Niantic has already agreed that the tone of the letter was too harsh (and not even accurate, as there’s no note on OP’s account) and they’ll try to improve their approach in the future. And I think the firehouse driveway (or lack of one) is the problem here, so they might still allow a stop with that distance if, for instance, it was on the next block, behind the firehouse.
Could I just ask, if the Fire service it that area is inviting the public to their hall to socialise is it the actual placement of the wayspot that was the issue?
If the wayspot was at the banquet hall entrance then it surely wouldn’t interfere with the fire service as there looks to be a full parking area already provided on site.
Just trying to get a clearer picture as to weather it was positioning or the fact it was it was at a fire station site.
This is a grey area because it would obviously be a great place to socialise, and explore. But obviously the counter to that is the emergency services side.
Just looking for a clearer understanding.
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Aquablast’s pin is visible in the Google Streetview pic. It is on the front (main) door to the banquet hall, which is a public-facing venue with its own parking, just as you said.
Niantic must decide for itself where to draw new exclusionary rules. It seems to be attempting to have it both ways: there are shades of gray and nuance so they are never at fault. It’s always the naughty Explorers who are to blame.
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Absolutely, Niantic need to take responsibility for their vague and confusing messaging, like you say, they can’t have it both ways.
If they want grey areas and nuance it is unfair to berate people when they interpret that nuance in a different way. If they want to enforce specific rules they need to be very clear and upfront about what they are.
In this case, the submission appears to be something that I’d accept, it is distinct and seperate from the fire station, clearly designed to be used by the public and a community asset.
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Absolutely agree, I would myself accept a banquet hall like this as it is a great place to gather. I would think that it would have enough places to gather not in any emergency vehicles way to interact with the PoI.
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I know you well enough to know your history of nominations is good, and I wasn’t trying to imply anything other than your stats are irrelevant to the situation. I’ve seen a few people say something similar when posting about emails they’ve received. This was about a specific nomination, if you were posting about your history overall then sure it’s relevant.
I think the issue with the location is the interaction radius.
Yes there is plenty of room to interact with it on the side far away from the fire station.
Yes the hall is used for events and such.
The problem is if you can stand in front of the doors to the fire hall and obstruct the fire trucks leaving the station on an emergency call the potential to block emergency services does exist. Niantic tends to err on the side of an overabundance of caution when it comes to this sort of thing.
Either way, I’m pleased to see they’ve clarified the intent of the email because there’s no way that should have been a “warning”
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I think it was flagged due to someone requesting it to be removed, which is perfectly fine if someone felt that way. Niantic or Emily was the one who accepted the nomination, so it was not flagged by a machine or anything.
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I think Aquablast’s stats are relevant to OUR understanding of the situation. This isn’t some brand new reviewer who saw a grandfathered in fire station pokestop and decided to submit this other one. This is a seasoned Wayfarer participant with a great history of reviewing well and submitting eligible nominations. A person who thoroughly understands criteria and is trying to follow it. I would have disagreed with your original comment if we still had that option.
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Hi
Would it be a possibility to ask the firestation “owner”/ head of?
No, this is a Niantic decision that will not be overturned.
No. To be honest, I do not care that the POI was removed. If someone wanted it removed, that is perfectly fine in my book. I just did not want a warning due to this nomination, because it is debatable if it truly obscures emergency services or not. At the end of the day, Niantic did make their stand on it that they deem it does. I may not entirely agree with them, but I respect the decision that they made and glad it does not actually affect my account.
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@NianticAaron
Interesting case study.
Regardless of how I would judge such a POI, there are many such wayspots around the world that could interfere with emergency vehicle operations, including fire hydrants that are themselves wayspots, and qualified wayspots that have fully integrated emergency functions.
However, currently, when Wayfinder reports the removal of such wayspots, Niantic denies 99% of them.
How do you reconcile these incongruous facts?
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I admit I struggle with this decision myself, as when I review I judge safety based on a safe walking path to the object itself and not that the safe access exists at all points of the interaction circle in individual games. What about height elements? If a multi-story building has a valid POI on the ground floor but some sort of emergency service right below or above, might not that valid POI encourage people to block emergency services? What about roadside art encouraging people to step into the road itself, or located a few meters away from a fire hydrant? In this case, though, I also respect Niantic’s right to make decisions based on the individual factors of the Wayspot. I do hope that if this banquet hall had a safe side entrance, it would be ruled acceptable. I also think that candidates like this do not warrant warnings or even generic educational emails - the object submitted is valid, the pin is placed at a safe location, but Niantic looked at the nuances and decided that the risk outweighed the reward.
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Niantic has made a fairly clear decision on that point.
It has made a clear decision that if K-12 is zoned for cohabitation, yes, and if not zoned, no.
And Niantic gives preference to ineligible when ineligible and eligible are cohabitating.
But once they slip through the filter, they are reversed.
I believe they should be matched.
Sorry, but this frustrates the hell out of me 
We’ve had several clarifications over the years clearly state that eligible nominations that don’t impede emergency operations by being placed in emergency access driveways or doorways are fine.
This isn’t an emergency service doorway or driveway, it’s an event hall next door to a fire station.
So where is Niantic drawing the line today? Since you’ve apparently just shifted it without a word of prior warning to anybody who’s apparently expected to comply by some kind of telepathic omniscience 
Is it anything with an association to an emergency service (the wording)? What if it were an unassociated town hall next door? Or a cafe? Or park? Or a netball court? (Literally a local example - plenty of places have a fire station within closer range than this of other completely independent and perfectly safe POIs). If you want an exclusion radius or something now, we need to be informed of that (on the criteria pages) to avoid suddenly unwittingly falling foul of these new uncommunicated expectations 
This. This 
This right here is why people have so little patience or respect for Niantic 
Communicate internally, get on the same page, and then communicate clearly, concisely, accurately, and consistently to the community so we know what it is you expect. Then don’t continually undermine each other with offhand comments left right and centre! It’s not rocket science 
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I got the same type of mail does ot also include that it won’t be followed into a band if i get another warning
Because i got the warning because of a gr trailmarker it is kinda ridiculous since trailmarkers itself are good nominations
I stopped nominating because of this email this is not how you treat nominators that got over 300 poi’s in the game
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It’s so scary isn’t it. I’m waiting for mine, and will quit too if I get one.
I’ve been submitting trail markers locally too - we have two big trails that run 300km or more across the country and go through my town, and they’re absolutely beautiful places to walk and explore. I have no idea why submitting trail markers is a ban worthy offence nowadays.
Terrifies me that I could lose my Pokemon Go account for submitting eligible items that are shown on the criteria pages as good nominations!
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@NianticAaron @NianticTintino
Your organization has a desperate need to learn the process of dialog.
Your actions, your inaction have a ripple-effect upon individuals, all Wayfarers and the overall player community.
Your best option for dealing with this specific case would have been to communicate clearly with the originator. Had you informed them that you had re-evaluated this specific case, chose to reverse the previous acceptance, but were not changing any general guidelines nor warning, striking or banning anyone, a huge amount of fear, uncertainty and doubt could have been averted.
It is not too late to reply in answer to the questions raised by your previously missed opportunity. The single response helps by letting OP off the hook your original email put him on, but fails to answer our follow-up questions.
I know that I have not seen any public or private response to my questions. In other words, the specific case has been resolved with no strikes and OP is content not to appeal your decision, but the community has no new understanding regarding the interpretation of ‘very close’, ‘that emergency vehicles use’, or ‘…could lead to…’
As we responded previously, we need to be informed if a decision is a one-off special case, a subtle bit of gray area that needs further scrutiny, or a specific - or somewhat generalized - or global change.
No thing that is marked as being this important should be left so vague…
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Oops I accidentally deleted my reply. It was passing along the wisdom one gets from being a Wayfarer for a while.
Just because Niantic says they’ll improve their approach, does not mean they will.
Just because they say they’ll make emails clearer, does not mean they will. Since 2022, edit emails have said to check your Contribution page, and photo rejection emails saying they can be appealed.
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I fully agree with you on that. Fine if they want to suspend our wayspot submission, edit, move privileges but it should have nothing to do with our game accounts. We all joined the Wayfarer program. Any suspensions or bans should be solely from wayfarer. If someone is blatantly and egregiously abusing the system, eg. Vulgar, racial, targeted submissions then fine, elevate those to possible game account bans. But to tie game accounts into possible banning for people using their best judgement is completely unfair and actively drives people away from the wayfarer program based on this risk.
This is an aspect of the program that should be re-evaluated and preferably made stand alone accept in extreme circumstances like I mentioned above.
There could be so many more wayfarers that would get involved if they did not run the risk of their game accounts being adversely affected.
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