"A tip for portal submitters"

#PokemonGO: I've seen a few posts recently wrongly slamming Ingress players for changes in Pokemon Go that weren't their fault. So here are some tips/info from a high levelled Ingress and PoGo player on how to get your portals and stops created, and why things may be getting denied.If a Pokestop/gym gets removed from the game, but the portal is still there in Ingress, it means that the owner of the land/property has submitted a complaint to Niantic to get it removed because they don't want you playing there. They have to prove they own the property to get these through so it almost definitely isn't a local player.If the portal gets removed too it was an ingress player who did it, but it could be anyone from any time during the last 5 years, if the POI isn't there in real life theres a good chance someone at some point will report it as invalid and it takes months, sometimes years for those edits to go through. Niantic assess these edits themselves and are very strict.If a pokestop gets removed because of a complaint it creates a dead zone around that area where you can't submit new portals so try to behave and don't cause trouble when you're raiding.If your portal gets denied by OPR even though it seems valid it can be for a few reasons:Google street view is out of date so the thing isn't actually there on the map (you can check this yourself before submitting), sometimes you can be in one position and see an empty piece of grass, then you skip forward a few paces and a bench magically appears.You haven't written a description, If you submit a memorial/heritage plaque etc it's always good to write the body of text from the plaque in your description because usually it can't be read from the picture that we get to review. Ingress is about exploring and having that info is a key part of the game when completing missions so it's always good to try and make submissions suitable for both games.Remember your portal is probably being reviewed by someone from hundreds of miles away, so writing names incorrectly, using local slang etc will just get you a downvote, write the proper name for the location/parkIf you submit a piece of artwork/sculpture don't make your own name up (unless it's really funny), find out what the actual name is and the artists name too if you can.If you submit an edit to move a portal away from its correct position to turn it into a gym, it probably won't get through and it will annoy local Ingressers, portal position can directly affect gameplay so don't move things that aren't actually in the wrong place.The satellite image and google street view are always pretty inaccurate, so the chances getting the portal/stop in the exact position you want is pretty slimIf you submit your house, it will get 1 star, you aren't tricking anyone. I see a tonne of rural players do this and it's just pointless, instead of finally getting a stop in your town you're getting no stops so just don't do it.The big tip for rural players is this, you need to get into using open street maps and google maps before you start submitting. You can edit open street maps (its basically wikipedia for maps) to add names to buildings and parks and footpaths and stuff which will help your spawns. Don't abuse it because it's not fair to OSM users if you trash their map but if you check the map and see things missing feel free to add them in because it helps everyone.You can add images to google maps when you're at a location, this will REALLY help your portal submissions because the reviewer will be able to double check that the thing you're submitting is actually there. It helps you to get around the problems I listed above with google street view, which is usually wayyyyy out of date in super rural areas.Hopefully this info helps, Ingress players definitely want more portals and definitely want rural players to be able to play (we use your portals as hard to reach anchors for big fields :P )Feel free to add any more tips if you can think of any.EDIT: As people have mentioned below you can submit photospheres to Google maps which show what is around the POI and will hopefully help it to pass review. via /r/TheSilphRoad https://ift.tt/2FtJ2G5