Pools and play structures
With the guideline for things that encourage outdoor exercise, I've been a little puzzled by pools and play structures. Both encourage outdoor exercise.
Play structures in my mind clearly encourage outdoor exercise, and unlike sport fields, are discreet locations. Many other land marks in parks get approved as portals despite having no clear reason to qualify as portals (shade structures, gazebos, etc.) So I feel that play structures are pretty cut and dry portal candidates.
Yet I often submit play structures and get denied several times before approval. Sometimes i get told that child abduction concerns may be the culprit.
Pools on the other hand... sure, they encourage outdoor play, but for legal reasons, they must be fenced off, so maybe they are not accessible to the public. Also, children in swimsuits can make locals very concerned if a random car pulls up for a while.
According to the OPR guidelines, I believe pools are currently high quality portals, but approving them doesnt feel like a good idea to me.
Comments?
Comments
Play structures that are on the property of multi-tenant housing are valid portal candidates, and should be getting rated fairly high. Same goes for public playgrounds that have play structures. If they're being rejected, maybe improve your submission quality. Submit with Prime, add comments to reviewers about what criteria it's meeting, adding a second surrounding photo, etc.
As for pools, this is going to be an unpopular opinion but I fully disagree with Niantic's recommendation to 1* pools as I believe they fall under the same or similar category as playgrounds and public outdoor gyms/exercise equipment. I rate pools highly, but YMMV.
Per AMA Playground (Play Structures) should be approved as long as they are not on Private Residential Property or at a school. So Parks, Churches, Apartment Complexes etc these should be approved.
Per AMA Pools should be denied. This one has the community split on whether they agree with this decision as it promotes exercise and is a community gathering location. I plan to ask a follow up question about pools in Octobers AMA.
The pool question was specifically about pools at apartment complexes and that Niantic didn't view them to be community gathering places.
But they're so pretty http://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-sG0bZS3nzzkTEnCtG4rg60rO968DgRNQ6o8DClUD4MqCePXhNlufNju73MuFG8bfi7fFu3vGqK8G9Wt5iI4DjIzsu8=s0
Playgrounds on Church property should be denied because they are almost always a part of daycare/school/early childhood development centers.
Pools are just water. Nothing special about them and not worthy of portals. If we start approving pools every pool at every hotel in the United States is going to be submitted by yolo pokeplayers.
I don't know where you are getting your facts on this. I have 30+ churches in my area and 20 or so have Playgrounds and ONLY 1 single church of those is a daycare/school/early childhood development. They are for the community/before/after church to entertain the kids. Don't tell people to just flat out deny a type of Playground because you don't like it.
Also to your pools comment, really? They definitely promote exercise and community gather. Saying they are just water is like saying a football field is just grass with some painted lines.
Personally I don't see a problem with every pool at every hotel being a portal.
A football field is just grass with some painted lines
I asked a low level agent about the playground at their church if they had a daycare she said no they do not and it was for the church congregation when I submitted a prayer labyrinth I asked about it. So to assume they are all for day care is bad.
Many churches have playgrounds, and there are actuall not very many daycares. A daycare must meet numerous legal requirements. Smaller churches rarely have the space, people, or inclination to create a fully legal daycare, but are very interested in attracting parents to their church.
Pools are water, but not just... water towers are also water, but also towers, and they can be eligible portals. Even cell towers masquerading as water towers can be eligible portals. I've actually been more successful in getting water towers approved than in getting play structures approved.
Hotel pools, I suggest, might make even better candidates than apartment pools. Are they not both meeting places? Don't tourist tend to be attracted to hotels more than to apartments?
But... any references to pools being specifically mentioned by niantic?
Q: jessicorgi - I would really like some information on pools located inside neighborhood communities or apartment complexes. They're open to the whole neighborhood and promote exercise, community and meeting your neighbors. They're gated to keep kids from falling in, usually, but while playgrounds right next to them inside the same neighborhoods pass, the pools fail. They're open to the same people. To me, the pools should be a pretty clear fit to the rules but none seem to pass.
A: NIA OPS replied that, they agree with the community’s decision. Swimming pools do not fall under the same category of exercise equipment in a park and would not be considered eligible unless it had historical or cultural significance.
From the June/July AMA.
The daycare side of it might be difficult to determine.
In England, I personally do not know of a church that doesn't have day care, nursery, or other children focused groups run on a regular basis.
What that basicly says that pools are neither an up or down approval, but that Niantic will side with what the community decides. However, pools are not classified as exercise equipment, which is the category that playgrounds fall under. Therefore, a pool in a public park may be a valid portal because it is a community gathering place while a pool at a hotel/motel will not.
That is why I plan to get more clarification and a more concrete answer on the next AMA. A lot of people don't understand the current AMA response.
I would like to see clarification on what exactly is intended by pools "inside neighborhood communities". I get the ruling on pools inside apartment complexes, and by extension in places like hotels, but in many places there are community pools run by the city council or equivalent.
Yes. "Inside neighborhood communities" can be a bit hazy.
Items in Parks are supposedly fair game... so, for example, a play structure in a park, even if its next to a house, is supposedly fine. But...
Seeing as how there was a ruling, and Niantic had to pay damages to home owners within 40 meters of pokestops, I get the feeling that a portal too close might just be rejected anyhow.
The guideline for pools is to reject if it unless it's historical or has cultural relevance. It is up to the submitter to convincingly give an argument on relevance.
And you can still submit community areas in a neighborhood it just has the potential to be removed if it's within 40m of a home and someone complains. You just have to make sure it isn't part of someone's property or in front of their house
The problem is that most people take a photo of the pool itself. I reject those.
You should be submitting the sign for the entire facility.
Some people reject the pool picture because it's not of the sign.
Some people reject the sign picture because it's not of the pool.
Some people reject the pool no matter what.
Some people approve the pool no mater what.
What matters at the end of the day is that no one peed in the pool.
Exactly what I mean when ingress players do not follow any rules currently with submissions.
Where does it say that exactly?
It only makes sense if they believe a pool is nature, which it's not. So if the pool is culturally or historically elligible then there's no reason not to submit a picture of the pool itself.
A relatively recent AMA answered a question regarding swimming pools.
Generally at an apartment/townhouse complex, we're allowed to submit things (artworks, gazebos, playgrounds, etc), as the only location restriction involved is PRP, which does not apply -- it's a communal area, not a private one.
We're also generally directed to submit things that support fitness, such as baseball/basketball/soccer/football/cricket/paintball/etc fields. In general, a community pool encourages fitness, and (to my knowledge) a public community swimming pool (ie. one run by the city/municipality) still qualifies.
But NIA OPS made a ruling that swimming pools at apartment buildings do not fit their guidelines.
He was asking where it said that we should submit the sign vs the pool (if the pool has cultural/historical significance)
I may be "Quoting" @AgentB0ss directly, but I'm answering somebody else's question in as much completeness as I could while still being relatively concise. Not necessarily for his benefit but for everybody else's. Because I'd rather have the full answer all in one spot, without necessarily pinging that other guy, which seems to end up in a neverending loop where the topic goes further and further afield.
Yea I was mostly quoting that one person who said submit the sign lol.