Following up on my last post on complaining about portal submissions I wanted to give my tips to help maximize your chances of having your portal accepted. I'm not saying this will guarantee acceptance, but will increase the likeliness of them being accepted. Many of these things come from the
Ingress Portal Submission Guidelines, others come from posts on
+NIA Ops and others come form personal experience and elsewhere.
Lets start with the portal you are interested in submitting. Good portals are:
- Public/Municipal portals-
- Libraries
- Water Towers
- Public Park Signs
- Post Offices
- Train, bus or other transit stations
- Fountains
- Gazebos
- Memorials
- Art
- Statues
- Sculptures
- Murals
- Plaques
- 'Artistic' Graffiti
- Buildings
- Historical
- Unique
- Interesting Design/Architecture
- Religious
- Churches
- Mosques
- Synagogues
- Temples
Portals that are generally not accepted include:
- Police Stations*
- Fire Stations*
- Hospitals*
* These items were once commonly accepted, but Niantic has since stopped accepting them. The rumor is that they are even removing these portals.
- Schools
- Bridges
- Homes (non-historic/unique design)
- Landscape Images
So now you've selected your target portal you would like to submit lets talk about actually submitting it.
Photo
There are 2 methods of portal submission through your scanner. One is taking an existing photo which is in your scanner and selecting share and then share it to NIA Super Ops. Select the location, Enter the Title and description and then submit. Pretty easy.
The second way, and from what I understand is the way Niantic prefers, is in the game touch your scanner on where the portal should be. Select "New Portal", confirm the location (you will probably have to make a slight adjustment because it will locate to where you are), enter the title and description and you're done. Again pretty easy.
Photo Tips:
- Use your scanner's camera
- Activate GPS tagging on your scanner's settings.
- Take a quality picture
- Do not include people, faction type objects (frogs, smurfs, androids, etc)
- Do not include identifiable information such as license plates
Title
Your title can make a difference in getting your portal submission approved. Your title should be brief, concise, catchy and accurate. Your title can help tell the reviewer about the portal. For example my local fire department has a pretty cool mural on the side of their building. Now when submitting it I wouldn't want to call it "________ Fire Department" regardless of what it you are submitting and how good the picture is or the mural is that title is begging to be rejected. A title with a greater probability of being accepted would be, "Mural Honoring Firefighting Heroes."
Likewise a boring title could also work well for things which are commonly accepted like libraries, water towers, post offices work well like "My Towns Water Tower."
Description
Descriptions are not always necessary. Many possible portals are self-explanatory like water towers and post offices, but other portals a description will help the reviewer rule in your favor. I've found this is particularly helpful with historic buildings, unique architecture and local unique businesses.
Remember you know why you thing the location is portal worthy, the reviewer may be thousands of miles away from you and is impartial. You need to convey to them the significance of your portal.
Now while you want to to give a good description, you don't want to copy and paste from Wikipedia or some other source.
With these tips I think you will find your acceptance rate increases.
Good luck and happy hacking!
Here's another quick rant since I'm ranting....