Please can I get some help on these. I’ve had 10+ rejected this morning for “Low quality or inaccurate title” but I’m unsure how much more the title should contain when it is a trail marker not near any features.
1)A trail marker on Hankley Common. Hankley Common is a 1400 acre area of heathland, and a part of the Thursley, Hankley and Frensham Commons Special Area of Conservation.
The heath is a popular place to get into nature and exercise, these markers encourage routes around nature and are easily accessible due to being a footpath. Niantic guidance on markers confirms eligibility (May 2024) Trails & Markers
A trail marker for the Surrey Hills Cycle Trail, Frensham Loop. The trail is a 10.5 mile loop around the heathland of Frensham.
Encourages exercise and exploration into nature, more info on the trail can be found Frensham Loop - Surrey Hills National Landscape. The location is on the trail in the link above, easy access by foot or bike and encourages exercise. Thanks
I see a very generic title… when you say you had 10 rejected for “title” were they all titled just as generic and too similar? Titles are to be unique.
I go for significant nearby features or the road/street they are closest to.
If there’s not a number on the trail marker itself, it’s as useless as the generic title
Your first one could have “(Hankley Common Heath)” added after it for example. If there’s more than one there, then I’d look for what’s nearby like a Kissing Gate or a Footbridge to differentiate them.
What do you mean by the numbers? is that if there is no number on the actual marker then don’t add it to the title?
There’s definitely a lot of them that are not really close to anything or that are equally close to them same stuff, but for any that are separate I’ll try and mix up the name.
Hi
Glad you posted here.
As @PkmnTrainerJ says see if there is a feature you can use to aid the uniqueness of the title.
Only go to numbering if you are really stuck, in my view it is better than nothing but only just.
If you are in a wood/forest it can be difficult as they tend to be where smaller paths fork off so you stay on the main trail.
So that might be at junction with path to north exit. It can also be difficult to demonstrate where you are
There is a free app called camera GPS I use for my supplementary photos as it shows the co ordinates.
Here is an example
That’s great thanks, I’ll have a look at the app. Unfortunately you’re right on there not being much to note here. Heathland is distinct for being large wide open spaces of nothing so it may have to be numbers for me.
Ocassionally a map might have the locations and official numbers. There might also be something not obvious. Nearby in the example I show there is a feature called Awesome oak tree, so I could have used that as descriptor.
Also if there are several trails sometimes you can use the fact the post might have 3 different markers as a distinguishing feature.
If in the end you go for numbering explain that in the supplementary info that it is post 2 going north from starting point described this way to distinguish it.
If there are a lot of posts that are simply not at decision points and just marking straight on then it is worth questioning if they are actually helping to anchor the trail on the map so they may be eligible but not acceptable.
As someone who does a lot of trail markers, I won’t do every marker on a trail. The general rule in my area is that at least one marker should be visible at all times. That’s a lot of POIs. I will do the markers at the trailheads (usually 3 markers in a triangle), a trail junction, or where they cross roads. All those can be given unique names as was suggested above.
Clicking on the route brings up the details.
You may be able to use the names to help describe the junction eg
Frensham Loop at 42 bridleway. It’s a clumsy way but it makes it unique and verifiable.
The information in this website is useful for these routes in U.K.
Oh cool!
bit of a janky website but very interesting, didn’t know anything like this existed.
You mentioned Eligible vs Acceptable in another comment. I’ve been looking for a definition of both but couldn’t find it.
Is eligible theoretical it could be a waypoint because it reaches one of the criteria, then acceptable is it should be a waypoint because it is eligible and it has enough detail that others agree should be in the database?
“Hinkley Common Trail Marker” looks like a standard PROW marker and not an actual trail, I would lean towards rejecting that as not being distinct. “Hills Cycle Surrey” or “Surrey Hills Cycle” or whatever is a named trail so much more distinct.
As other submitters have said, try to come up with a unique description for each. This can be difficult, I’ll tend to use a nearby farm or building (e.g. “ZZZ Trail, South of YYY Farm”), it’s relation to a road, a woodland, hill, river or other natural feature. Some of these are poorly marked in Google Maps, but are much more clear in OpenStreetMap. If you’re in the UK then https://maps.nls.uk/ (National Library of Scotland) has historic OS maps of the entire UK which will sometimes have names for features that aren’t on current maps - for example this is from 1901 and shows a wealth of detail not usually seen today:
Obviously this can take some work and is best not done in the field, so set your submissions to upload later and then upload them when ready, set them to HOLD and work on the descriptions.
