Wayspot Removal Appeal: the wayspot is unaccessible

  • Wayspot Title: Víztorony
  • Location (lat/lon): 47.650798, 19.135320
  • City: Dunakeszi
  • Country: Hungary
  • Screenshot of the Rejection Email (do not include your personal information):
  • Additional Information (if any): As I mentioned earlier, the location is unaccessible. It’s close to the open railway line. Overgrown with vegetation. And the actual thing is even potentially on private property. It’s close to a public road, but it’s certainly not a location to visit or any place of interest.

Would workers or visitors at the water treatment plant be able to safely access this location on foot? From satellite view, it looks like it has safe access for anyone who is allowed on site, which would mean that it’s OK for it to exist.

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Thing is, the whole surrounding area is a railway vehicle repairer, which is NOT accessable by the public. (As far as I know. I don’t know, but it’s a workplace.) This water tower is most likely on their property. Even, there’s another waystop that’s a statue nearby, which I’ll also flag to remove, because it’s on the same closed area, that I’m not even really able to get close enough to report. I’m not sure where to access this water tower normally, but I could question around if necessary. Where I’ve tried to access it was the most reasonable one, and it was not a welcoming one and I couldn’t really get close. It’s behind concrete fences, which makes me believe it’s on that property I mentioned.

As @hankwolfman mentioned before, not every wayspot needs to be accessible by all people. While there might be an argument for the water tower being part of a water treatment area with large machinery so might not be safely accessible for the people with access (the employees). I see no reason to request removal of a statue that is part of this area.

While reviewing you can click on the info i’s to get more information. See this for comments on restricted areas:

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We might be talking of different things. My original motivation was to remove a gym in Pokemon Go, which also technically a “wayspot”; while - if I understand it correctly -, you argue to keep the wayspot. I have no problem with that, but for Pokemon Go, these things have to be physically accessible for the players, or else we weren’t able to interact with them, which I think contradicts their purpose. My main concern here is accessibility. This wayspot and the other I mentioned are difficult, if not downright impossible to access, to get close enough. But as players, we seek to interact with these wayspots, because they give us benefits. Not able to get close to these things or even attract us to potentially dangerous areas are serious downsides I am trying to shed light on. This wayspot in question, reasonably, only accessable by a public road somewhat nearby. That’s the only sensible direction. According to Google Maps that’s about 90 meters away. That’s the closest you can get. I’m not sure about the distance players can interact with things in the game, but to be able to check all the spawns around for example, you have to be able to get as close as 30 meters from multiple directions at least. I get that wayspots can have different purposes, circumstances can be unique, but this particular instance is impractical at best.

But these wayspots are available to the employees and guests of this area. As stated before, restricted areas does not equate to inaccessible.

It may seem harsh, but just because you and your friends cannot access it, that is not grounds for removal. Someone obviously nominated both the water tower and statue. They seem to have rightful access.

And a final note - Niantic does make it clear not to trespass. So please do not try and interact with these wayspots if you aren’t authorized.

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No problem, I’m seeing your point. The reason I thought it’s time to retire this wayspot is because there was a dog school nearby and because of that the whole area was more maintained and even accessable by the public. Now it’s not. But I get what you’re saying. Thank you for the explanation!

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This makes a lot of sense, from a certain perspective.

But, how many people must have what kind of access in order to make it okay?

Can the night watchman nominate something inside a secure facility? (The security team have safe access to it, even if the plant or facility might be dangerous to the public.)

Can Department of Transportation workers nominate the grounds in the middle of roundabouts? They go there for maintenance/grounds-keeping.

Sometimes people do community service work where they pick up trash along a highway. Everybody who performs this service demonstrates pedestrian access. (So, billboards are okay?)

Those little navigation beacons, lighthouses, and markers in the sea have a dock. Anyone with a boat can tie up at the dock and walk to the structure. Workers do this to change bulbs, perform maintenance, do repairs, etc.

Leedle has a sculpture in their office. Is it okay to have a Wayspot that two people can visit safely but nobody else may approach?

Now that corporations are recognized as people, what makes any difference between Leedle’s business office and any other indoor space? Those home businesses that are filling out the purple spots should be regular Wayspots?

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This is a completely valid question. And I’ll break down my reasoning below.

If you pull up the coordinates from the poster, it likely looks to be a very industrial water tower. With added map information and insight from the poster, I could go either way on if this should have been accepted as a wayspot. I may have declined it in a review. But removals are held to a different level, and I’m unconvinced that this meets removal criteria.

An additional comment from the poster mentioned a Sculpture in the same area. A sculpture is specifically made to be seen and explored. Additionally this would very likely be in a public, easily accessed area of this property.

This led to the opinion I shared to the poster based on (my) understanding of the current ideals laid out by Niantic.

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Yeah. I hope people that access that statue would also able to access this water tower. May they have benefit from it.

Thanks for the appeal, @epyxoid. After reviewing the additional evidence provided, we’ve decided to retire the Wayspot in question.