The State of Nominations, Part 13

Sometimes, the progress of PokéStop nomination in Pokémon Go goes through as many changes as it goes through a period of constancy. In the past two months since my last update, that's exactly what happened: there have been lots of change, but lots of things also stayed the same. Both of them have affected the progress during that time.

For the hard numbers, I have to say that there isn't much change in this regard. I still have the 64 approvals, 13 superseded nominations, and 29 rejections from my last update. What really changed is the number of nominations in progress: currently, I have 17 nominations plus 3 renominations, which is a big increase indeed (though it also means that I also gained rejections). That was helped by the changes that have been put in place since the last time.

One of those changes is that the number of nominations has massively increased - this time for real, unlike the change that occurred one time and was quickly reversed. Now one can have up to 40 nomination slots at one time, and a slot is freed each day (for comparison, previously one had 7 slots that were only freed once every 14 days). While it's not conceivable that one will use up all 40 slots every single time - let alone find that many objects to be nominated - at least now one has much greater freedom to nominate whenever possible.

In fact, one now also has the freedom to nominate wherever possible. It is now possible to "nominate at home" (or wherever one may be) by furnishing the two required nomination photos - for the PokéStop itself and the supporting photo for the area - directly from the device gallery, though this comes with the caveat that the picture still has to be taken directly on site rather than taken from other sources. One can also hold completed nominations for uploading later, which is helpful for when the connection is not very good, allowing one to wait until good connection is found.

With this, now my nomination methodology has somewhat changed. Instead of researching the nomination object beforehand and then doing everything else on site, if I find an object that could be nominated, I take the two requisite photos, then do the research - likely at home as expected - and then I make the nomination. This reduces a lot of the guesswork that I sometimes have when nominating on site, the errors that might result from that, and the possibility of unwanted interactions from staying too long on site; with less of these, hopefully the nominations are better as well.

For now, though, it seems that it will have to be another two-month wait before I see the results from my nomination progress, having been affected by all of the changes above. In that two months - in other words, next year - there ought to be more changes to my nominations, as in the numbers and hopefully increased approval counts. The system is not likely to change within that time (and it hopefully shouldn't, as the changes above are truly beneficial), but one should expect good to change to great with all other things the same. 

One year ago: Go Onwards to Home

Two years ago: Herding the Last: Wooloo Sticker

Three years ago: Poké-Pareidolia

Four years ago: The Pacing of Types