Niantic Time Capsule: History of portals in Ukraine (assist in rebuilding after the war)

KonnTowerKonnTower ✭✭✭✭✭
edited April 2022 in General

Since Niantic has a large database of portals created before the war including portal scans and multiple photos by agents, I feel like it would be an amazing project for Niantic to work with Ukrainian leaders after the war to help show how certain locations looked physically before they were bombed/destroyed.

There will be a considerable need to rebuild and this would be a really excellent use of the data Niantic has gathered from it's agents over the years and give back to the Ukrainian community. We could even crowdsource donations across Niantic games from around the globe to help rebuild major landmarks or historical dedications to help return the area to normalcy.


@NianticThia @NianticBrian I'm probably posting this a little too early with the war on-going, but I think it would be a great opportunity for both the Niantic team and the Niantic community at large to come together for something good.

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Comments

  • ZinkyZonkZinkyZonk ✭✭✭

    I have had thoughts about this myself. I imagine google has more information than lightship.

    Bringing up a related thought ... How do you respect the past photos of POIs that have been destroyed. Can they stay as POIs? How do we honour the poi's that don't now exist because of this awful conflict.

    Is the wayfarer team working on that issue? Bet they are.

  • While Google Street View is probably a better avenue for "What did it look like before?" something important will also be a trade off between preserving the 'history' of the area, and the new portals being created in wayfarer as the rebuilding occurs.

    Whether there's some way to preserve the original aspects, or whether "Doesn't exist" will decimate Ukraine's portal network is really something Niantic needs to be prepared to manage directly.

  • KonnTowerKonnTower ✭✭✭✭✭

    To be fair @Perringaiden, street view can't reach places past the street with the exception of photospheres, but I agree there are other resources that can be tapped too. Let's live in the Niantic world here.

  • PangarbanPangarban ✭✭✭✭✭

    I'm not sure I would trust the Niantic database for that level of information. There are an awful lot of problems such as misplaced waypoints and fake waypoints.

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