Several months ago, a few apartment complexes in my community saw their swimming pools approved as wayfare locations, which gave me great excitement, as I live in a community where Swimming Pools are almost a requirement for apartments (Australia).
I tentatively submitted a few and got quite quickly rejected by the community, which was fair enough as I had always rejected them when reviewing, and maybe the information had not come out.
However, upon appeal, the pools were then approved by Niantic. Happy days.
In my work life, I am able to access many apartment complexes and have been able to catalogue just over 400 Swimming Pools in apartment complexes and started submitting them as soon I was able to. Great pool shot (if I do say so myself), surrounding area shot with pool placement, can clearly see the pool from the satellite photo, great description and supporting info.
However, over the last month, the AI reviewing and subsequently the Niantic appeals have been rejecting them within days of being submitted. Being marked as private residence and the ambiguous “wayfarer criteria”.
I am very confused if there has been some reversion to the criteria around apartment complexes and pools, as having read the forums over the last few months, I can see that they should be eligible and yet they are not being approved.
Would love some clarification around these, as my intention over the Christmas break is to expand my pool search into different suburbs of my city and expanding the game map.
The clarification in May was that any pool that is a part of a community, and an apartment building can be considered a community, is eligible. I especially find the appeal rejection to be bad; what exactly is a “regular swimming pool?”
I thought pools were great places to be social with others and get in some exercise…
Hopefully staff can take a look into this, as it’s puzzling.
I think this is what sent me over to go from lurking here to asking the question. My phone is filling up with pool photos, but I don’t want it to be a futile exercise if Niantic is unsure themselves.
Next question should also be around apartment complex tennis courts. Because they should also be eligible, and if so, I have a lot more work to do!
Hello and welcome @basherballgod
You are quite right these should have been approved by community in the first place, and certainly should have been accepted on appeal.
Can you please post a couple of examples of your full original submissions that got rejected so that we can see if there is anything that we can spot that may be causing a problem.
Yes Tennis courts are good too. If there is a children’s play area then that is fine, along with any communal space for people to gather eg a communal BBQ area.
I could easily see the Sandford Street one and it is obviously a communal pool.
What sort of text do you have for the description?
The supplementary text that you are using I think could be improved. It is useful to have some cut and paste standard text but you could do with making it more specific to each submission. Instead of the quoting that this type is ok, try to turn it around more. State why it meets criteria.
For example that it provides a social focus for the community in the apartments, if there is a deck for relaxing when not in the pool say so. It is a place for exercise.
This makes it clear what criteria it is meeting. Then a brief statement and maybe a link to the criteria clarification to back up.
Hopefully for those that are in queue you could put them on hold and improve the text. That may help them to be accepted by the community.
It is odd that one has been rejected for blurry photo when that is clearly not the case. In some ways your photos look too good​:thinking:. I can’t tell from the thumbnails of the whole list but the area around the pool often looks devoid of any use, the sort you get when being prepared for a sales brochure. I live in the U.K. so I don’t see pools often and most places I take photos of look used or well loved .This may be linked to the job you do that gives access to the pools but it may raise suspicion with some reviewers.
My template supporting info is now below - not sure what else I can add in, after a while a pool is a pool. Similar to a gazebo?
“Swimming pools in apartment complexes have been deemed eligible under the niantic guidelines, as they promote exercise and socialisation. They are not single use family dwellings. The pools are not deemed private property and have been approved throughout the area.”
The photos are pretty good, as I work in real estate and I take the photos when we are preparing the property for sale or rent, so they are tidied up a bit and I can use the professional photographers lighting set up. Can understand how they could come across like that, maybe I can tone them down…
By that same token, would be great for something official to come out so we can put this issue to bed. The above is just from 4 suburbs of my city, and there 190 suburbs in my city, so a bit of work ahead of me
Ah I suspected that might have been what was the case with the photos.
Just make sure that the ones you take to use for nominating are distinct from any that you use professionally that will end up on the web. If any photos you use are on the internet at all then they can be caught as 3rd party photos even if you took them.
My view is the text still comes across as very generic.
Remember with every nomination you are trying to be clear as to why this particular place should be included. Yes there is very much the case of it’s another pool, but you should try to individualise.
So This community pool provides a great place to socialise and promotes exercise.
It is in a communal area of the [I would insert name] apartment complex.
See for current guidelines on eligibility of apartment pools.
Leave out the comment about others have been approved as it is not relevant and is not a reason as to why this pool is acceptable. It actually can have a negative impact.
I presume in the description you tease out that there is space to sit and socialise.
Although some aspects may seem obvious do state them
There really is nothing more that can be clarified as otherwise you start to come up with lots of specialised versions of the guidelines.
I started to reply to this last night but was too baffled to make any sense of this. I have had no trouble with Niantic - human or ai - rejecting pools.
Your “regular swimming pool” rejection seems like an appeal decision that needs to be reversed.
Can you show us the full resolution of the submission photo for this one they called “blurry”? I can’t say that this one is clearly wrong from a screenshot, but it also seems to be.
To my understanding apartment pool are not eligible because only the people that live at the property are able to use. Therefore not publicly accessible. I believe it’s a grey area nomination because since it’s regular people reviewing, someone reviews who aren’t fully informed allow apartment pools to be accepted when they shouldn’t be.
Hope this clarifies things.
(Anyone, if I’m incorrect, please inform me, always willing to learn.)
There used to be a weird exception in the old November 2020 AMA which said that “residentially focused” pools are ineligible. And on the old forum, staff had said in replies that apartment pools are an exception to pools being great Wayspots. Many reviewers learned that old rule and continue to vote that way. However, that AMA was not brought to the new forum.
Most of us feel that pools in common areas are great places for exercise and being social, and Niantic has not weighed in on this “new” forum that these are not eligible. Even these appeal rejections do not say that apartment pools cannot be accepted. So I am not sure what was going on with those.
You need to add 2 different aspects altogether. An area with restricted access is eligible for places to be nominated. So being open only to people in an apartment complex is not a reason to reject.
This criteria clarification about pools is clear.
Community pools, or those associated with sports facilities, can make great nominations and should be considered eligible.
So the community pool at the apartment complex is fine. All in that community can access and exercise /socialise.
So you need to bring your view of criteria up to date.
.This may be linked to the job you do that gives access to the pools but it may raise suspicion with some reviewers.
