Foursquare now lets venue managers impeach their mayors

One of the biggest reasons businesses name for not setting up a foursquare special is cheating, especially for mayorships. Foursquare now lets venue managers revoke the mayorship of their venue, either by adding the mayor as an employee or for “other reasons.”

Managers of many venues, especially small businesses, know their regular clientele. If someone checks in there often enough, it’s likely that the manager would at least recognize their face. If a manager sees a mayor they don’t recognize as a regular, there’s been no way to report that person as a potential cheater without going through foursquare’s overworked business support channel on a case-by-case basis. This option makes it easy for the venue manager to deal with the problem on their own.

According to fousquare, “other reasons” could include that “they’ve never really been to this venue, they check in when walking by, or check in from far away.” Managers also have the option to mark the user as an employee, which makes them ineligible for the mayorship (this isn’t new, but makes the process a little more obvious).

Of course, it’s also possible business managers could use this new-found power for evil, by revoking legitimate mayorships to instead reward their friends. It seems, though, that most savvy business owners would avoid this temptation due to the negative word of mouth it could create.

This change should help increase the confidence of businesses considering adding mayor specials. With this new tool, they know they’ll be able to deal with cheating quickly and easily and reward their real best customers.

Has mayorship cheating been a problem at your business? Does this change make you more likely to offer a mayor special?

/First reported by Rusty Walters of MGH. Thanks to @RyanatMGH for the heads up!