07-24
Niantic Note
Thanks for the appeal, Explorer! We are unable to verify as per the nomination context how K1 The Bloom is locally significant to your community. We suggest that you add more information explaining why K1 The Bloom is important for the local community in a new nomination. This can greatly increase the odds of this nomination getting approved. We recommend you review the content guidelines before submitting your next Wayspot contribution: https://niantic.helpshift.com/hc/en/21-wayfarer/faq/2775-content-guidelines/
Rejection CriteriaWayfarer criteria
Generic Business
DescriptionKorean BBQ and street food, boba milk tea, coffees and soju with Kpop videos playing on the wall.
Location
1228 N Main St, Belton, TX 76513, USA
I was told by the waiters here that pokemon raiders gather there. This restaurant has changed from mexican to korean so the pokestop sign needs this change to update what is currently there. Good food & good drinks. Nice music. Good vibes.
Also, It took an act of Congress almost to get a very significant historic place updated. The oldest still operating department store in the great state of Texas changed it’s mural. I had to get the old one removed and then the new one wasn’t approved and put in place until I jumped through hoops. It shouldn’t be this hard! Not when dozens of rocks can be Pokestops!
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You’ll need to request removal of the Mexican restaurant. You can do that in game, if/when it gets denied you can share your appeal here in the Forum. Or you can use the Help Chat with Prof that the Mexican restaurant is gone. Then once the spot is clear you can nominate the new Korean restaurant. Each wayspot needs to be judged by it’s unique credentials.
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