When submitting a Wayspot Appeal, make sure to include as much of the following information as possible:
Wayspot Title: Sheetz
Location (lat/lon): 40.31162° N, 75.86904° W
City: Reading PA
Country: USA
Screenshot of the Rejection Email (do not include your personal information):
Additional Information (if any): This is a chain gas station. Portals like this, Walmart, Wawa, Lowes, Target do not qualify as portals as they hold no significant impact on a community. I will continue to fight this topic to the end as I value a meaningful strong portal community. I value them because the game of Ingress has taken me to so many awesome places that I have a lasting memory of. Sheetz Portals in an area that has a bunch of portals already, does nothing but ruins the value of the game. I personally am ashamed of the community for approving portal submissions like this one. Same for the Walmarts, Lowes, Targets.
I, too, will be following this. From what I see, I would not have accepted it as a wayspot. However, I also expect that it will not be removed, failing to meet any specific removal criteria (eg. K-12, fake nomination, obstructs emergency services, sensitive location…)
Also, FWIW, Walmart locations are now sponsored locations in Pokemon Go. All the ones around me have a gym and two stops located in the dead center of the stores.
Still Rejecting the invalid Wayspot. This is mind blowing! They gave me a report of Violation when I did an edit to say “They actually approved this portal”. They didn’t like that but yet they still wont bring it down. I am going to keep this up until they remove it.
Thanks for the appeal, @IronmanStronger. We took another look at the Wayspot in question and decided that it does not meet our criteria for removal at this time.
When submitting a Wayspot Appeal, make sure to include as much of the following information as possible:
Wayspot Title: Sheetz
Location (lat/lon): 40.31162° N, 75.86904° W
City: Reading PA
Country: USA
Screenshot of the Rejection Email (do not include your personal information):
Additional Information (if any): This is a chain gas station. Portals like this, Walmart, Wawa, Lowes, Target do not qualify as portals as they hold no significant impact on a community. I will continue to fight this topic to the end as I value a meaningful strong portal community. I value them because the game of Ingress has taken me to so many awesome places that I have a lasting memory of. Sheetz Portals in an area that has a bunch of portals already, does nothing but ruins the value of the game. I personally am ashamed of the community for approving portal submissions like this one. Same for the Walmarts, Lowes, Targets.
Since you apparently feel that a Chain Gas Station with no significant meaning to the community ((See the terms used there, which is why I am fighting this)) is a legit portal, then fine, I am going to start submitting every single gas station I pass as a portal. Clearly Niantic doesn’t care about the integrity of the portal network anymore and we will just keep allowing anything to be a portal. And I am sure you’re going to give me a violation now because I disagree with you and I am fighting back….because You keep telling me it will remain but NEVER SAY WHY!
In my area, it’s a Men’s Warehouse clothing department store, dentist office, and apartment maps that have been approved. It’s disheartening when I seek out things that meet my eye’s criteria and encourage others to do the same but see the conversations about how easy it is to get things past Niantic…while also seeing struggles Wayfarers have on here and other locations to get things through that I would have approved. Or the mass of trail markers that get removed for somehow not meeting criteria.
Don’t let it stress you out. Continue to find joy in submitting and reviewing if that’s important to you or step out and focus your play in areas away from these types of locations. I’ve been able to avoid interacting with the Portals and Stops that I “disagree” with and I encouraged local friends to make that their meta game.
Unfortunately, there is a hysteresis effect on wayspots.
Once accepted, for good or bad, the rules for getting rid of it are different.
And it doesn’t meet those rules for getting rid of it.
I really wish there was a generic “This should never have been accepted in the first place” criteria. But, there isn’t.
So, they have told us why it stays: there is no reason, under the current rules, to remove it.
Which really sucks. I have nearby business chains I’d like to get rid of. But the best I can do is update the descriptions to indicate that fact as a minor form of protest.
