TL;DR. I have (mostly) worked out the formula used to choose which pokestop becomes a gym.
About a year ago, I set out on a journey to discover how pokestops turned into gyms. Before now, the accepted formula was “Number of Photos + Number of Votes (likes)” however this didn’t work when I tested it.
After thinking for a while, I hypothesised that the formula was close, but it must include other factors.
Long story short I decided on the following formula. “Number of photos + Number of total likes + age of oldest photo (if it’s in years then each 1 year is 1 point, if in months, 0-6 months is 1 point, 7-11 months is 2 points)”
After testing my formula, I worked out that the age of the pokestop DOES have something to do with it, but I never truely found out how.
However! During my testing, I was able to successfully manipulate 3 different pokestops across my local town of Perth to become gyms. I did this but adding a bunch of photos (10-15 over a period of a few months) then getting myself and my friends to like each photo. Then when it was time to submit that final pokestop that would trigger a gym, it would be the pokestop I wanted. Which in all three instances with brand new pokestops that I had submitted only months earlier.
Not sure what you want to do with this information, but I thought it was about time I share it, just incase someone is able to take on my information and use it to crack it once and for all…
Also the images shown 1) is the first version of my prediction formula on paper, 2) is when I consented it to a excel spreadsheet, 3) is when I manipulated IITC PogoTools plugin to work with my formula.
by ScratchOMatic