Questions about portal validity.

I have come across a portal in my local area which seems almost certain to violate policy, but I don’t know what, if anything, can be done about it. Are portals considered valid if they are on highly secure commercial property and are out of range for anyone who doesn’t trespass(which would almost certainly result in injury and/or arrest in this case), spoof, or work there? This place definitely does not have safe pedestrian access, and it just seems to violate the spirit of the game and defeat the purpose. I know the policy has been changed for portals on military bases, but this is a situation I can’t seem to find any information about. It obviously also makes it impossible for me to even attempt to report it. What is the policy on this? I’m sorry if this topic has been discussed before, but if it has, I’m not able to find it.

Comments

  • GoblinGranateGoblinGranate ✭✭✭✭✭

    Niantic is OK with restricted areas as long as they are not a private property.

    I've always been OK with time restriccions, but letting portals exist in places where only certain people can have access is just out of the board for me.

    But it is Niantic's logic and it is my believe that this kind of portals only atract spoofers. Just abusive.

  • 1valdis1valdis ✭✭✭✭✭

    Andrew Krug once said: "If you don't have the access to the portal, but some specific people have - recruit them". ;)

  • Sounds perfectly valid based on Niantic's guidelines, since it's not PRP or K12.

  • kynardkynard ✭✭

    I should clarify that, while this is certainly not residential, it is private property, and the only way in is secured with large gates. Even those who can enter must drive, and the portal is so far from said gates that it is entirely impervious to attack from outside them. It’s listed as though it’s some kind of art installation, but it’s actually part of a building at the back of a large storage yard. Unfortunately, the only players who seem to have access to this one have already been recruited by the other faction! I admit that’s the only reason I noticed it in this instance, but I’m certain our side does the same in other private locations if they can. Frankly, I think we’d all have more fun if this loophole were closed and all the portals were at least occasionally fair game. It gets a bit boring when everything remains static for months at a time. Anyway, thanks for the feedback and being patient with an ignorant old like me! 👍

  • evildaveevildave ✭✭
    edited June 2020

    Perfectly valid per portal criteria. A lot of people don't like it, but them's the rules.

    Post edited by evildave on
  • KarM3LKarM3L ✭✭✭✭

    Nothing you have added changes the validity of said portal - unfortunately

  • AzhreiaAzhreia ✭✭✭✭✭

    Restricted access is still access. Even if you need to have an invitation/pass/pay for entry/can only access certain times of the year, these are all still valid if not on Private Residential Property or a school.

  • kynardkynard ✭✭

    Is safe pedestrian access not an issue in general? I don’t mean to harp on this specific location, but I had thought that safe pedestrian access was one of the primary requirements for valid portals, and so I’m curious about how we define this. There’s no place on earth that some person couldn’t get to under some circumstances, whether it’s the south pole, the middle of the Pacific Ocean, or the summit of Mt. Everest, but one does not simply walk into those places. What is “pedestrian?” What is “safe?” Am I looking at the wrong set of rules? Thanks for your help!

  • AzhreiaAzhreia ✭✭✭✭✭

    Safe pedestrian access doesn't imply access to all. If you have the relevant permission to enter a restricted premises, and can walk up to the poi safely, then you have a valid poi with safe pedestrian access.

  • HydracyanHydracyan ✭✭✭✭✭

    Pedestrian Access mean that, given previous granted access to the location, you haven't a high risk of dying wandering arround like a fool distracted with a smartphone. For example in the middle grass of a highway, or in a bridge, or I the middle of a **** area, landing area of planes, etc.

    It's not about a person being able to reach it by foot in straight line without permissions. It's more about how high is the probability of Niantic getting sued if a gamer get injured accidentally by nothing paying enough attention while playing and decide to blame the game and not his own stupidity.

  • kynardkynard ✭✭

    Perhaps the rules should be more specific in that regard. I still would contend that portals like this one are tantamount to approving a portal in the fenced back yard of the person who submitted them. In fact it’s worse in some respects, because they’d almost certainly be accessible from outside the property if they were on a residential lot. Having to change careers or perpetrate criminal trespass to get access to a portal is not comparable to having to pay admission or go to a public place during a limited season. In fact, while the last two make complete sense in encouraging legitimate exploration of the wider world, the placement of a portal on any restricted private property, whether residential or commercial, would seem to be diametrically opposed to both the spirit of the game and its general rules of conduct. If we’re trying to discourage criminal activity and cheating, this is not the way.

  • AzhreiaAzhreia ✭✭✭✭✭

    It doesn't need further explanation, just some applied common sense. Restricted access poi certainly does not give a player leave (or temptation) to trespass, and assuming such would be the same as saying wearing expensive jewellery justifies being robbed.

    Poi are specifically prohibited from being nominated on Private Residential Property, among other locations that would make it ineligible. It's mentioned specifically by Niantic.

  • kynardkynard ✭✭

    I didn’t say that the portal’s position gave anyone official permission to trespass, I said it incentivized trespassing and cheating, and it does. Are you seriously suggesting that it’s reasonable for me to quit my job and go to work in an auto storage yard so I can get access to a portal? It would seem that way, since that and trespassing are the only ways to get into this place without spoofing.

    As I am determined not to cheat, I won’t ever be able to touch portals like this one, because I’m absolutely not going to sacrifice my livelihood or risk going to jail to be competitive in a game. The fact that I should ever be faced with such a preposterous decision is a legitimate flaw in the system. I’m talking about what the rules should be, not what they are.

  • AzhreiaAzhreia ✭✭✭✭✭

    Nowhere does it say that every player should have unrestricted access to every single poi. Really, there will always be some that you may have to put in some extra work to get to, or some that will be forever out of your particular reach. This does not invite trespassing or spoofing to get to. Being told "No you can't have that" is not secretly saying "Do whatever you have to to get it, regardless of rules".

  • kynardkynard ✭✭

    Perhaps you’re having trouble understanding the meaning of what I’m telling you here. To incentivize something basically means to encourage an action with the promise of a reward. If you put a portal (reward) in a place where it is only available via the actions of trespassing or spoofing for 99.9999% of players, you are providing an incentive to act in one of those ways. It does not matter if the behavior is officially sanctioned or even what you intend. If you reward an inappropriate action in any way, it is incentivized by definition.

    Putting a wad of cash on the dashboard of your car doesn’t decriminalize a break-in, either, or make the robber an heroic figure, but most people still have the sense not to do it, because they know it provides an incentive for would-be thieves. A sensible person knows that laws are broken every day and would prefer to avoid losing the cash and having to fix the window. If you don’t see that Niantic risks putting itself in an actionable position by approving portals on private industrial property, you must not be acquainted with the legal system in the US. If true, I envy you and perhaps you would do better to remain blissfully ignorant.

  • AzhreiaAzhreia ✭✭✭✭✭

    Niantic has provided acceptance criteria for what constitutes an acceptable POI. Nowhere in this criteria is it specified that poi need to be free and accessible to all.

    Niantic also has community guidelines and TOS that you agree to abide by when you use their service.

    Saying that they incentivize cheating by allowing restricted access POI is ridiculous. Just because it's not readily accessible to you doesn't disqualify it as a valid location. Should all games be free because charging for them encourages piracy?

  • HydracyanHydracyan ✭✭✭✭✭

    You're not obligated to play with every portal in the world. If you can't access it, just live with this fact and keep with your routine. Nobody asking you to go there. Stop looking for excuses. People will cheat because they want, not because is difficult.

    And the waypoint data is used for 3 games, with a 4th in develop, and in the majority of them a POI like this have absolutely zero value, is just to be ignored. If there's a rival faction using this portal you should talk to them that its unfair, but only if they're link it to another inaccessible portal. If this isn't the case, just ignore it.

  • kynardkynard ✭✭

    Again, I understand what the rules are, and I am making a valid, logical argument for changing them. The problem is not with this particular portal being inaccessible to me or my faction specifically, it’s about ANY portal being accessible only to people who cheat or trespass. If only one or two guys can legally get to it (which is by no means certain), that amounts to the same thing for all practical purposes and can be expected to have the same effects.

    Piracy is a different issue, because charging for a game does not keep it from being very widely and reasonably accessible. If you want to use piracy as an analogy, you have to take it to a much greater extreme. Say you were selling the latest, newest, game that everyone wanted, but you were charging a trillion dollars for it, and only the richest person on earth could legitimately obtain a copy. You can bet your bottom dollar that a lot of people who wouldn’t normally engage in piracy would resort to it, because it was the only way they could ever possibly hope to get the game. You would not actually be telling anyone to steal by making your fabulous game impossible to buy, but it would be a very predictable consequence of your pricing decision.

    At least in that scenario you’d get a trillion dollars for your trouble. Niantic gains literally nothing by approving inaccessible portals. They might even gain more players and more support if they got rid of some of them. I’m not saying it has to be easy. Easy is absolutely boring, but the only thing more boring than an easy game is an impossible one.

    I don’t know why you’re fighting against this suggestion so fiercely. It’s a win-win proposition for all the honest players and the company, and it’s not like they’re going to listen to me anyway.

  • HydracyanHydracyan ✭✭✭✭✭

    it’s about ANY portal being accessible only to people who cheat or trespass.

    At least one person must have physical access to propose a new portal candidate, so it's not accessible only by cheating and trespassing.

  • kynardkynard ✭✭

    In theory, you also must have physical access to do a number of other things to portals that people manage to get done without leaving their homes. Why would this be any different?

    And, as I specified right after your strategically excised quote, just because one guy can get there doesn’t mean it’s not a problem. Submitting a portal from one’s own locked down workplace, particularly by presenting it as a piece of artwork when it is not, is obviously done in bad faith and is unethical, as are many things that are not technically against the rules. Allowing things like that to slide through causes legitimate problems, or at least as legitimate as problems with a video game can be.

    But you know this, and you’re cherry picking my posts because, for some reason that I cannot begin to divine, you want me to be the villain in this scene. It will do very little good for me to continue to bother with this, obviously, so congrats. you win. yay?

  • HydracyanHydracyan ✭✭✭✭✭

    Youre getting mad for no reason at all.

  • NysyrNysyr ✭✭✭✭

    Businesses which do not have Public visitations of any sort should be considered the same as Residential property. When it's down to the property owner permitting you access and they are not a business registered to collect taxes from providing services on the property to visitors, its no different than just a big home.

    Change my mind.

  • WikiBlueWikiBlue ✭✭✭

    It's not funny if it's used as an anchor or a mission waypoint... that's for sure. But restricted area poi's are valid poi's (or better: restricted area poi's aren't per definition invalid).

  • AzhreiaAzhreia ✭✭✭✭✭

    Oh I can imagine it would be annoying as an anchor. Using it as a mission waypoint would be low indeed.

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