When submitting a Wayspot Appeal, make sure to include as much of the following information as possible:
Wayspot Title: Skatergirl Kaltenbergen
Location (lat/lon): 53.5400622,10.1437799
City: Hamburg
Country: Germany
Additional Information (if any): The POI was a Gym, and was removed without any notice (of course or anything else). It is suspicious since a old Gym was removed (years ago) due to the fact the painting was over painted and non existent anymore. Since a specific player here benefit that this POI became a gym a lot of other player were frustrated. Even so the painting is still there (yes it should may have never become POI , but what happened happened, i had nothing do to with that) the POI completely got removed. Not just the gym , it even doesnt appear anymore as Poke Stop.
Is there a way to check if it was falsely removed and eventually able to change back?
Here is a screenshot from Ingress for those who don’t have access to that resource.
Normally I would recommend to someone appealing to present evidence that the poi still exists, but this one was most likely removed because it is vandalism. Staff will need to confirm.
It was probably removed due to being ineligible. It is just graffiti. Should never have been approved. If the former painting was approved, it was probably removed as it no longer existed.
that is what i am saying, it shouldn’t even ever goten approved, i see it that way as well.
but i haven’t been doing wayfarer in the last couple months/years. Before it was like “what went live is live and not removeable unless it is like prp”. The POI which now is a gym isn’t wayfarer criteria eligible as well :D.
So that is the next which will disappear (this time from me then ).
If it is nowadays fine to remove such POI (i prefer it that way) i learned something new and accept it
The team has not shared exactly what their internal criteria for removal is, but you are correct that it does seem to have a higher bar than just acceptance criteria. Those of us who are on the forum a lot have seen a lot of appeals to restore poi featuring graffiti that have been removed.
I believe it still is not easy to get a stop removed, but I’ve seen a lot of appeals for removed wayspots in this forum, many of those did exist, were not at private property, and in a safe location, but just should not have been approved in the first place.
We don’t know the rules for removal, as they are not shared, but I do believe that clearly ineligible wayspots will be removed if requested (eg pond aerators, graffiti, mosaic tiles etc)
The removal criteria appears to be any pokestop that meets any of the following:
does not exist (ever or not now)
on SFPRP or school or other ineligible location
no safe access
blatantly against criteria (clearly ineligible)
I’m fairly sure Niantic staff did at one point say or imply this last bit, and we have definitely seen ineligible wayspots removed (even though they didn’t meet any other removal criteria).
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