Wayfarer has become like lunatics running the asylum
After a long break from Ingress I have returned to find that portal submissions are ridiculous now. I have seen fast food restaurants approved as portals in heavily "portaled" areas. What about Bojangles chicken and biscuits meets the criteria?
I see NUMEROUS cases of signs. Yes, plain signs. It is so bad that I believe people now think that a proper submission must be, (or at least include a photo of), a sign. I also see several cases of new portals that are just duplicates of signs announcing the location of an already approved portal location. For instance, there's been an approval for a sign by the road that declares the "Health and Science Center" at Randolph Community College, and it's 50 yards or less from the actual Health and Sciences Building portal.
And there are FAR too many SIGNS approved. They have no historic, artistic or local interest value.
But my next issue is what brings me here. And I think it's a sign ( no pun intended ) of a growing problem in this game community.
I have tried to submit portals only to have them denied. Here's my latest example. Recently I submitted a location on an extremely wide trail that can be seen on Google maps, IITC, etc. It's marked, and maintained. The location has historical significance because it marks the location of a wooden trestle bridge constructed a century ago. This bridge was the only way for it would come into all of the historical meals along the river. The old real line there has been turned into what I like to call the "super high way of walking trails" But my submission was denied because they claim there's no pedestrian access! You can see the trail on your map. You can see the trail itself clearly marked on Google maps. They have included emergency marker numbers, along the whole trail in case someone has a medical emergency. They can even drive an ambulance to you in many sections!
There's absolutely no reason anyone who even tries to approve portals cannot see this information with a bit of common sense and a quick glance at Google maps or even the map window in wayfarer. (I'll include a link for you to see for yourself.).
Deep River Rail Trail Trailhead
Rising Sun Way, Franklinville, NC 27248
https://maps.app.goo.gl/E31Ti4PhJFPnwpj59
This was not a problem before. In fact there are trails all over the area that have every single trail marker, or SIGN approved. While the amazing old structures are denied, the ugly trail marker 20 feet away is approved.
http://intel.ingress.com/intel?ll=35.947345,-79.717751&z=18&pll=35.947345,-79.717751
http://intel.ingress.com/intel?ll=35.636581,-79.762042&z=15&pll=35.636581,-79.762042
http://intel.ingress.com/intel?ll=35.993914,-79.438711&z=16&pll=35.993914,-79.438711
So after seeing these examples, why now after 2 years would my trail submission be denied for "not having pedestrian access" Niantic seems to have let the lunatics run the asylum, and the lunatics are lazy. They don't want anyone to have a portal that they can't get to easily from their car seats, and they don't want any new portals that aren't in their area. This truly has become the CARgress that we talked about in 2018.
Comments
You might consider sharing your thoughts on the Wayfarer forum: https://community.wayfarer.nianticlabs.com/.
So after I've done all of this writing with no knowledge of a "wayfarer forum" I have to do it again. What happened to OPR? (Edit, Pokemon ruined it apparently)
Hard to find? Literally - you have it linket in wayfayer. In main menu.
There's no reason I should be looking for another forum. This is about Ingress. This was OPR, and that's what I'm interested in discussing.
Are you one of the people who hate getting out of your car seat?
OPR was renamed Wayfarer and became its own separate thing (team) at Niantic as it evolved to serve a wider audience.
I hate to point fingers at the PoGOers (I know several great trainers that take Wayfarer seriously), but the issues really exploded when Niantic opened up Wayfarer to trainers. To be fair, I know a few agents that are trash submitters/reviewers, just many more trainers.
I just seen a McDonald’s can I nominate it that’s a Historical landmark right?
Point those fingers. I think this may be the biggest part of the problem.
OPR has been superseded by Wayfarer. Even since the website changed to Wayfarer, they had a separate community forum for anything Wayfarer-specific. The OPR specific forums have been archived on here.
Oh goody, mote entitled gatekeepers complaining about pogo submitters, ignoring how much **** was in long before pogo was able to submit or review, and how much pogo players have helped out rural and susburban areas that ingressers never went to.or cared as it would have interfered with their plans or help out the enemy teams
Where is the option to mark generic business/commerce?
I've been using the catch-all "Other Rejection Criteria."
I agree. Started playing back in 2012-2015 and picked it up just 6 months ago. I didn't even know what Wayfarer was.
/L
It was removed as generic business was never an actual rejection criteria. Because it was an option to use for rejection, it trained people to think all businesses were rejections unless special, but that was never the case
I actually provided a comment in the Community Input section that Wayfarer forum should just be directly linked. It's one thing that Niantic did right as it also unifying all accounts into one with Wayfarer. It's obvious that Niantic wants value on their POI database and the unification prevents ambiguity about criteria for nominations (formerly portal submissions).
If you look at the Wayfarer hub, there's a tab for Community that does link to the forum. It also looks like Ingress Support has pages about Wayfarer.
At the same time, I understand the confusion. When you submit through Prime, it uses the in-game terminology of Portal Nominations. I think Go uses the in-game terminology of Pokestop Nomination. When you look on Wayfarer, they are just referenced altogether as wayspots.
Welcome to the Wayfarer Mobs! If you are part of the Mob, no probelm at all, anything you request will be granted.
But, if you are not friends with the mob... you better just forget about the whole thing! :D
This is what Niantic has promoted from the very first day, even in OPR times. Only then was just harder to see because of numbers.
The two I know that would be candidates have already been made portals.