"[News] Another step closer to more new portals & pokéstops: Niantic opens Portal Recon to all max level Agents"

#PokemonGO: Starting today, Operation Portal Recon (OPR) will now be available globally to any level 16 Agent!! The portal network has grown from those who helped calibrate Operation Portal Recon over the last several months. We will be monitoring what effects that new Agents evaluating Portal candidates will have on the Portal Network. In time, additional Agents will gain access to OPR when we have determined that Portal Network is not affected adversely. To access the system, go to http://ift.tt/2r3yXqn want to thank all of the passionate Agents who helped us test the system and perfect the algorithms. Together, these Agents reviewed 510,000 portals, rejected 67,000, and were responsible for 63,000 new portals being created. To show our thanks, we are going to send a special Operation Portal Recon T-shirt to the top 100 contributors. We will send an email notice to the winning agents.In addition, there will be a new in game medal that can be obtained by participating in Operation Portal Recon. It will be a tiered medal and will not affect leveling up. More details will be announced soon about this.G+-SourceOver the past few months Niantic has been beta testing Portal Recon, a tool that (as of now) allows any experienced (read max level) Ingress Agent to review submitted portal candidates in an area approx 300km around them. A machine learning algorithm then accumulates these reviews and decides whether or not a candidate is a valid portal.In April this already resulted in the creation of 9 000 new portals, as well as confirmation that these changes affect Pokémon GO. Currently the reviewers are still wading through the millions and millions of submitted candidates that are in the backlog.So far only L8+ Agents in Brazil & S-Korea are able to submit new candidates (because the reviewers exhausted the pool) with no word on when others groups (Agents in other countries or Trainers anywhere) will regain this ability1.1 : In early 2015 portal submission was shut down thanks to all the coal clogging up the pipes EDIT: Their message on facebook differs slightly and that makes all the difference:Operation Portal Recon officially globally launched!! L16 agents, please access and show your wisdom to do this great thing together.I thank you for all beta testers. Without your help, this would not happen.New medal will come. New portals and pokestops will appear.(FB-source) EDIT2:Portals added to Ingress via Operation Portal Recon will often appear in Pokémon GO as well. We are exploring ways to allow PokéStop submissions in Pokémon GO but we don't have anything to announce at this time. (quote by NianticGeorge). And now for my personal opinion, hopes and speculation:With the increased number of Agents, the backlog will melt away in the coming months.As reviewers will be exhaust the queue near them, Niantic will enable more players to submit new candidatesWarning this one is very, very much personal hope & speculation: the camera in a trainer's bag will at some point allow us to submit our own candidates and not depend on Agents' good will. Final word of advice: rejoice & party tonight, as of tomorrow start researching points of interest that correspond to the candidate criteria via /r/pokemongo http://ift.tt/2q4Acah