Wayspot downgraded from a Gym to Stop in Pogo despite still meeting all Gym criteria

Nomination Support
1

Hello, I have a mystery I am trying to solve. The wayspot in question is this one:

This wayspot has been a Pogo Gym for years, until about a week ago, when according to my IITC Mobile app someone moved it in Ingress. However, it was only slightly shifted within its same S17 cell; this S14 cell still meets all the existing stop number criteria to support 2 gyms (it currently contains 9 total wayspots); but for some reason, the wayspot was downgraded from Gym to Pokestop in Pogo.

The only thing I can think of that might have had an effect on it, is that this S14 cell currently contains a temporary McDonald’s sponsored Gym; however, because of that sponsored gym, this S14 cell went from it’s long-existing 2 gyms to temporarily having 3 gyms, and existed like that for at least 6 or so months, so I was under the impression that temporary sponsor gyms did not play by the usual rules. Is the existence of that temporary gym messing with things?

2

Yup. Sponsored gyms steal natural gym spots now. This is a PGO problem. I strongly disagree with this behavior, but the Wayfarer team can’t control or fix it.

3 Likes
3

Got it. So when the sponsorship ends, that cell will likely recalculate a new gym based on the next-best available spot, rather than to necessarily return the old gym, right?

4

Yes.

5

Oh gosh, thats an awful way to do it. This seriously discourages people updating POI for accuracy, especially if it’s likely to lose them a gym. Definitely a failing from the Pogo team but also affects Wayfarer.

1 Like