Ready to send request pokestops when we return to our family's small town

General Discussion
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This summer I played Pokemon Go again with my wife in the small town where her grandparents have a house. The only drawback is that this place only has one pokestop (a small bridge). By the time we come back to visit I will have reached level 37 and my goal is to send for requests.

My question is when you vote to integrate a new pokestop do you take into account the amount of existing pokestops around or do you only look at the quality of the request? I already know of several safe potential sites (The church, the museum that is on the outskirts of town, drawings that are somewhere fixed on the roads), but I would like to know if there are any safe criteria in terms of submitting applications for stops in rural sites.

Thank you very much in advance.

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Hello and welcome to the forum!
Personally I try not to be influenced by the number of wayspots accepted in the area at the moment of reviewing but, at the end of the day, I feel I’m more lenient with poorer nominations in places without wayspots than in places with a lot of them.
If you are going to start nominating wayspots I recommend you to read with patience the criteria, have a look at the topics at Criteria Clarification Collection that explains further some themes and, if you feel comfortable with it, you can create a topic at Nomination Support and share what you are planning to nominate so some folks will try to help you or to give you feedback!

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Hi, welcome!

Good to see you are getting ready to start Wayfarer and planning to map a small town out! :slight_smile:

A few considerations. I would love to see the community comment on this and am sure the overall answer from this thread will come out as “yes and no” :slight_smile: as a lot of subjective interpretation will come into it, also on what constitutes “leniency”. I’m not exactly sure what you mean by quality and what type of area we are taking about, but Wayfarer has a set of eligibility criteria, rejection criteria and acceptance criteria and these are the same for everyone. Rural areas don’t get a pass for things that would otherwise make something a clear reject (game mentions, single-family private residential property, …), so we should always try to make our nominations as bulletproof as possible!

What however could change depending on the type of area is the relative importance some types of places have for their communities, which is indirectly part of some criteria. A commonly cited example is “the only place to eat at 200 km around is what is otherwise a not very interesting chain that would not hold a lot of significance in other places in the country”. Depending on their context places like these could become focal points around which communities crystallize. (It helps if the submitter conveys this in a clear way without begging.)

This, however, is part of the “use your best judgment” aspect of Wayfarer, so while some people who frequent these forums are certainly more aware of considerations like in the previous paragraph, we cannot guarantee that the reviewers you will get will necessarily be “rural-lenient”.

In review, it is also hard to know what constitutes a “true” rural area (some submitters consider their suburbs to be one) and with the base tools you are given you do not see wayspots outside of what is in the end a pretty small radius. We cannot force reviewers to research the cities they see in review, it’s nice if they do but it’s safer to provide all the context that is needed directly in the nomination. In turn some pretty remote areas may already have prolific submitters, so after what “cutoff” do we stop being “lenient” with them? Considering a current bug where sometimes wayspots are missing on the duplicate check I would not rely on this. So again it comes back to always making the best effort you can so that your nomination clearly conveys the interest of what you are nominating.

I don’t see why one would consider churches and museums as you mention as low quality (I however would want to know more about the drawings you also saw there, as temporary objects are generally not eligible), and we are happy to help you prepare your nomination ideas even at a distance for when you are ready.

What I would like to clarify further (tangent to your question but you may want to keep this in mind) however is that you are not nominating Pokéstops. You are nominating wayspots to the Lightship database through the Wayfarer system. It is not only a database for Pokémon GO, but for multiple other present and future games. All games have density rules, Pokémon GO too, and you may find yourself nominating something that will not make it to Pokémon GO. You can read further at this link. Considering recent developments such a wayspot still may end up becoming part of the rotation for power spots or it may help someone in a different game, but just be aware of this fact to avoid any disappointment. Note that pins have to be exactly on the objects, rural area or not, Pokémon GO or not.

Sorry for the long post but as I’m sure you are starting to realize Wayfarer has nuances - it’s best to get ready for it as a newer submitter. I hope it helps somewhat!

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Xeno already said it better, but criteria is criteria. The only thing not having a lot around affects in my decision is how significant I think something is to the locals for the “hot spot” type nominations. A street sign still does not meet criteria, even if there isn’t much else to submit.

I want to commend you for looking around here first before you start submitting. The game will tell you that you are submitting a Pokestop, but you are actually submitting a Wayspot. If you are trying to get pokestops specifically, you will want to be sure to understand S2 cells. I didn’t realize Xeno had already posted it because it reads as “this link” but do check the article about S2 cells.

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Hi and welcome to the group.

One of the things I would consider, is the nomination got safe pedestrian access? Is the nomination permanent? Is there some history to the site? Would there be an argument for the place to be a great place to socialise and/or exercise?

I usually do a Google Streetview walkabout to see if I can find something interesting about the location I wish to look for nominations. This can help save time and try and get the nominations done in fewer visits and also help plan a route of less time.

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Yes to the first part and no to the second part.

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I am more lenient with what I accept if there is not a lot around.

I don’t accept things that meet rejection criteria, but I am more likely to give the benefit of the doubt as to whether its really a great space to socialise or explore. Places that would be uninteresting in a city are really important in more rural areas ie local shops.

Some members here are really good at making suggestions for your area if you’d like to share the location? They could also suggest what may or may not show up in Go so thst you’re not disappointed to have something accepted that never appears as a stop (but might become a power spot)

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For example a meeting place where many events and celebrations are held, in is the only bar in the village (for context, this place is accessible walking through the town and you can walk perfectly from one place to another), which belongs to the neighborhood association and although I consider that it would be one of the most relevant points to add, I do not know to what extent people who vote would take it into consideration even with a detailed description.

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I would ask 1 question regarding the bar. Is is accessible to under 18’s as well? If so, it could be eligible.

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Well yes, in Spain most of the bars are accessible to under 18’s :rofl: , but to answer better your question yes, is a family friendly place And in most of the year it has a large terrace that is always open

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That sounds like somewhere I would accept in any location as a good place to socialise

And yes UK/Europe don’t ban children from the vicinity of alcohol :laughing: we even let them drink a little with a meal

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Yep, that’s what I was trying to say earlier - provided everything else checks out, such a location isn’t “low quality” and doesn’t require any special “rural leniency” :slight_smile:

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(Wow it is so nice that the “Reply to” button is now working as expected!)

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Ok. I didn’t realise you were in Spain. And I don’t have much knowledge of Bars and Pubs outside the UK, so I can’t make the presumption that Bars are accessible to minors by default, but that’s just me.

But as long as it’s accessible and family friendly, Bars should be ok.

Regarding safe crieteria, one of the main things I would / should look for is pavement / sidewalks. If the nomination is, for example, on a roundabout, is there a safe method to get to the roundabout, such as a Zebra / Pelican crossing? (Not sure what the Spanish equivilent is).

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Are you sure it’s working as expected? :grimacing:

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Yes it was pointed out to me that I don’t have to quote to make it clear now and can see who others were replying to!

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image1041Ă—233 26.4 KB

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Just to clarify, it was working as intended before; it’s just different now. Some users have found the default settings to be somewhat unintuitive.

tl;dr - it was not a bug…

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So it was a feature with indeded consequences? :grimacing: :joy:

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that is why i said “expected” - it wasn’t doing what i expected before. i can follow the conversations now so ty!

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Those were the default settings. We had to make a change in the backend to make it function this way.

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