Seconding this!
I see so so many sponsored “memorial” benches in pokemon go, even some that are sponsored by businesses. The standards seem very low. (I don’t even want to think about how many more were accepted by Niantic but aren’t in PoGo because of the stricter proximity rules.)
I’ve tried reporting a couple of them, but it’s always been rejected so I’ve given up. To bastardize Brandolini’s law, it’s way harder to dispute a bad stop than it was to nominate it. I’d rather focus my efforts on trying to push through my own nominations.
This is a more general thing, but please please stop using Temporary or Not Distinct when you mean “insignificant.” That’s not what that question is for. The “Distinct” part for weeding out people nominating a random unmarked tree in a forest or every lamppost along a street. Sponsored benches are distinct because even if there’s a whole row of them, you can easily distinguish them by reading the plaques.
If you think a nomination is insignificant, you should vote that it isn’t good for socializing or for exercising or for exploration because the significance is subjective. Something might seem unimportant to you because of cultural bias, particularly in geographically large and culturally diverse countries.
Remember the rule of Average Familiarity. The original comic is about experts in a field of study but to rephrase it: Even when trying to compensate for our own cultural bias, it’s very easy to overestimate an average person’s familiarity with our culture. As a nominator, it can be hard to know what you need to explain.
For example, I didn’t think I needed to explain what a county fair was, but apparently I do because my nominations for permanent, clearly marked structures get rejected for being
Temporary or Not Distinctunless I explain the entire concept.Side note: Do rural wayfinders a solid and read this post on Tips for Rural Nominators.
This isn’t as big of an issue for memorial/sponsored benches because it’s more obvious that you should explain who the person it’s dedicated to was. But there are definitely cases where a figure seems famous enough that the average person would be familiar enough to know who they are.
For example, someone nominating a bench dedicated to Bessie Coleman might think she was important enough to have instant name recognition for valid reasons. Without looking her up, do you know who she was? I know a lot of people who wouldn’t.
Answer
She was extremely important early black aviator. She was the first African American woman and first Native American to hold a pilot license in the USA.
I looked her up because I couldn’t remember if she had also been involved with the civil rights movement later in life and found out she unfortunately died young, but I hadn’t known she was also Native American before. This led me to wonder: Would I recognize the name of another important Indigenous American figure? I get matched with nominations from all over the US. I could get a memorial bench a thousand miles away for a genuinely famous activist that I don’t know.
In conclusion, cut nominators some slack and please stop reporting nominations as invalid because something doesn’t seem important to you. When in doubt, I answer Accuracy as I don’t know and write something in to Niantic and then vote that it isn’t good for Socializing, Exercising, or Exploration.