one of my nominations “outdoor gym” at 1.293794, 103.841191 got accepted, but i couldnt figure out how to use the software pinned in the tools-chat channel to see if it was already blocked by an existing pokestop, so can someone who already uses it help check if it will become a pokestop?
also after checking out an s2 lvl 14 cell viewer i approximated the rough boundaries of the lvl 14 cell in that location, with the wayspot “outdoor gym” being the 20th pokestop in the cell if it ends up manifesting in the game, leading to a 3rd gym being spawned in that cell. can someone help check if my approximation was accurate and that it really is the 20th pokestop that shows up in game?
“Outdoor Gym” is at the lower right-hand corner of a L17 cell that already has two other wayspots - Victorian Fountain and Aspen Murals - one of which should be an active pokestop/gym in Pokemon Go.
It may also be too close to Suited Mob Graffiti to appear as a powerspot.
It appears that the L14 cell containing this wayspot already has 20+ pokestops, as do 22 of the 24 surrounding L14 cells. This area is fully populated with gyms.
Note that the use of S2 cells has never been confirmed by Niantic. This is what has been determined by the community.
The S2 cell system is something created outside of Niantic and the cells are necessarily different sizes across the globe.
An S2 L17 cell is approximately 70m wide and high.
An S2 L14 cell contains 64 L17 cells (8 by 8) and is approximately 560m x 560m
Each L14 cell can have up to 3 gyms, converted from pokestops (at the 2nd, 6th and 20th pokestops). It is possible for these gyms to be in 3 cells near the corner. You will find that there is then an area outside of this confluence where there aren’t any gyms .
Where four L14 cells meet, you can have up to 12 gyms close together - three in each of the L14 cells.
Until recently, it was possible to use photo likes to pick which pokestop would become a gym, so you could deliberately choose to get gyms close together like this. This is now much harder, because photo likes don’t affect gym creation - it is now random.
In a new L14 cell with no pokestops, you can still effectively choose the first two gyms, as you can submit your preferred wayspots first, wait for the first 6 to be accepted, and then submit other wayspots (where you didn’t want the gyms).
I am not ready to say that the process is random now. But Niantic has said in the past that they consider trying to manipulate which becomes the gym to be abuse, so I don’t test out this theory. They did not choose to comment when this came up on this forum, so I can’t give a current link. But this is a previous discussion here: From PokeStop to Gym?
An extremely small test by myself (2 places) made me confident that the “Photo Votes” are either no longer used or not the only factor with Gym choice.
Surely if Photo Votes are the method used then it could be tested without breaking any TOS.
If a community group decide collectively that they Like a certain photo and all vote on it then 1 of them creates a 2nd / 6th or 20th waypoint and notes the result.
Repeat with different communities around the world and study the results.
Using a feature as intended shouldn’t be deemed as Abuse if it also happens to confirm something else as a side effect?
The (theoretical) problem comes with why an individual decides to like a certain photo. It is unusual for a community group to all make the same decision on purely aesthetic reasons, except in some situations where one photo is blurry (or otherwise obviously defective).
The study you describe, while seemingly innocent, would be explicitly using the photo-like feature for a non-intended use.
“Hey Guys! You seen the photo on the abc Pokestop?”.
“Yeah, that looks great, I’m gonna give it a vote”.
“Me too, I’d forgot about the photo votes”.
“and me”.
“and me”.
“and me”.
“and me”.
“and me”.
