Yeah I know, I have a Wayspot map myself.
Whoever put in URL or markup because of the arrow is just a sad person. They should just be suspended from Wayfarer at this point. From what I’m understanding that’s the only reason it got rejected. They’ve accepted the - multiple times which literally has the same function as the arrow. This is just sad.
Last weekend on a bushwalk with little Miss Kanga I did 5 nominations.
Within 5 days all 5 had gone through the voting process. 4 accepted and 1 rejected. The rejected one was no surprise as I knew it wasn’t a great nomination. Not to matter as I have a plan to redo that one plus many more nominations I had to leave it for the day as we time constrained with sunset looming.
The 4 that did get accepted created 2 new Gyms. I think the other Poi to nominate will create 2 maybe 3 more.
The best thing with these ones is none can be reached from a car.
As much as I love Gyms that can’t be reached from a car I feel like if you leave a Pokemon in it it can be stuck in there for quite a long time.
On the better hand at least they should guarantee coins a little more often. (Though in reality that also isn’t happening much…).
Got a POI accepted a few hours ago which should create a new gym in a few hours. I hope the right gym gets chosen but that will probably not happen as they seem to have changed the criteria and I won’t be surprised if the absolute worst stop will turn into a gym, but I’ll have to see and figure that out when I return home.
I can confirm the Pokestop turning into a Gym when the criteria is met IS just random and I can also confirm it picks the literal worst place ever. 
Edit: the only cool thing is that the Pokestop that turned into a Gym was one I nominated which hasn’t happened before. But still it’s a useless gym as it’s in a park with far too many gyms already whereas outside the park there’s nothing.
We could open a thread with pics of the worst places in world with Stops.
You know I visit a lot of places, and really, I’ve seen things I’ve never could imagine.
We have a private area spammed with stops here, and a kids park full with gyms. I don’t think they’ll even allow me in there without a kid with me. As for the private area I can’t even delete the stops and Gyms there as I need to be in range in order to delete them.
So yeah, maybe it’s a good idea to make that thread!
The criteria for what becomes a Gym can be manipulated in some circumstances.
The Poi photo with the most likes gets to become the new Gym.
Where no Poi photo has any likes it’s the last Poi that gets accepted as the new Gym.
You need help from friends to bump those likes up on a particular Poi to manipulate it. In some cases the likes may be too high on the one you don’t want to manipulate it.
Can confirm this ^ works. You can be strategic with your noms when doing multiple nominations over a period of time. Get something accepted. Put likes on the photo then do your other nom(s) so you get the Gym you want.
That is what used to be the process, but Niantic has changed it. It now seems to be random, or at least it hasn’t been figured out yet. My 27 Ingress likes on a Pokestop that didn’t become the gym can confirm that.
I’ve done all my likes in PoGo and it hasn’t failed yet where I’ve been able to manipulate the higher amount.
I’ve looked it up on the Wayfarer forum and some other sources specialized in Wayspot submissions and everywhere I read the system won’t work anymore. I’m pretty sure it’s not worked for me either, but I’m not at home currently so I’ll check the likes when I’m back. I’m pretty sure the stop that did turn into a Gym did not have the most likes, though.
Also got another working gym here by replacing a Wayspot so it falls out of its Cell. (It also wasn’t on the right location, either.) I’m willing to believe this stop didn’t have the most likes in Pokemon GO either, but I’ll recheck when I’m home. There is a chance it might work, although it’s stated that it wasn’t Niantic’s intention to have players choose a Gym so multiple sources say they removed it.
Nomination marked as duplicate when it clearly doesn’t exist is one of the dumbest things I’ve seen so far. It would be surprising if it got added half an hour ago by somebody else and some Wayfarers happened to get my nomination right after and reject it for duplicate. In fact, that would be impossible. I’ve looked on my Ingress map and the entire cell is empty so it’s just some *** Wayfarers thinking they’re funny again.
I am now able to confirm the likes method no longer works. The Pokestop that turned into a Gym has 4 likes and 2 photos which makes a total of 6. However, there’s another Pokestop with 3 likes and 4 photos, which makes a total of 7. Yet it didn’t become the gym.
1 Like
I’ll try to do some testing myself.
It’s not the total amount of likes for a Poi it’s the highest likes on one individual photo that is the photo disc on the Poi.
The recent new noms I’ve done in vacant cells have always resulted in the last accepted nom becoming the Gym.
Where there was already already a Poi in the game it has resulted in that one getting the Gym. I checked those photo discs and all had likes.
I’ll see what happens with 2 of my new noms that are the only Poi in the cell atm. I know I’ve got other noms to do that will create Gyms so let’s see if I can make both the already accepted ones become the Gyms.
1 Like
It used to be the total amount. I already got a wrong Gym before because I didn’t know that back then. 
I will check if this works, though. It is an interesting theory. I hope you are right.
Edit: as for the newly added Gym I can see from home, it may indeed work. Highest amount of likes is 2 for that Gym and for two other nearby Pokestops it’s also 2 so it may be it randomly picked one of these three.
I’ll check the other Gym in maybe an hour to see how things are there.
The Gym
Another Pokestop in the cell, the one with 7 total.
Edit 2: both Wayfarer forum and some other forum about Niantic Wayfarer either keep saying it’s the total amount of likes + pictures or that it’s random but neither of these should be true then.
I’d be thinking where Poi are tied for likes it’s the last one that was accepted same as 0 and 0 likes.
That was what I thought, too, but another stop I added in that same cell a month ago also has two likes.
I have now checked the other Gym, and things got even more interesting.
This Gym has a total of 0 likes.
But 6 total.
And then there’s this in the same cell:
Out of every Pokestop I checked in the cell, which wasn’t all of them, the one that turned into a Gym had the most total, but the least most likes.
This leaves me with one last option.
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.