My last guess is that this stop did not have 7 total before the other Pokestop turned into a Gym. This may be very possible as I also cannot remember this stop having 7 total when I checked it a while ago. But on the other hand I also can’t recall the one that turned into a Gym having 6 total.
I have just done work that should add another Gym and I will see what’ll happen there. When I come back there later this week (possibly tomorrow) I’ll make sure to check the likes before.
This wasn’t the thing that caught the most of my interest, though.
The day before I headed to Mexico I decided to move some already existing but wrongly placed Pokestops to their actual location, because that would get us more Pokestops. As usual, Niantic Wayfarer rejected pretty much anything and doesn’t care that they’re placed wrong.
However, one actually DID go through. Or at least, I got an email confirming they had accepted it.
Yet, when I was just there checking the likes for that Gym, I figured something was wrong. I noticed the Stop of which I had changed the location, was no longer in the game. This is really interesting, as it’s always worked. I’ve replaced more stops to cells that already had another Pokestop before and so far they’ve never deleted a Stop from the game until now. In fact, I successfully replaced a Gym to a cell that already had a Pokestop too only like five weeks ago. I had planned to change a location of a Gym today so another Pokestop would become a Gym but I’m no longer going to do that as I fear that Gym will be deleted too. I think I’ll be going to take a look on those Wayfarer forums again, but it seems they aren’t really helpful. It’s the best I can do probably, though.
Translation: congratulations! And a lot of other things that don’t matter. Only interesting thing here is the name of the Pokestop.
Map showing where the replaced PokéStop should now be.
Game: Stop is no longer there.
As can be seen in the picture a new Stop did appear, but it’s weird that the old one got removed.
This very same mural is still no Pokestop after 1.5 years of trying where it definitely should be eligible. Today I nominated it yet again and had planned to write an entire essay on why it should be accepted when I got back home as Pokémon GO itself doesn’t allow it whereas Wayfarer does. However, I figured out it immediately got in voting after I nominated it which doesn’t allow me to do that. The weirdest thing is it’s Niantic voting. Is that because they rejected it for abuse last time (why even?) or because this is like the 6th or 7th time I’m trying to nominate it? I also figured the rejection reason “Abuse” now got replaced by “wrong location” which still makes no sense. I’m glad I put in at least something at least.
It does seem to be working for most people. I think my last theory is right, then. I have another test Gym coming up soon so I’ll see what will happen.
I also just figured out Photos can be liked by sending Gifts so I’ll definitely be using this. If anyone is willing to help with this, please let me know.
I am. And I posted that long time ago. I managed to change the photo on a gym.
2 Likes
Oh yeah, maybe I can try to upload some better pictures, too. 8 likes is going to take a while😬
Did some more noms over the last 2 days.
3 will create new new Gyms. Two I’ve put likes on the other Poi to see if the ones that become the Gym can be manipulated. The other is a very old Poi that has likes on it already.
I await with interest if the ones I want to be the Gym work out that way.
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Oh, looks like I forgot to collect a Gift before going on holiday. I will send it when I come back.
What makes is funny is that it finally got accepted by Niantic with less information whereas the Wayfarer reviewers rejected it five times. Shows how bad they are.
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Rejected because:
Low quality photo
Wrong location
Definitely agree with low quality picture, I used a potato to make the photo so it’s totally understandable. 
Oh yeah and location is definitely wrong too, the trailmarker is actually in the middle of the sea but I thought it was better to place it on actual land.
Seriously, these reviewers really embarrass themselves with these dumb reasons. If you can’t even see the sign is literally in that very corner in the second picture then I recommend a few glasses. 
What makes it worse is that I cannot get it on its place before GO Fest anymore. I am going to play around there that day but I will have to do with one stop less. Not that it is a big issue as it’s filled with stops there but still really annoying. And I waited a month for this too…
Summary
Edit:
It now says sensitive location & orientation which makes even less sense to me. Why did the reasons even change? What is going on?
Edit 2: it has now changed back to low quality picture and wrong location. Whatever…
Edit 3: it’s now something else again. This is madness. 
Ignore this summary, in conclusion it keeps switching the rejection reasons for some reason.
Today I read a post from Niantic stating they do warn/punish people if they evidently massreject eligible stops so I will be appealing this for sure, even if it never goes into voting I at least had the chance to have them punished for this nonsense.
I have also figured out if a submission contain bad words Niantic will review it instead so obviously I will try to abuse this system and will set my words in Dutch so that it looks like it contains a bad word whereas it in fact does not.
For example:
- We educated
The system will think it contains a bad word so if it all works out it should be reviewed by Niantic. I will try it, at least. If Niantic approves things that have been rejected by the community multiple times then I rather have that happening.
Tried it with one of my nominations that still awaits to go in voting but it doesn’t seem to work, or at least it didn’t go into it immediately unlike the other one. I will see what happens, though. If it works every now and then that is already better than having the Wayfarers review everything I nominate.
I take it the white sign (Bike Track) above the Give Way sign is what your wanting for the photo?
If it is, your photo should be more focused on that eliminating a lot of the other surroundings.
Your long shot needs to show it’s there but not in detail while including surroundings that may help validate the Poi if possible. Your long shot chopped it off if I’m viewing the pics correctly.
If I’m off with any of the above because I’m miss reading the pics and can’t translate the text just dis regard all I’ve written above.
2 off the 3 target Poi have been accepted so far.
1 I’ve verified already the Gym became the one I wanted by adding the likes.
Not sure when I can verify the other as it’s a long way away.
That is correct yes. I think it may be the picture is slightly too zoomed out but I doubt it’s zoomed out enough to not let it pass. Anyways I will upload a better one next time as they seem to prefer it.
As for the second picture the trailmarker is indeed not on the picture but the sign underneath it is, so it should be easy to verify that it does exist and is indeed there. I was unable to get it in the picture and get the roads in so I figured this was the best way to do it.
Either way, I will renominate it as trailmarkers are top eligibility. However reviewers tend to be quite nitpicky with them for easy agreements which is annoying but nothing can be done about that unfortunately. That is probably why they wanted to have the sign centered and slightly less zoomed in.
Edit: I actually just realized that if they did want me to zoom in more it would have been rejected for natural feature or other rejection criteria instead probably. I have no idea why it got rejected as these reasons are weird but I will try to upload a better picture and I will make even more sure the location is evident.
I think it’s safe to say it does still work, then, even though it didn’t work for one of the Gyms here. However I do think the likes on the stop that should’ve become the actual Gym may have been too late. I do not know for sure though, as I was on holiday when the Gym arrived.
Either way it does mean I cannot nominate in Cells close to having a new Gym as long as the likes aren’t on their places so I will probably be asking around here and more and I should eventually succeed. When the Gyms arrive don’t really matter as long as they do arrive at some point.
Trail markers cause great debate amongst our local community for sure.
Despite being high on the games criteria list for eligibility some have a bee in their bonnet and mark them down because “they are not interesting” to use their exact words. The ones doing that should not be allowed to vote as they are clearly not following guidelines on what makes a valid nomination.
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Issue is they used to be ineligible for a long time but Niantic changed it as they promote exercise. However many reviewers seem to be unaware of this change. At this point I’ve been able to get two through and I recently nominated a bunch of them all extremely detailed as to why they should be accepted and how they are top eligibility so I’m curious what will happen. I think I’ve had four rejected so far. Two of these were so simple I doubt I would have even accepted them myself but they should in theory be eligible however I will need an even more detailed explanation as to why they are trailmarkers. I think it’s probably easier to let Niantic review one of these and see if they accept then I know if they actually have a chance. I do think at least these bike nodes will get accepted here now as many cities are already spammed with these as Pokéstops so I’m unsure what exactly they disliked about my previous one but I will replace it when I’m on its location during GO Fest. I will be there before it starts anyway so I should have the time to nominate it.