I cant agree with this, if you find a wayspot that exists in the game and you cant find the wayspot in the real world you should report it yes it might give you advantage but if you wanna be critique on reviews you should be aswell when playing the Niantic games. relying on GPS coordinates taken with 3rd party application is against the Niantic guidelines btw.
“Niantic requires all photos (primary and supplemental) to be original, taken by the submitter, and free of watermarks or elements that suggest third-party ownership or manipulation. A watermark added by a third-party app (e.g., “Shot with [App Name]” or a user-specific stamp) can be interpreted as a claim of ownership or branding by the app, raising copyright concerns. This could lead to the photo being flagged as non-original or infringing, risking rejection.”
I don’t know why you’re making it an either/or situation. People should report fake or mis-located wayspots on the map AND they need to be diligent about not letting them get to the map in the first place.
Your second paragraph does not apply to GPS coordinate type watermarks. Niantic reviewers themselves have been using those as proof of location. If it were against the rules, they wouldn’t approve nominations that use them. Those things should not go onto the map, but to prove location, they can be used in the nomination process.
Its called guidelines for a reason, it is supposed to guide you to wether or not approve a wayspot, If it were against rules to not reject a picture taken with a 3rd party application i think a lot of community reviewers should be banned for accepting such nominations, Is it fair that a small town that has 5 stops and 2 gyms compared to a bigger city with 500 stops and 100 of gyms around? If you find small hidden gems in a local small town that encourage you to Explore, Socialize or exercise, Should it be rejected if it doesnt look appealing because its not an architecture wonder of worlds ? if it is important for the local community and it encourages you to explore, socialize and exercise, it should be Accepted and not rejected, it is not fair if Streetview or satellite cant show the nominated object and shouldnt get rejected it ruins the encouragement for exploring to try and find the hidden gems that actual matters
None of that applies to what I have said. The submitter needs to find a way to prove that the thing they are submitting exists where they claim. Big city, rural area, in the desert, in the mountains, in the woods, on the beach… none of that matters.
I have to agree with Seaprincess as well: the burden of proof is on the submitter, not the reviewer, so the submitter needs to put in as much effort as possible to prove that what they are nominating is where they say it is.
If I’m nominating something that isn’t on satellite and/or Street View, I give some additional info about where it’s located in the supporting info, and my supporting photo may include something that may be seen from satellite view at least. If I can provide a link to additional info, I make sure to do that, as that may be helpful in placing the POI to the reviewer.
If I get a nomination in review and if looks real, but all of the info provided doesn’t prove it exists where the submitter says it does, and I can’t find it on satellite and/or Street View, I’ll most likely reject for inaccurate location. Yes, as a reviewer, I tend to put in some extra effort, but not all reviewers do, and if they can’t see it on the map, they’re going to reject if the submitter doesn’t provide proof.
Again, the burden of proof is on the submitter, not the reviewer.
Highly disagree with this statement, as there are systems in place to detect behavior like this, and it could lead to a cooldown, a warning, even a ban. Staff keeps tabs on how we are reviewing, and not everyone is trying to just get through reviews just to get the max rewards. Some of us could care less about the rewards; some of us want to help make the map better all over the world.
Members of the community are still rejecting highly accurate and eligible nominations that are accurate and permanent and meets all the criteria, even the ML is rejecting such nominations, so if the system works sure they might get a cooldown/ban after this nightmare of a challenge is done and normal reviewers that actually knows how to evaluate a review comes back to the surface untill then im not wasting anymore nominations as it is a waste of time to nominate now.
If you cant confirm the location exists you should just skip and let another member that is more known to the area make the decision of the nomination, not reject it based on streetview/satellite image of a wayspot in a forrest that is in full bloom on the pictures, it is impossible to do that.
I guess what im trying to say let the Locals of the area make the decision, dont ruin the work of others, please.
As reviewers, we are to use our best judgment, and if our best judgment is that the POI nominated isn’t there, we are free to reject for inaccurate location. This is even in the help pages Content Guidelines for reviewing:
Reviewing Wayspot nominations involves your good judgement. There is no single set of rules or person who can tell a community in black and white what places are important where others are not. That’s why there will always be some ‘grey area’ in our collective goal to map the most interesting local places. What really influences reviews is how content is presented to convince reviewers that a nomination supports Niantic’s mission and follows the rules around abuse, accuracy, and intent.
Last time I’m going to say this, but the burden of proof, whatever it is that has to be proved, is on the submitter. You need to keep this in mind whenever you submit something, and it doesn’t matter where in the world you are.
You have been asking for help with submissions, and we have noted that improvements can be made. Even with the mill that ML rejected, it was suggested to nominate the benches and viewpoint as the POI rather than the mill waterfall.
Great argument, now you can’t argue when reviewers agree to disagree with you and reject your nomination…
I recently had 2 nominations accepted (one during the challange) that where at a brand new Service Station. No streetview, No satalite images. No way to show other identifiable POIs due to it being in a dip. I added links to a news story from when it 1st opened and to the companies website. This gave reviewers enough to state that on balance they where correct.
The GPS coordinates overlayed onto an image as the supporting photo neither suggests third-party ownership nor manipulation.
That rule intends to prevent people from manipulating, watermarking, or otherwise adjusting the supporting picture to identify the nominator to a group of reviewers, or attempting to manipulate or influence the reviewers into voting a certain way.
There’s a whole thread on these very forums where a group of us discussed using paint or Photoshop to circle/highlight items in the supporting information further to prove the existence of the nomination in question. That lands way closer to image manipulation than a GPS stamp does and that is perfectly acceptable. The submitter bears the burden of proving the existence of a nomination. Using a GPS-tagged image or an image with circles and lines drawn on it only serves to ease that burden a little and help legitimate Wayspots get approved a little easier.
Still it is not approved by Niantic to use 3rd party application to take the supporting image, use your native camera and nothing more that is what the guidelines say
Thanks for the discussion, everyone! Closing this thread now as the main points have been shared and due to the direction things have taken. Some recent comments have been removed. Please keep future discussions constructive and on-topic. If there’s a new point to raise, feel free to start a new thread.