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!
I like that… though I’d also like to see more businesses local to me actually use Foursquare.
Shame none of the venues in my nearest big town are claimed apart from JD Wetherspoon pub.
One guy in that town is mayor of ALL of the venues downtown because he lives close and checks in from his couchon a daily basis.
He’s ousted me in 4 places when the venues were long closed for the day.
I haven’t reported him though because I know nothing will be done but I’m honestly close to giving up even playing foursquare there because it’s 100% pointless there is zero chance of ousting him
Not a specific problem, but I know people who trick their iPhones into thinking they are in different cities and even countries in order to gain mayorships. It should require a genuine local signal for location authentication.
Actually all they have to do is log in on the mobile site and put in where they’re “located” and type in a venue. It doesn’t track by GPS. Its the non smart phone user friendly version.
[...] Reposted via About Foursquare [...]
This is pretty awesome, but I’m interested to see what happens. For instance:
1. Though cheating is somewhat obvious, If the manager of the location’s Foursquare accidentally boots an actual loyal patron, how will they make up for the mistake?
2. If, as a user, you knew there was a cheater involved, would you complain to the venue? How can they prove you’re correct?
3. An interesting new Foursquare take for venues: reset mayorships on a monthly basis so a new person each month has an opportunity for the venue’s mayoral special. May increase participation in Foursquare…
Working off of your #2, I would like to see a “report bad mayor” option on claimed venues (with some sort of selection or input box for the reason). That would trigger a notification to the venue’s manager on Foursquare to investigate.
OoOoo that’s a good idea! If I was a Foursquare manager, I’d be hating life if I was getting random emails about cheaters. But a more manageable way like your idea will help with time and frustration.
I wish Foursquare would instead find a way to make the game relevant. I’m tired of it already.
Sounds pretty reasonable, of course as with anything there is the potential for abuse but as Sassy illustrated right now it’s too easy for cheaters to take and horde mayorships.
Hey that’s great news.
When we play it like a game, I guess at the end…. there are no rules. Play it like its played by the other side. Do what they do
Yet, the app is great and innovative. With few tweaks its going to be more awesome for sure.
Till then, lets keep checking in
Ananth V
[...] Source: aboutfoursquare.com [...]
[...] site quietly added a new feature this week that allows business owners to revoke the mayorship of users they believe cheated to [...]
[...] site quietly added a new feature this week that allows business owners to revoke the mayorship of users they believe cheated to [...]
Actually I quite like the concept of the Mayorship restarting monthly. It’s pretty easy to hang on to a Mayorship and if the venue wants to offer special recognition of the Mayor, they will not get the full value of their participation.
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