What are the "real" criteria for portals in Ingress?

I have read the official criteria yes, but when I go around and play, I get confused.

Many of the places in my hometown are churches and mosques and mural stuff and statues. That is logic. But then there are hotels and restaurants. Isn't that strange?

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Comments

  • Ok. Thanks! Good answer.

  • EngrishEngrish ✭✭✭✭

    Niantic has revamped the portal submission (nomination) guideline numerous times over the six years Ingress has been around. First Year criteria were water towers, churches, post-offices, statues, memorial plaques, park signs (not playgrounds, used to be odd to see fully grown people on the slide), Jamba Juice (I think the first sponsored portal), and others I cannot recall.

  • GoblinGranateGoblinGranate ✭✭✭✭✭

    Those are still online and subs like that are still being accepted.


    Portal criteria is not being respected at all.


    At this point, in my opinion, the only way to put "peace" in these would be reducing the KO cases to just PRIVATE AREAS and UNSAFE AREAS. The rest... no one cares.


    This is my experience after 500 subs and 12K OPR agreements.

  • Can portals be placed inside property where an admittance fee must be paid in order to access the portal? Also, what about locations inside the premises of a private business where the portal would not generally be available to the general public? We have a location where a "black grand piano" is a portal. How many black grand pianos might there be worldwide and would they all be eligible to be a portal?

  • Could mile markers on bike trails or highways be acceptable portals? Where can I find the place where criteria for portal acceptance is published? I've been trying for days to locate published criteria but have been unsuccessful.

  • VenomousToadVenomousToad ✭✭✭✭✭

    There doesn't seem to be any real criteria for portals anymore. There's a portal of a snowman that I'm sure has melted away over the years. There's a generic picnic table in someone's backyard. There's portals of rocks. There's just so many that would have never been accepted years ago that are perfectly fine now. It degrades the game. Not every Starbucks should be a portal. Not every poster in a McDonald's should be a portal. And you can't get them removed. Just garbage portals.

  • HosetteHosette ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited October 2023

    Portals can be inside pay-to-enter locations like amusement parks, yes. They can be on the campuses of private business and in gated communities. No, a black piano would not typically be a legitimate wayspot but it may have been approved under earlier guidelines. If there was something very special about the piano, e.g. "Black Piano Formerly Owned by Liberace" would be a good wayspot.

    Mile markers on hiking and biking trails can be good candidates, but not the ones on highways. Trails encourage people to get out and exercise, while mile markers on roads don't... and would almost always be rejected for not having safe pedestrian access.

    The acceptance criteria are that it must be one of these three things:

    • A great place to explore
    • A great place to be social
    • A great place to exercise

    And before anyone says anything silly, the word great is important in those things. I can exercise and socialize on the sidewalk in front of my building but that doesn't make the sidewalk eligible.

    There are quite a few reasons that can turn an otherwise-good candidate into a rejection, such as not having safe pedestrian access, being on private residential property or K-12 school property.

    Here are Niantic's current documents, and you can find related documents on the sidebar at the right:


  • MJ78MJ78 ✭✭✭

    Nowadays unofficial Graffiti art (which can easily be painted over by someone else) and football goal posts in a park (which are removed out of season and not really significant) can seemingly be waved through.

    There are plenty of rubbish portals out there, many of which have occurred since PoGo players got involved with portal submissions and reviews.

  • tp235tp235 ✭✭✭✭
    edited October 2023

    Around 2019 the portal network began to be disrupted and has recently almost collapsed.

    It is obvious when you export your own data pertaining to Ingress and look at the OPR entries, there has been a noticeable increase in garbage since late 2018.

    Prior to that, there were many portal nominations of relatively good quality, but that has clearly changed since that point.

    And the most glaring example of the collapse of the portal network is when the Navarro portal was removed by clueless Wayfarer team staff and the manager who couldn't fix it said, "We did everything we could." and then closed the thread with a ****.

    Later, Brian and Thia cleaned up their mess and restored Portal.


    Personally, I'd like to see them cut off the sync with Wayfarer like Pikmin na MHNow, etc.

  • HosetteHosette ✭✭✭✭✭

    @tp235 If they cut off the sync with Wayfarer then Ingress would never get any new portals even in newly-developed areas... why would any Ingress player ever submit a new portal candidate in those conditions?

  • MirthmakerMirthmaker ✭✭✭✭

    In other words Waldorf -Astoria or Plaza Hotel yes,

    A freeway motel 6, unless it was the last place a celebrity died, no.

  • hotels and restaurants can be portals when they exists. but it seems no way to remove portals that doesn't exists any more?

  • ArkFangArkFang ✭✭✭✭✭

    In the app you can select the poreal > click the triple dots at the top right > Report invalid portal > reason: "permanently removed from this location"


    Then it's up to the Wayfarer community to decide if it is or not (partially also how many Invalid reports there are)

  • tp235tp235 ✭✭✭✭

    YES, ALL AGs stop submitting them.

    But more players will benefit than trash flooding the Ingress game field.

    Ingress is a game that is founded on going to portals in the real world.

    It is not like certain games where the subject matter has nothing to do with portals.

    Therefore, if the field is flooded with low-quality portals, the foundation of Ingress is no longer viable.

    Because people go to see great portals, but they don't go to see garbage portals.

  • HosetteHosette ✭✭✭✭✭

    @tp235 It would be really bad for me if I had to stop submitting portals. I live in an area that has outstanding street art and much of what I submit is new murals that show up around me. You're advocating for throwing the baby out with the bathwater, and I don't think that's a good solution. Niantic needs to do more work on Wayfarer abuse.

  • tp235tp235 ✭✭✭✭

    I'm sure that's true.

    For me it is as well.

    Besides, I know that AR scan data that agents take seriously is good data for the Wayfarer team.

    And many of the agents we have now are the ones who want a future with Niantic, unlike those who are screaming for Niantic and the CEO to be fired, like a certain game.

    So we are enjoying with Niantic, otherwise we wouldn't be playing Ingress. LOL!


    But after 2019, and especially after late 2021, Ingress is clearly a poor environment with low quality portals flooding the field.

    Therefore, if you feel that Ingress could be broken, it is natural to think about removing the cause.


    We do not rejoice in giving them the gift of garbage.

    If we can ban all abusers and remove all the garbage wayspot, the agents will cooperate.

    But I don't like to have anything to do with such things if it only leads to more and more garbage piling up.

  • ZeroHecksGivenZeroHecksGiven ✭✭✭✭✭

    I think part of the problem is that I’m not sure Niantic actually cares about poor submissions. To them, that database numbers are something they can “sell” to investors and companies interested in partnerships. Niantic wants numbers and I don’t think they’ve overly concerned with quality, at this point.

    One of the easiest things they could do is start punishing people for letting very obvious bad submissions through. All the people who voted for that grand piano mentioned earlier should get strikes, etc. But…..here is the problem for Niantic. What’s more valuable to them? A few bad submissions making it through or firing their free labor? I think they’d rather someone spend their free time reviewing nominations…

  • HosetteHosette ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited October 2023

    @tp235 The NL situation seems to have caused Niantic to realize that their database of wayspots is a valuable asset, and that it's been vandalized by coordinated abuse. They've taken significant actions there, including removing a lot of low-quality wayspot, and some legitimate ones that got caught up in it. In the past they've punished Wayfarer abuse by banning the culprits from Wayfarer either temporarily or permanently, which was no punishment at all. Now they've started shutting down people's Pokemon Go accounts, which causes significantly more pain. A lot of people have screamed about how unfair this is so it must be effective.

    It's not a solution to the issue but it's a start.

    I've had significant impacts in small areas by identifying and documenting fake wayspots and submitting in bulk for removal. A friend and I collaborated on one area and had several dozen fakes removed from an area of about one square mile.

    There's an underlying issue of communication and education, though. A lot of people don't really understand what makes a good and bad wayspot, and they base their understanding on what they see in the games right now. Sometimes these things exist because they were approved under earlier rules, but other times it's because a couple of things slipped through that shouldn't have and then people in that area believe that they are good wayspots and submit/approve more of them. Three good examples of this in various areas a neighborhood entrance signs, little free libraries in people's yards, and aerator fountains in the middle of bodies of water.

    (My perspective on this comes largely from having 25K Wayfarer agreements and wings on my Recon badge.)

    @ZeroHecksGiven A few bad wayspots slipping through wouldn't be a big deal to Niantic if the database was overall high-quality. When there's so much garbage that people perceive the database as a whole as being low-quality then that's probably a different story.

    Post edited by Hosette on
  • tp235tp235 ✭✭✭✭

    That may be progress, but in my opinion it is "TOO LATE".

    Yes, TOO LATE.

    Wayfinders who sensed the signs of collapse in 2019, including myself (most were Ingress agents who started nominating in 2014, possessed Seer medals, and had been reviewing continuously since OPR) were present in 2020 by the time the Wayfarer team was OPR He warned repeatedly that there were massive falsehoods and systematic abuses that did not exist at the time of the OPR.

    And they warned that they would not stop until they banned game accounts, not just Wayfarer forum logins and review logins.


    However, until recently, they did not ban game accounts, but instead (1) continued to lower access levels, (2) allowed 40 nominations in 2 weeks, and (3) imported low quality wayspots from 4sq.

    In addition, they revised their criteria to produce low quality and garbage.

    As a result, the garbage generated from Wayfarer is now flooding the game field.

    And certain game players, most of whom have alt accounts.

    So instead of 40 nomination slots, they actually have 80, 120, or even more.

    And I am sure you understand the consequences of using all of them to do reviews.


    And let me tell you what is going to happen because of this action.

    It can be much easier to be lvl 10 in Ingress than lvl 37 in a particular game.

    Therefore, they will continue to abuse Wayfarers by creating new Ingress accounts to abuse them for specific games.

    Even if they are banned, they will continue to be created one after another because they are accounts that can be discarded at any time.

    Niantic does not have 2-step verification for all of their games, nor do they have SMS verification.

    You can create as many accounts as you want.

    So they will also abuse Wayfarer for certain games, and continue to abuse Ingress in the process.


    In that case, if you want to rebuild Wayfarer itself, you have to shut it down completely once, incinerate the garbage completely, and raise the access level again to prevent any influx of abusers.

    If you crack down on abuse while keeping it running, that will not work.


    Then it would be more beneficial for us to disconnect Wayfarer and Ingress, which we no longer even trust, from syncing.

    And maybe the Wayfarer team manager will notice when the trash really overflows, but he'll make excuses because he's so self-preserving.

    Because if he were wise, he would apologize for the Navarro incident.

  • tp235tp235 ✭✭✭✭

    Ingress is a game that can only be an excellent experience with like a diamond portals.

    We define the most important aspect of Ingress to encounter such high quality portals.

    To be clear, anomalies and control fields are the spice, not the main dish.

    And it is the encounters with great portals that we see when we close our smartphone screens and heads up that are the diamonds.

    But if this is not a diamond and all you see is coal, Ingress loses the meaning of the game.

  • MJ78MJ78 ✭✭✭
    edited October 2023

    If NIA had any sense, they would have sponsored portals across all games.

    The money coming from in from such an idea could help fund Ingress.

    I've recently seen a Costa Coffee outlet accepted as a portal.

    Should not of been accepted as a regular portal, however would make a good candidate for a paid sponsored portal.

  • MJ78MJ78 ✭✭✭

    It is a waste of time reporting portals that don't exist anymore. The report usually gets rejected.

    As an agent on the ground in my local area, I know full if portals still exist or not.

    Not someone sat on a computer, or mobile device reviewing portals from many, many miles away.

  • EvilSuperHerosEvilSuperHeros ✭✭✭✭✭

    They used to have sponsored portals in the past. Zip Car, Jamba Juice, Circle K, AXA, ect. It was usually very poorly implemented. Those Circle K receipts that had those codes on them, were impossible to get, and usually gave you low level junk gear. Hint water caps used to give you gear too. I know there has been others.

    But the implementation wasn't great. With advances in technology, doing some geofencing around these locations and giving a "deal" of some sort to get traffic in the door should be a no brainer.

    Other concepts do it. Restaurants do it. Ingress and another Niantic games should easily be able to do something similar. It would bring in money and easy promotion for the different games.

  • tp235tp235 ✭✭✭✭
    edited October 2023

    Not only chain stores and chain café restaurants, but various stores and restaurants could be Pokéstops and Pokémon gyms, at least on PGO, with Niantic's program.


    https://twitter.com/NianticJP/status/1273155533667815424?t=fR2_L_AbhqhBN_wJimx-_w&s=19


    Niantic named them and it was headed by its vice president, Kawashima.

    However, the in-house Wayfarer team revised the standards to sabotage this business, to Niantic's detriment.

    It is truly ridiculous.

  • ZeroHecksGivenZeroHecksGiven ✭✭✭✭✭

    I think anyone who regularly reports portals knows that the process to get anything removed in this game will take more effort than a couple of taps, in-game. Most reports require the initial report, then you take photos for proof that it doesn't exist and then start waiting for the rejection email. Then you go to the forums or chat bot (depending on which method they want you to use, but that seems to change every six months or so) and share your proof that is ideally definitive. At that point I'd say it's still a 50/50 shot it will get removed, even WITH proof!

  • HosetteHosette ✭✭✭✭✭

    I have had good luck bulk-reporting things using the Wayfarer abuse reporting system. Each report took about a week but then the fakes magically disappeared shortly after I got a response.

  • VenomousToadVenomousToad ✭✭✭✭✭

    I recently saw a piece of cardboard as a portal. Didn't feel worthy but it worked. There isn't a low quality option for a removal request. So no way to get it removed. I've had my legitimate anchors removed due to low cell coverage but a piece of cardboard is legit? It's a crazy broken system.

  • PkmnTrainerJPkmnTrainerJ ✭✭✭✭✭

    There’s been a few people who have mentioned about what we would say is “live coal”. I’d suggest the best way to report it is via this form, as it can come under “Fake Nominations or Criteria Issues”.

    What should you report?

    • Offensive or abusive title/description/supporting statements: 
      • Attempts to add an offensive title/description to a live Wayspot
      • Title/description/supporting statementsedits that mention codenames, real names or other personal information of players
      • Titles, descriptions, or supporting information that attempt to inappropriately influence the reviewers to vote in a specific way

  • Invalid location edits:
    • Attempts to move the Wayspot to a location away from the object with which it’s associated (for example, moving the Wayspot to a different city/country)

  • Issues with photos:
    • Photos with explicit or inappropriate content
    • Attempts to intentionally add unrelated photos to the location
    • Photos with watermarks or other copyrighted information

  • Fake nominations or criteria issues: 

    • The wayspots/nominations that do not exist in the location or blatantly do not match our eligibility or acceptance criterias

  • Inappropriate Behavior by an Explorer: 
    • If you experience inappropriate behavior from other explorers (bullying, harassment, threats)

  • MoogModularMoogModular ✭✭✭✭✭

    Yet the in-game method of reporting portals is just a list to pick what fits best. I'm surprised they haven't expanded reports to be just like nominations. I can provide the same amount of evidence to state this POI no longer exists, is not in the current location, or never existed.

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