Ever found yourself in an odd spot or dangerous location while playing Pokémon GO? Perhaps you're just sick of visiting the same old landmarks? Well, Niantic has announced it will soon be rolling out a new tool to help improve the overall experience in its augmented reality games.
The "Niantic Wayfarer" will essentially recruit Niantic Wayfinders who then nominate and review new points-of-interest. The goal is to apparently "inspire others to discover new places and things" and "highlight the positive and unique qualities of a place or community" – such as museums, art installations to historical markers.

It also means there shouldn't be any Wayspots in unsafe locations, on private property or on the grounds of schools. Wayspots impacted by seasons will also be avoided. The rating system is how Wayfinders review new points-of-interest and decide whether or not they should be added to a Niantic game. For the full rundown, check out the video above.
Do you like the idea of nominating and reviewing Wayspots? Still playing POGO? Leave a comment below.
[source youtu.be]
Comments 15
If I still lived in the old place where it was a wasteland when it came to Stops, then yeah. But they took too long, now I moved not too long ago and have two Stops nearby. lol
I'm not sure what they mean by the season thing. Unless some stops will not show up at certain times of the year. There are plenty of places where you might not want to go in the middle of winter or during the rainy season but are perfectly fine the rest of the year.
@sanya_exe Yeah this feature would have been nice two years ago.
@Heavyarms55 I think they mean seasonal art or structures. Like if a town hall set up some hay, scarecrows and pumpkins for Thanksgiving or a Christmas tree for Christmas.
I nominate my toilet to be a POI
@Heavyarms55 Watch the video, they mean don’t try and submit your towns Christmas Tree as a Point as it won’t be there in a few weeks time.
@Tourtus @J-Biz oh, that makes sense. I don't like blowing through data on mobile so I don't usually watch the videos like this. If I want to watch YouTube, I go there.
@Heavyarms55
The basic guidelines for point of interest submissions (which will be known as "Waystops" between both Pokémon Go and Ingress), is that they need to be public fixtures, accessible by pedestrian traffic, and should not be on private or inaccessible property.
Simple things like a noticeboard can even be a point of interest.
Say there's an art installation that's featured on a roundabout in the middle of the road. That wouldn't be permitted as a point of interest, because the feature itself isn't accessible by pedestrian traffic.
I've been looking forward to the opportunity to submit points of interest for the benefit of Pokémon Go for some time. It's worth noting that Pokémon Go's system is that not every waystop can be a Poké Stop or Gym, there's a limit to the number that may appear in a given area, unlike Ingress or Harry Potter Wizards Unite.
But generally, the number of gyms that appear in a given area are determined by the number of Poké Stops that appear. A recent member of our community has been very active with their Ingress submissions and has done an amazing job of introducing an abundance of Poké Stops and Gyms to the local area, and parks that had few or even no waystops at all are now full of them.
@RupeeClock Wow! Thank you for a very informative reply! I appreciate it!
This. Is. PERFECT!!
I live in a super rural area and only just recently (and by surprise, might I add) my church was made into a Pokéstop. Now that I can suggest my own, I’m hoping to see a ton more around here!!
This is going to be a perfect opportunity for trolls to nominate bad areas. Be careful out there.
@Mr_Muscle
All submissions are community reviewed and both intentionally poor submissions and acceptance of poor submissions are heavily discouraged, whilst proper due process is rewarded.
The system works better than expected, but there is a concern for abuse when it'll be open to a wider audience, particularly Pokémon Go players.
For schools, they should Times when it’s open during none school hours.
Also could we also suggest if the pokestop not there anymore or been updated?
@Heavyarms55 They mean temporary stuff, like Christmas trees. Where I live a lot of graffiti is listed as pokestops; whilst I don't mind in the slightest (it's a damn sight more interesting than most landmarks) almost none of it is still there. They probably don't want stuff like that (although as said, I will be upset if anyone reports of of it via this)
I'm honestly surprised this hasn't been a feature in Pokemon Go since the start since it was included in Ingress, which was essentially the prototype for PoGo.
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