Wayspot Removal Appeal (Mohawk Valley Fire District, Station 100)

Wayspot Appeals
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  • Wayspot Title: Mohawk Valley Fire District, Station 100
  • Location (lat/lon): 40.681508,-81.261863
  • City: Waynesburg, OH
  • Country: USA
  • Additional Information (if any): This waypoint was likely submitted for removal by out of towners visiting the area for the eclipse (we’ve lost several valid portals in very low density areas recently), it’s been in use (changed names once from Waynesburg Fire to Mohawk Valley Fire) for over 11 years and existed in all niantic games as far as I know. The location does not obstruct emergency vehicle access, is also the local public recycling center (paper, cardboard, etc bins on the north end of the parking lot), has an entire parking lot where the waypoint is accessible from, and is also the local voting precinct, and where the township meetings are held. It’s a pretty significant part of the community.

In pokemon you can access it from anywhere in the parking lot at all (and even across the street in the car wash parking lot a bit). In ingress, the interaction range is a bit shy of the recycling bins.

mohawkvalley
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Is there anything like a historical bell or social hall there? Something like that is acceptable, especially if it is clearly not in the way of the emergency service.

Even though the POI might be in an accessible location, Fire Stations as a whole are no longer eligible and should be removed.

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God, I wish. I’ve been subbing these hamlets (~50-200 people) and small villages in about a 50mi radius for 10+ years… a lot of them the best sub is a park sign, house of worship, fire department, or a memorial bench… if you’re lucky (and getting those to pass is a nightmare half the time), maybe a baseball field or restaurant, am legion, or masonic lodge in the ones pushing towards “small village” (200-500) size. Goal 1 is get at least 3-4 POI to make the games playable for local people.

Out here in rural area where I live (near amish country), the norm (because they’re broke and everyone is a volunteer and buildings are expensive) is to have the fire department/community center/town(township) hall/voting precinct/trunk or treat location (and sometimes the police department – if there is one) all in one building that does all the roles… they’re not much for decoration except sometimes a memorial plaque or dedication plaque for the most part… but no dice here. Hell the only reason it has a recycling center is because of an agreement with american landfill to provide it for free since they’re in the township as well (they also provide free / very reduced trash services for the same reason.)

Is it a top tier interesting POI? No. Is it where everyone locally gathers for township stuff, events, and meetings? Yeap. Is it one of the best POI in the area? Yeap. It’s been around since 2013, had the picture updated a few times (was originally a “static”/missing picture), and been in active use across every game niantic has and is one of the few poi in the area (daily pokemon, ingress, monster hunter use, not sure about pikmin… but i rarely see any activity anywhere but parks for that.)

Wish they had put up a dedication plaque when they rebuilt it 20 or so years ago, but they didn’t.

We constantly have issues with people from “big cities” coming through and subbing everything for deletion because it’s not up to their standard. It’s frustrating when you’re trying to get enough stuff to have people actually play long enough to have a community… if there’s nothing, they quit real quick.

We’ll be doing several more appeals most likely in the near future for the area, pretty sure we even lost a church and pavilion as well a couple hamlets over. Bleh, I’ve learned to hate “events” (eclipse totality path this time) that pull people to the area, because we always end up spending weeks working on getting all the removed stuff back.

Bleh. I’ll shut up, I’m just venting now. SSDD.

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I totally sympathize with you. But a fire station is a fire station. Niantic simply can’t risk drawing people to a place where emergency workers need to have an open, clear exit.

Now, the church POI should not have been removed unless the church closed or asked to have the POI removed.

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I live in the middle of nowhere. Closest Pokestop to me is a five minute drive.

Fire Stations are no longer eligible. I know it sucks that someone removed it, but it should be removed since it can obstructs emergency services.

Is the removed church named Waynesburg Freewill Baptist Church? If so, it is still in Ingress. It is just likely blocked for Pokemon Go at the owner’s request.

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Thanks for the appeal, Explorer. We have taken another look but stand by our decision to retire the Wayspot.