Three Automatic Rejections in a Wayspot-Poor Area – Request for Review Consistency

[redkamis]

Hello Niantic team,

I am posting because I am struggling to understand the consistency of the current nomination system in my neighborhood.

The closest Wayspot to my home is around 600 meters away , while there are many Wayspots concentrated roughly 1 kilometer away in surrounding areas. My immediate area has very limited points of interest despite being a populated residential neighborhood.

I recently submitted three nominations that I believed had reasonable eligibility value, and all three were automatically rejected . I am attaching screenshots of those rejections for reference.

1. Local Yoga / Fitness Studio

A permanent neighborhood studio offering yoga, Pilates, aerial classes, and wellness activities. This nomination was intended under the criteria of encouraging exercise , learning , and community gathering .

2. Decorative Exterior Artwork

A permanent decorative marine-themed wall installation on the exterior of a multi-residential apartment complex, visible from the public street. This nomination was intended under the criteria of art , local exploration , and visual interest.

3. Local Mini Market / Community Service Hub

A longstanding neighborhood mini market that serves residents daily, including home deliveries for elderly residents and parcel collection services. This nomination was intended as a hyperlocal community business with practical social value.

What concerns me most is that these nominations were not simply community-reviewed and declined, but automatically rejected , while I can find many existing Wayspots elsewhere in the city that appear similar or weaker in quality and criteria.

I fully understand that not every nomination should be accepted, but in areas that already have very low Wayspot density, repeated automatic rejections make it extremely difficult for players to improve the local map.

I would appreciate clarification on the following:

1. How the automatic rejection system evaluates nominations in low-density neighborhoods
2. Why nominations related to exercise, art, and community value may be filtered automatically while similar examples exist elsewhere
3. How contributors in underrepresented areas can realistically improve local Wayspot coverage
4. Whether the automated system is regularly reviewed for consistency and false rejections

I am genuinely trying to contribute in good faith, but the current experience feels uneven and discouraging for players in neighborhoods with few existing Wayspots.

Thank you for your time.

[wooperIooper]

Hi and welcome to the forum! I’m not staff but can write a little bit about what the community has observed

@redkamis

I would appreciate clarification on the following:

1. How the automatic rejection system evaluates nominations in low-density neighborhoods
2. Why nominations related to exercise, art, and community value may be filtered automatically while similar examples exist elsewhere
3. How contributors in underrepresented areas can realistically improve local Wayspot coverage
4. Whether the automated system is regularly reviewed for consistency and false rejections

1. From what we have gathered, the main photo seems to be the most important factor for the automatic process, with the text (title, description, supporting) helping “borderline” cases pass ML. This is not affected by being located in a low-density area. From what I know, ML doesn’t do location checks.
2. See above
3. Take better photos that help ML understand what you’re nominating
4. We think so. It’s a machine learning program so would be continuously trained

Maybe other people can add some extra recommendations for good photos, but the object should be in clear focus with not too much surrounding “noise”, but still enough context so ML understands. This is dependent on the object too, trail markers do better with a bit of nature in the back to help ML understand it’s a trail marker, while other objects usually shouldn’t have too much nature.

[redkamis]

Thank you for your time, but I have seen, not just in my city, places with much worst, photos (dark at night, from weird angles etc) and being nothing great according to their critiria being constantly approved. My genuine question is how consistent is the automatic system…

[wooperIooper]

The automatic system is relatively new. A lot of the things you see in game predate the ML

[redkamis]

As i play every day around my city in the same areas (due to work), I constantly see new wayspots that barely meat any criteria (I am not talking about old wayspots aproved ages ago like grafitty etc)

[wooperIooper]

Please share some examples of the newer wayspots you don’t understand!

I’m trying to find some examples that are are somewhat similar to what you are submitting but I don’t have that much. Maybe these will help to show how I usually frame photos for ML/Wayfarer

[wooperIooper]

I think I would frame your examples like this, but you need high quality and well-lit photos

[redkamis]

Thanks for your feedback. I will take some new photos, resubmit and get back to you. Also I will try to screenshot some nonesence points just for your files

[CountKnick]

Like the examples @wooperIooper posted above, tighter focus and good lighting can help get it past ML.

Is the mini market a small shopping centre with multiple businesses or just a local market? The reason I ask is if it is a chain, it may have been auto rejected for that reason.

If I have a chain store I generally take a look inside as some of the ones here would have a stand alone coffee shop inside of the building where you can sit and have a coffee and a sandwich and people generally meetup there, especially if it is a smaller community. You may be able to enter that under Social. Unfortunately a lot of chains only have the automatic dispensing machines though in order to reduce costs or because of space limitations.

As for the yoga studio, I would definitely accept that under exercise and social because they generally do classes where you meet other like-minded people and the fact they do aerials also is definitely exercise (probably to much for me though​). As stated above, better photo of the image you submitted may help.

The art on the facia I would pass also but framing it with tighter focus would be key on that one which is why ML probably rejected it.

Oh and surrounding photos, make sure you actually capture the poi you are submitting along with the surrounding area in the surrounding photos, you would be surprised how many submissions I see the someone just takes a picture with there back to the actual thing they are submitting and if it doesn’t show on street view it can be hard to accept it unless you manage to match the position and angle the photo was taken at and then you are able to find the actual poi.

This is especially important if you are submitting something like trail markers, plaques, information signs or even when it comes to the art on that building, if you take one just showing the building and don’t capture the the art unfortunately from experience some won’t bother to look around for it, they will see the building, no art and reject.

Hope that helps, best of luck with the appeals.