Tips for Rural Nominators

[ElfFromSpace]

Tips for Rural Nominators:

Look for things that meet the guidelines that tend to be in rural areas:

• Churches
• Fraternal orders and veteran outposts
• Eligible points of interest AT churches, veterans posts, etc. Look for picnic shelters, ball fields, prayer gardens, Little Free Libraries, and religious sculptures and shrines.
• Community Centers, libraries, post offices and or town offices where public meetings are held
• Town parks, sports fields, playgrounds, picnic shelters so long as in public spaces
• Fountains, sculptures or murals at small businesses, as long as they are unique and not mass produced
• Family owned restaurants
• Boat launches or access points to waterways with signage
• Nature preserves with trail or nature signs. Often scouts, youth groups other volunteer build amenities like shelters and bridges in these areas.
• Farms that are open to the public with petting zoos, and other amenities. Charging admission is ok, but a private farm that lets friends or family visit is not.
• Fairgrounds and the buildings within them.
• Historic buildings. Avoid single family homes, and include the history.

Consider strategies for increasing the number of eligible Wayspots in your community. Community initiatives such as Little Free Libraries and murals in public spaces not only add value to the community, but make great Wayspots too. Ensure that you are following correct rules and regulations for your areas, which may include obtaining permits from officials and getting permission from business owners. Talk with town officials about adding signage in parks. DO NOT submit things you created in your own yard, nor add “Artwork” to public property without express permission.

Getting them approved:

• Head off the common objections in the supporting statement. Make a case for the accessibility and or significance to the rural community. If you submit a memorial to a town leader, explain what they did for the town.
• Take high quality supporting photos to help establish the location accuracy where there is no street view.
• Researching details and write a good description, knowing that it is sometimes difficult to convince reviewers. Make the best case you can, and don’t be afraid to resubmit it if it fails and you feel it meets criteria.
• Us the “Upload Later” option if data signal may be weak in the area. Hold the nomination on the wayfarer site if you need time to polish up the description or supporting statement.
• Tidy up signs and picnic shelters for your photos, as every little bit can help get the approval. Reviewers should accept even if a sign is weathered, or dusty, but looks make an impression even to the best reviewers.

Tips for Reviewers of Rural Wayspots:

• Sidewalks are not universally present or required. Low-traffic streets with grassy margins are used by locals to walk. Don’t accept things at private homes or farms, but consider the area when reviewing things like water fountains in the grass verge of a gas station or similar rural locations.
• Being culturally significant means something different in small towns. Local hotspots might not be as glamorous, and someone like a local librarian of twenty years might be well known and an important person to the community. It is reasonable to consider that things have more cultural value to the locals in areas where there is just less stuff.
• Small towns might have smaller parks budgets. Be forgiving of the quality of nominations such as ball fields with no signs and swings that look well-worn.
• Streetview is often not current in rural places. Do your best with what is available to you and if you can’t verify a location but it seems likely to be there, select “I don’t know” rather than thumb’s down.

[garfieldfreakje]

Yeah sure trailmarkers that’s why i got a warning for a ban like just don’t nominate anything because niantic got no clue what they’re doing anymore…

[DTrain2002]

Great info, and some of it can apply to more urban areas as well that are newly developed.

Also, if there is Street View but the nomination isn’t there, click the link for Google in the map while reviewing to see when Street View was last updated. I do this quite often, as there are some who don’t, so they think the nomination is fake because it’s not on Street View or satellite.

[draculgaming]

Do let me know your troubles in submitting these markers. I’m happy to help you get them on the game board.

[elijustrying]

Hi @draculgaming can you share what your top tips are on submitting trailmarkers

[YoYoJoy]

This is SUPER helpful for this newbie. I live in a rural area and there’s really only one place that I think qualifies ans an wayspot, and I’m so worried about it being rejected I haven’t even submitted it yet. I leveled up two weekends ago but I plan to wait until I know more. I have submitted one from the town I usually play in (25-minute drive to play a pedestrian game, lol) in order to learn the system. And I’m learning lots from reviewing and now this lovely list.

Questions:

1. is there a wayspot map we can access? I haven’t seen one yet.
2. Is there any way to know if a spot has been nominated before and rejected?

Thank you!

[seaprincesshnb]

Unfortunately, the only wayspot map that the whole community has access to is limited. https://intel.ingress.com/ is a map of Portals in Ingress that many use. However, there are some wayspots that don’t meet the Ingress inclusion criteria but do meet the PGO inclusion rules that don’t show up on this map. Also any wayspot that exists on the Lightship map, but not in any game won’t show up here.

There is no way to know if a wayspot has been submitted and rejected by someone else.

[draculgaming]

Hi Eli,

Well my first top tip was to do a StreetView ‘if’ the trail marker was off the main Google StreetView view. Alas, this is no longer possible without hefty pieces of kit.

Tip # 1 : Use the portrait function on your camera to get a nice high quality view of the trail marker BUT also clip in some identifying background so that you can head to tip #2

Tip #2 : Your supporting photo should have the trail marker you just photographed in shot, with potentially some identifying background that corresponds with the main photo you took. This way the reviewer may be able to pick up some background objects or buildings to tie in with satellite view or Google car view.

Tip #3 . Get a clean cloth and water spray to wash the markers, some are filthy.

Tip #4 : Try and find the route name your are submitting. Personally I use (for the UK) www.ldwa.org.uk , this has all the UK trails to hand. There are many. The Seven Shires Run, The Cake and Ale trail , plus more.

Tip #5 : Always try to tie in the trail marker with it’s location, even ones without a named trail on them, they are all paid for by your taxes and safely routed and placed by huge teams of people, usually volunteers. So for example : Public Waymarker - Happy town - Heading to the Park , then you can say in the description; Public Waymarker, This marker directs residents and avid walkers down the hill towards X Park. This is marker # 3 on the Park Trail here in HappyTown.

Tip #6 ; Try and link in the trails website if possible IN the supporting Information if possible, as a map is invaluable to your nomination.

That’ll do I think. I will post some screenshots shortly.

[draculgaming]

[elijustrying]

Thanks for that …
I always carry a microfibre cloth and water in my bag for that very task of giving the signs a quick clean.

[draculgaming]

I could probably carry on with Tips but I think I got out the main cookie cutter approach, to the way I do it anyway. The StreetView app was my smoking barrell. Plus it helped a lot with my Google photo views

[seaprincesshnb]

Yeah a 360 photosphere was really helpful.

[draculgaming]

I would love it as an option built in for use in nominations. I’ve tried many times on twitter to put the idea forward to powers at be. The Google StreetView API is free and open source, it just needs writing into X game.

[kawin240]

Albeit very inconvenient to do, there are still methods to do photospheres without hefty pieces of kit or expensive gear:

Guide: How to Photosphere in 2023

[draculgaming]

I will look into this ty

[YoYoJoy]

I appreciate the link. I didn’t find a portal at “my” spot (or any extra portals in the surrounding area). I was worried it was already a wayspot but not implemented in PG. So thank you!
~Joy

[draculgaming]

The moomoo link looks like Google phishing for some reason, the Google login button doesn’t sit correctly.

[ElfFromSpace]

I have some other tips sheets I’m planning to bring over, but I am making sure to update them first, before copying them from another group.

[ElfFromSpace]

This is the perfect sort of topic to bring up in the Nomination Support category. If you post the potential wayspot, we can give advice about whether it is eligible and if so, how to best nominate it!

[kawin240]

That’s because it’s an open project - stuff might not look extremely professional. You can look at the source code on the developers GitHub page too.