Hey, trying to get clarity on a few things instead of guessing — would appreciate input from experienced reviewers/agents.
Are courthouses an ineligible category? I checked the official rejection criteria and eligibility criteria pages, and courthouses aren’t explicitly listed — only police stations, fire stations, hospitals, military bases, industrial sites, power plants, and ATC towers are named as ineligible location types. In my region I already have 2-3 accepted Wayspots that are court buildings. Is this just a category that gets extra scrutiny around public access/security, or is there an unwritten rule against courthouses specifically?
Replacing a demolished structure with a new one on the same spot. There’s an existing Wayspot — a wooden ship play structure on open, publicly accessible grounds in front of a hotel. It deteriorated over time and was demolished; a modern playground was built in its place, at the same spot. What’s the correct way to update this — submit a photo edit to the existing Wayspot, or remove the old one and submit a brand-new nomination for the new structure? My concern is that a plain photo-swap edit, without context, would confuse reviewers who don’t know the object was physically replaced, and get rejected as “doesn’t match.” Has anyone dealt with this exact scenario?
Removal requests on shared school/church grounds. I’ve found several Wayspots on K-12 school grounds that should be ineligible, and want to submit them for removal. Some are trickier: the property is roughly square, and a couple of Wayspots sit near a corner where two adjacent sides border different institutions — one side school, the other a church. What’s the right way to document/support a removal request in these mixed-boundary cases — just note “this is on school grounds, boundaries visible on Google Maps” and let reviewers judge, or is there a better approach?
Are youth sports academies treated like K-12 schools? In my country we have specialized sports schools (“СДЮШОР” — youth Olympic-reserve sports schools), not standard K-12 education but extracurricular athletic training institutions where kids roughly up to 14-16 years old train. Does this fall under the same restriction as regular K-12 schools (ineligible due to unsupervised minors), or is it treated more like a sports club/gym category?
Thanks in advance for any pointers or prior experience with these!
I would say that there’s no reason a courthouse would be automatically ineligible (not required for emergency services access, and not particularly sensitive locations), but they wouldn’t be automatically eligible either. You would have to evidence that it met the exploration or social criteria somehow (good luck if you go with exercise!)
2:
They call this ‘repurposing’ and it’s usually rejected. In this case, request removal with evidence, and then sub the new one. The only time you can upload a completely new pic / title etc. is with a mural that has been repainted.
3:
If you have evidence (online maps for example) then share that in the location report. If not, you can still make the report with explaining notes to support your opinion and see what staff decide.
4:
If the MAIN intention of the location is for children to be present without their parents, then it should be ineligible. Playgrounds are fine as they are public and parents will usually be present. Schools, camps, after-shool clubs etc. are not.
When trying to understand eligibility, remember the criteria is just that something is a great place for exercise, exploration, or being social. That will help you so much.
If by category you mean those tags you used to have to choose, but don’t now with web submit, those do not mean anything for eligibility.
No, courthouses are not ineligible. If this is a landmark building, you could submit it under exploration criteria. If your submission has been denied, you could post in Nomination Support and we could try to advise.
It depends. If the wayspot was for the ship and it is gone, it should be reported for removal. If the wayspot was for the playground, a new photo can be added of the current equipment.
If I submit a removal request, I provide the evidence I saw that convinced me it should be removed. For example, a link to the school’s website.
The clarification on schools refers to
so yes, if this is primarily where kids are dropped off without parental supervision, then it should not be accepted. I try to check closely on sports/dance businesses to make sure.
Good Wayspot candidate but description asks reviewers to accept it. I recently came across a nomination where the location itself is a solid, clearly legitimate Wayspot candidate, but the submission’s description/supporting text literally says something like “accept please.” To me this looks like it falls under “Influencing Reviewers,” which as far as I understand is meant to be handled as a report/complaint against the submission, not just a simple reject. But on the other hand, the location itself genuinely meets the eligibility criteria on its own merits. What’s the right call here — should I report it for influencing reviewers regardless of how good the location is, or does a strong candidate change how this should be handled? Is there a general priority between reporting bad conduct in the text versus judging the location itself?
I personally ignore those kinds of comments. It would have to be really egregious for me to consider it anything more than not understanding how Wayfarer works. If you get a specific example, you can post to discuss.
There is no concept of “ineligible category” in Wayfarer, as much as people would like to have a go-to list of those. This is a big misconception that often leads to a lot of disappointment. That’s neither how anyone should review, nor how anyone should nominate. As boring as it might sound, every nomination is assessed against acceptance, rejection, eligibility criteria on its own. We’re very happy to help with specific examples you feel didn’t come across with your reviewers
As noted, ineligibility is normally something based on the location and who would be there. Even in the section that is headed “Ineligible location, place, or object”, when you read through, it is more about the location and the intended use of that location.
It is true that schools or private single-family residences explicitly listed in the rejection criteria cannot be nominated. However, @elijustrying and @Xenopus point out that it is not ideal to simplify eligibility or rejection judgments purely through categorization.
A courthouse exists to guarantee everyone’s right to a trial and to seek legal judgment or remedy. This function alone does not satisfy any of the eligibility criteria. At the same time, however, a courthouse building might possess historical or architectural value, or there could be other special reasons why it meets the criteria. This is why they are saying that each nomination should be evaluated on a case-by-case basis.
Conversely, in Japan, so-called “go-to” eligible categories have taken on a life of their own. Because people submit nominations under the assumption that they will automatically be approved, they fail to carefully explain the supporting reasons for how the nomination meets the eligibility criteria. Furthermore, if a nomination simply falls into one of those categories, locations and objects that do not actually meet the criteria are still submitted without any critical examination of their intended use or background information.
This is precisely why simplifying judgments through rigid categorization is problematic.
With the playground, you can message help chat with the situation and provide new images, maybe a link to a news article about the works, and they can likely remove the old photos and help update things. That’s wht I did when playgrounds here were substantially renovated.
