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Foursquare holds superusers accountable for merge requests

8

By on August 17th, 2010

Foursquare superusers are now publicly tied to the merge requests they make

The days of anonymously requesting bad merges on foursquare are over. Foursquare today rolled out a change to the merge venue tool that makes superusers accountable for the merge requests they make.

Foursquare, of course, has always known which user requested a merge and could look it up in case of a complaint, but today’s change means that all superusers (SU2+) can now spot the rogues that repeatedly submit bad venue merges. Their name and a link to their profile is clearly shown in the merge venue queue.

Under the old system, the superuser find the merge above in the queue would (hopefully) choose “Don’t Merge” and move on, since gates are considered valid venues. Now there’s an opportunity for a little gentle user education for the superuser who submitted the bad merge request.

In addition to showing who requested the merge, the page also shows the number of checkins and the category to help determine if the merge should be made. Automatically moving the pin is also now turned off if a human has previously edited the venue pin.

Adding the requester is a nice addition that offers a way for superusers to help police their own. What do you think of the change?

/Thanks to @ack154 for the heads up

  • http://www.allankintz.com ack154

    Do like. :)

    • http://robert.aitchison.org Robert Aitchison

      Heh when I saw this feature I immediately thought of you and the airport merges.

  • Byron

    More info is always better for determining how to handle a merge request.

    With that being said… I think gates in airports and sections within stadiums are silly venues that only clutter up the venue list. Not only that, if you’re going to create a new venue for a specific gate/section/etc at least follow some sort of naming convention so that it isn’t such an eyesore.

    • http://www.allankintz.com ack154

      I think it has been declared that sections/seats of a stadium are no longer separate venues. So those are OK to merge. Gates/flights however are still separate. And really, many of us do follow some sort of convention… but there are obviously many that don’t and many duplicates that need to be addressed.

      Ex: http://aboutfoursquare.com/style-guide/airports/

  • http://mikesilverman.com Mike

    So I might as well use this as an opportunity to bitch / gentle ask: Will Foursquare EVER start adding new superusers again?

  • http://foursquare.com/user/andersson_micke Michael Andersson

    Good, but maybe there should also be info about who suggested the merge in the first place, if posted on Get Satisfaction forums for example. As a SU you try to help out in other regions than your own, and you must trust the user, except if it looks really strange.

  • scott topic

    i don’t see what good this does. it just divulges the names of the superusers. do we really need MORE of our information given out to random strangers?

    unless foursquare has implemented a messaging function (which I haven’t seen), there is no way that linking to their profile is going to give you a way to ask them to not keep requesting those merges (unless they like, have foursquare or twitter contact info linked, and even that is a pain).

    dislike.

    what they need to do is implement the private venues, and allow superusers to flag venues as such. this will be the biggest and best way to clean up the actual venue trash.

  • shuckiduck

    I’m very very pleased by this! Two venues in different cities were merged and I’m tired of novice SU screwing legitimately venues up!

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