I started a previous thread in the General Discussion section, because my issue related to ML behaviour, but the thread essentially turned into Nomination Support, which I thought would be best continued in here. This thread provides the background to reaching the third nomination:
I have managed to overcome the ‘mismatched location’ issue from the first nomination and whatever caused ML to reject the second nomination. However, I am now confronted with “no consensus” and am not sure how to tackle it.
What is making this one tricky to get past ‘not distinct’ is the signage being rather old and positioned across a field from the premises and the premises not having anything standing out to anchor it, with stables and other equestrian elements set back from the lane behind residential units at the front.
I thought using some different photos might help to freshen up any future nomination, is there anything else I should change?
I see you have received comments regarding nominating the school VS the sign in the previous post, which I would agree with and rework the nomination in the direction of the school - I would argue that the eligible thing is the school and not the sign, the sign is a proxy. It’s perfectly acceptable to use the sign as the main picture for the place as long as you are not trying to squeeze one nomination for the sign and one nomination for the building out of it. That would not be possible.
I think highlighting all the strong points of the school and the corresponding evidence (which you can work on building) can very much outweigh the fact that the sign looks somewhat old (which you can’t do much about), on balance.
My initial approach was to stick the waypoint on the sign and use that for the photos and just refer to the business in the title and description. However, then I got hit with “mismatched location”, which pushed me towards focussing more on the sign.
Are you suggesting I continue to use photos of the sign, but stick the waypoint on the business? Would that not dredge up “mismatched location” again? The other issue is that there are two residential properties (albeit I think they are both associated with the business) at the entrance to the site from the public highway to the north and google maps has the business symbol located on top of one of those. There is a clear view of the stable complex from the east, where the highway gets closer to them, but no direct access from there.
My concern about a place like this is that the owners tend not to like random people wandering around the stable area or any other place with animals. Certainly it should be eligible under exercise criteria, but I’d suggest being careful about where you place the pin.
I think I said before that in the U.K. we tend not to like the sign for something as the location/anchor point for the actual place.
We don’t actually know what generates a no consensus response but I wouldn’t be surprised if it is the result of a mixed bag of selections and possibly the comment box under accuracy. But basically reviewers can’t really be sure that all the elements are good is what it might mean.
You have tried the combination of sign and its location at the road. I would try locating at the stables. If they don’t have a sign then maybe a picture of the stables or if they have a practice ring. You can refer to the sign at the road as confirmation and a website.
I think you could either reinforce the notion that the business is the sign like I suggested above, or completely pivot to the business also visually like @elijustrying suggests below, but I believe nominating “the sign” is also confusing for reviewers, because in any case it’s not very eligible.
As for SFPRP, I believe you when you say they are not interfering, but not much that can be done about them on your end either except trying to explain which zone is for what.
My current thoughts are to move the proposed wayspot from the red cross to the cyan cross, take the main photo from the direction of the green arrow so it captures the entrance from the public highway, with the dwellings behind the photo-taker, then take the support photo from the public highway on the opposite side as denoted by the blue arrow.
The sign would be no use as a supporting photo, because the stables are not visible in any east-facing photos (you can just about make out the dwellings in the background and the stables are behind them).
Would it also be worth explaining that Google Maps has the business on a residential property whereas the business/stables actually lie further to the south-east?
I think we need to see how the photos look.
You can address the potential pitfalls in the supplementary text.
You can describe how the buildings in the photos match with satellite view.
I’m really uncomfortable with this nomination for the reasons I said before. There’s no explicit right of public access to a facility like this. You can’t just go wandering around without a valid reason to be there. I would tend to reject a wayspot placed on the farm as private property, but a sign on the footpath as being acceptable.
I agree. There’s a city close to me that has several riding schools like this. I have deliberately not submitted any of them. They are basically someone’s home bassd business that they have turned into a community spot. But due to there being large animals roaming around the property, these places typically don’t want random strangers driving up onto their property. If you’re part of the horse community, you understand the etiquette and know how and where to drive. People who aren’t familiar with horses shouldn’t be drawn to places like this. Theres too much risk of injury to very expensive animals or the humans riding atop them.
I would respectfully disagree that any of these things make it a poor location
It’s always been said that not everyone has to have access to a waypoint. So if you have no business visiting the riding centre then don’t visit it or make a nuisance of yourself. But that should not prevent staff and riders from interacting during their time there
Riding is a fantastic way to exercise, and also socialise. Riding through an area gives a hugely different perspective to walking as youre up high and can see over hedgerows etc. I really feel that a riding centre is a high quality place for a waypoint. It is not single family private residential property- it is a business with a house on site - that is very different and of course players should not attempt to gain access to the house, but that is not unusual for waypoints which are near to houses
Or, it’s not a business property - it’s a single family private farm with a business on site. Zoning laws vary greatly, so such generalizations are probably not useful. Regardless, the land has to be zoned to allow the business.
I would probably say that if the business meets the eligibility criteria (e.g., great place to exercise), I would probably vote for it because the owners intended for people to come there to exercise and they have a business for this purpose, but agree it’s murky.
“Zoning” is an American thing I think? This particular nomination is in the UK, so I don’t think this applies here. It could elsewhere though and presumably nominations in the US or elsewhere with similar rules would take that into account (or reviewers would at least!!)
In the UK farms often have public access, as @elijustrying’s map showed there are public rights of way (PROW) criscrossing the riding school here. Farm houses are actually part of the farm business, and you can often have situations where the public have access to farmyards etc due to where the PROWs run
As long as players are visiting the riding school or using the PROW routes then there’s no access issue at all
Thank you to everyone for their continued input. Obviously, I can’t mention this in any future nomination, but I can tell from the distances involved that it would be possible to spin a pokestop located at my cyan ‘X’ from the bridleway, so it wouldn’t be necessary to enter private land.
Agree 100%. It’s not a safe area in general and also sensitive because of the risk of theft or interfering with the animals.
How about an analogy - if it was a motor racing circuit then it might be eligible, but there would be places that would either be dangerous or create suspicion. So you’d have to choose wayspots accordingly.
Other games can have a different interaction radius. But that also doesn’t really matter as members of the public are invited to attend the riding school anyway, and people who are able to be on site can interact with the waypoint appropriately anyway
Seems the UK equivalent may be planning system or planning permission? I would think most every country has a system for regulating land use, but definitely may be called different things.
