Hey there Wafarers,
I’m starting to get a little confused, lost and frustraded in how street and information signs (that are sometimes plain arrows or usual traffic signs) get handeld and rated. It seems like I have some missconception of what’s intersting (a POI), visually appealing, even appropriate. I really would love to understand, why things are rated the way the are – cause it sometimes feels like pure randomness to me.
To illustrate what I’m talking about, here are two examples:
The frist one is an industrial mass produced sign, displaying the beginning of the dog beach. The only uniqe point here, might be the sticker that says „shit St. Pauly”. But yeah, it got approved and is an official stop.
The second one is a unique street sign, handpainted on tiles by a quite famous artist of Mardid. These traditional and historic streetsigns are visualizing the herritage of certain streets names within in the spanish Capital. That one got rejected – cause it got cassified as regular street sign with no significance.
So, am I the only one who’s kinda confused or did I miss something. Thank’s for your thoughts about this.
The only issue I have with the Calle De Mallorca sign is that it isn’t unique like you say it is. There are two of them on that street, one at either end, both on the same side of the street.
That I understand. There are exisiting two that might look alike (because the road has a beginning and an end), you’re absolutely right. But they are made of hand painted tiles – therefore are still unique. I’m fine if this is the reason, the stop got rejecetd – because they are simply not unique enough. Just wondering then why many of similar signs are stops already. The other steets have two ends too for sure as well, aren’t they.
And that raises the question, why there are hunderts of mass produced and mostly visually very unappealing direction arrows, info boards and basic traffic signs becoming stops on a daily base then!? That dog beach for example, has two ends for sure as well, maybe even more signs to mark the whole area.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m very thankful for your feedback though, just a little tiered of the inconsistencies in the rating and rejection/approval process.
Hi are you from Madrid or you are just using that one as an example?
Also, I’m going to move this topic to Nomination Support as it seems to be more accurate to be.
Hi there,
at first – thanks for moving my entry to the right category.
No, I’m actually from Frankfurt, Germany but I spend a lot of time in Madrid too, therefore I know the City quite well. The „Calle Mallorca“ is an actual entry I made, that got rejected lately.
This has nothing to do with the location I guess, anyhow. I kinda have the impression, that the overall quality of entries (content wise and visually) is spiraling down a lot lately. It feels like I try do my very best to provide stop worthy and visual appealing content, but that seems to get recjected a lot – for in my point of view sometimes kinda questionable reasons. While at the same time a lot of stuff like this passes through…
Some places around here, have 15-30 of these next to each other. They are not unique, boring as hell, sometimes even very dangerous (cause standing face down, watching your mobile on a bike trail in Germany, might not be the smartest idea). A lot of them are even only stickers on the pole of another traffic sign and might no be there longer than a few weeks or month. So from my personal point of view, these are no POIs at all. But they went trough.
Therefore I’m just a little confused an frustrated, these days. Well, I could go on and upload more stops like this as well for sure. But that wouldn’t make the game any better or more intersting I guess!?
Hi! I asked you because I’m from Madrid city, so I didn’t know if it was okay to talk you in Spanish or not. I will talk about those street signs. I never approve them, they look generic for me and mass produced. They are not enough interesting tot be an individual wayspot. The only thing that changes between them are the name of the street and maybe a little bit of the decoration. They are very common in the center of the city, every street have their own plaque, so I wouldn’t say they are unic.
Meanwhile, I had this one approved:
The difference between this one and the others in the center is that this one is the only street sign with this style in the area, as is not in the center of the city. There are not 2 or more of this signs, just this one. Also is a commemorative plaque to this men, that was very famous in Spain and part of South America in the 60s-70s and he lived in this area until he died.
As you see, this one is quite different than “Calle de Mallorca” as this one tells a story and is a hidden curious object in a place.
Hola Señor,
ahhh entiendo. Si, hablo un poco Español, pero aprendo la lengua todavia por eso mejor nos escribimos en ingles tal vez. ¿Cuando es bien para ti?
I totally understand your point. I guess on someone that wasn’t born in Spain, they have a slight different impact then. They look really pretty to me and I like the different visuals and stories as well as the fact that they are handpainted by Alfredo Ruiz de Luna. But I totally understand, that this might not be unique enough for the locals of Madrid.
The only thing that bothers me a little then, is what’s going though without any rejection on the other hand on a daily basis. So, I’m totally fine that these „street name artworks“ are not unique enough, compared to some the statues in the garden of Reina Sophia, the Parque Retiro or an arcitectural masterwork like the edificio Metropolis.
I guess I’m just really kinda frustraded about the thousands of mass produced direction signs (even next to each other), ugly info walls and bad photographed playground slides, that seemed to pass the process without any problem.
Gracias por tu clasification y explication.
Saludos desde Frankfurt
I can speak Enligh, there is no problem. I complettely understand your frustration, diarily I see a lkot of wayspots being approved that are completely terrible for me, but sometimes we can’t do anything, unless they don’t meet any criteria.
Well, thanks for taking the time to explain that decision to me. Even if it doesn’t save the stop, I at least now understand why it got rejected. And I know now, that I don’t need to put in any more effort in submitting stops like this in the future.
I guess you’re right, the problem here seems to be the partly vague criteria catalogue. And this is not under our influence. I really don’t get, why there is no overall question if the suggestion is a POI at all. Maybe that would exclude a lot more of the trashy submissions already!?
But well, thats the game and we don’t make the rules. I just hope there will be some adjustments in the near future and we’re not doomed to have more stops with ugly stickers, traffic directions and playground slides than anything else.
The inconsistencies can be extremely frustrating, however, it’s important to remember that many if not most reviews are done by community members of which there are thousands if not tens of thousands. Just read through these different threads and you’ll see how many experienced community members can have extremely divergent perspectives on what is and is not acceptable.
I believe much of this stems from some ambiguity in the guidance and inconsistencies within Niantic in applying their own guidance. There are few hard rules for the most part it up to people to interpret the guidance really means, and also to apply their own idea of what a great place to explore exercise or is.
You can have one person describe how a local restaurant really needs to stand out and be important within their community. For example, one person wrote recently: You’d drive past three restaurants just to get to this one. But then have people argue strongly that a single picnic table often the corner of some grassy area that is supposed to be a park even though it’s only 10 m² Is of course a great place to socialize.
I’m not saying I disagree with either, just that you’ll have that range of perspectives and reviewers.
