Wayfarer in Rural Areas: When Strict Criteria Becomes a Limitation

General Discussion
1

I’d like to share some feedback regarding the nomination process in Wayfarer, especially from a rural perspective.

I fully understand and respect the purpose of the guidelines. Criteria like cultural significance, social gathering spots, and exploration value are important to maintain quality across the network. However, I feel the current interpretation of these criteria can be overly strict—particularly in rural areas.

In smaller communities, we simply don’t have the same density of historical landmarks, cultural institutions, or high-traffic gathering places as larger cities. Expecting a small, locally run business or location to demonstrate the same level of “cultural significance” as something in a major city feels unrealistic.

For many rural communities, places like local shops or small businesses naturally function as social hubs, even if they don’t appear that way on paper. These places may not have long historical backgrounds or constant daily crowds, but they still play an important role locally.

Another challenge is how the system itself reinforces strict interpretations. As reviewers, we are encouraged to follow the guidelines very closely in order to maintain or improve our Wayfarer rating. This makes it difficult to apply any level of flexibility, even in cases where local context would justify it. In practice, this can lead to consistently conservative decisions—especially for rural nominations.

Because of this, the issue is not just about the guidelines themselves, but also how they are applied through the review system.

I would love to see more flexibility or clearer guidance when reviewing nominations from rural locations. Perhaps:

  • Greater emphasis on local relevance over global or historical significance
  • More consideration for how a place functions within a small community
  • Clearer examples of acceptable rural nominations

The goal isn’t to lower the quality, but to ensure fairness and inclusivity across different types of communities.

Thank you for your time and for considering this perspective.

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Hi and welcome.

Reviewers are already encouraged to evaluate local significance, and allow for more “generic” things in rural communities, as long as the submitter can make a convincing argument for their submission like here:

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I have a quibble with the way this is phrased. It isn’t that more generic things are allowed, but that things that might be generic elsewhere might be significant in a more rural area.

That part is spot on, and it is on the submitter to convince that something is locally significant.

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Thanks for the response, I really appreciate the clarification and the link.

I’m aware of the guidance around generic vs non-generic businesses, and I do think it’s a step in the right direction—especially the acknowledgment that rural locations can function differently.

However, the challenge in practice is that making a “convincing argument” for local significance is not always straightforward.

In many rural areas, places do act as social hubs, but there often isn’t formal documentation to support it—no articles, no official recognition, and sometimes not even strong online reviews. It becomes difficult to translate “local importance” into something that consistently meets reviewer expectations.

On top of that, because reviewers are incentivized to follow criteria strictly to maintain their rating, there is often hesitation to accept borderline or context-dependent nominations—even when they may genuinely fit the intent of the criteria.

So while the guidance exists, there still seems to be a gap between what is theoretically acceptable and what is consistently accepted in practice.

I think clearer examples, or more explicit support for how to evaluate rural submissions, would make a big difference here.

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It is not fair or practical to expect the reviewer to first evaluate whether the area they are reviewing should be evaluated differently because it is whatever “rural” is. It is on the submitter to show that their nomination meets criteria as a great place for exercise, exploration, or being social in their community without meeting any of the rejection criteria. There does not need to be a different standard for different communities.

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Niantic is attempting to do something for communities that have “low Wayspot density” with this street corner Pokestop experiment:

However all of the ones I have seen have been placed in areas that I would call the suburbs, not rural.

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Thanks for the reply — I think I may not have explained my point clearly enough.

I’m not suggesting that reviewers should apply a completely different standard depending on whether an area is rural or urban, or that the responsibility should shift away from the submitter. I fully agree that it’s up to the submitter to demonstrate why a nomination meets the criteria.

The challenge I’m trying to highlight is more about how difficult it can be to demonstrate local significance in practice.

In many rural areas, places absolutely function as social hubs or important community spots, but there is often little to no formal or easily accessible supporting evidence (no articles, limited online presence, few reviews, etc.). This makes it hard for submitters to “prove” something that is locally well understood, but not well documented.

Because of that, even when a nomination genuinely fits the intent of being a great place to be social or explore, it can still struggle to be accepted consistently.

So my point isn’t that the standard should change, but that clearer guidance on how to effectively demonstrate local significance — especially in areas where documentation is limited — would help both submitters and reviewers apply the criteria more consistently.

I hope that clarifies what I meant :slightly_smiling_face:

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It might help if you shared your general location and the things you’d like to submit or had rejected previously and maybe we can give more specific advice?

Some areas do sadly have very little to submit, but often there’s something to try

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I see what you’re saying, and I will be trying this approach the next time I face an issue. But this post isn’t really do emphasize my submissions, but the issue that can arise when submitting a POI. Thanks for sharing though.

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Hi! I live in a small village, surrounded by even smaller villages, so I get it. I see this frustration often, and I felt it too. Even though there’s helpful tips on here, many still don’t apply to extreme rural life. There’s no shops, no barbers, no art and no picnic benches because you don’t have to go to a park to experience nature if your back yard is miles of forests. I just don’t think people without the lived experience could ever understand what that’s like.

So, I figure we have to tell them. We have to explain in a way that might feel stupid for us because for us it’s so normal, but remember that the way we experience life is extremely forreign to many people. I literally had to write in a nomination that its not dangerous to walk by a trail sign by the pavement, which feels almost condescending, but many people have barely seen a snow mobile on tv - it just sounds dangerous to them.

It is frustrating. It feels unfair that we have to work so much more when we have less opportunities already, but we all get dealt different cards in life. All we can do is work with what we have. Be creative, be overly descriptive.

Although, the Niantic have accepted my nominations when I appealed, and I hear they’re doing experiments with solutions that might even out the playing field a bit.

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The community has put together this topic to help submitters in rural areas:

Do you have a suggestion on how to proceed with this education of how local significance should be considered by reviewers? Education is a huge problem for Wayfarer in general, I do agree with you on that. After claiming they have looked at some onboarding, reviewers never have to look at any guidelines again. They don’t have to come to the forum for answers. They don’t have to open the reviewing tool tips even once. And those kind of reviewers tend to accept what they see accepted in game and reject what they don’t see in game. (That is my theory as to why builder’s signs for neighborhoods or apartments are popping up all over the game board when they should not be accepted, and exercise gyms are usually rejected and have to be appealed.)

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You bring up some really good points, and I agree — education is a big part of the issue.

I think one of the main problems is that even when guidance exists, it’s not always visible or reinforced in a way that actually impacts how people review over time.

A few ideas that could help:

  • Periodic refreshers or short required guideline updates for reviewers
  • More in-review examples, especially showing why something is accepted or rejected
  • Clearer, practical examples of local significance in different types of communities

Right now, I think a lot of decisions are influenced by patterns people see in-game, as you mentioned, rather than consistently applying the intent of the criteria.

So I definitely agree — improving how guidance is surfaced and reinforced could make a big difference.

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The search for the next cohort of Wayfarer Ambassadors just opened, fyi.

You could apply. You could bring your rural perspective to the conversation!

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14

Hello and Welcome,

I have always thought that the “Chain Restaurant in Rural Areas” is a strange criteria as in my experience “proper” rural locations won’t have McDonalds / Starbucks etc.

Any Restaurant / Coffee Shop in such a rural area is likely to be an independent.

Maybe it is different in other places around the world so I am happy to be corrected.

I see this for Small Towns that might only have 1 coffee shop that happens to be a Starbucks. Most would be usually rejected as a “chain” but in a small town it might allow groups to use it such as “Mother and Baby meetings”, “20% off for seniors on a Tuesday Morning” etc. These would probably have posters which could be used as evidence.

I think we also need to move away from the “Rural” vs “City” argument (they regularly appear on the forum). It is not Us vs Them. You play the game to your surroundings and how you want to play.

The City players could easily argue that Rural players have it easy in Showcases. You are less likely to Win if there are 80 players competing…

Finally, just to stop the assumption. My location is somewhere in the middle, a village connected to a small town. Best of both worlds or worse of both world. I don’t have a stop that I can spin from home, I don’t have to drive 30 miles. The town park used for Raid Days etc is about 3 miles away.

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Thanks for sharing! However, I don’t feel like I’m active enough as a Wayfarer to apply for the Ambassador program. I occasionally swing by for a submission here and there. So I wouldn’t classify my self as active at all. But I will read through it and think about it.

Again, thanks for sharing.

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Same. My childhood area was definitely “rural”… the road I lived on was over 5 km long and only had 3 3-way intersections, other than a set of highway ramps at each end (it formed a loop with a frontage road on the other side of the highway). My across the street neighbors were a cattle ranch. The only thing there that would have qualified as a pokestop is one intersection had a homemade wooden advertising sign for a privately owned campground that was about a kilometer up the cross street…. which was the only commercial property in the area.

Even the local fire station and grocery store were 8 km away!

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Fond memories of walking to the nearby ranch where we could buy candy at the shop. Mom would get “fertilizer” from the stables for her backyard garden every year. The ranch is now a cemetery as the area has grown. I don’t live there anymore.

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Me either (I moved in 2007). This ranch didn’t have a shop. The nearest shop was a produce market about 6 km away.

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19

Off topic but this actually reads like poetry to me and it’s beautiful

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Topics about rural areas come up all the time.
But when it comes to this issue, Wayfarer itself isn’t really the problem.

Wayfarer is basically just a warehouse for wayspots.
They don’t design game systems, and honestly, they don’t even have the authority to influence how the games use those wayspots. Their only job is to collect good wayspots from around the world so the game teams can use them however they want.

So the root of your frustration isn’t something Wayfarer can fix.
Even if Wayfarer loosened its criteria, it would just lead to even more pokestops in big cities, not in rural areas. And that would probably make you even more annoyed.

That’s why Pokémon GO itself needs to come up with new ideas that actually help rural players feel satisfied.