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I’m
frustrated
Fake Mayor is Ruining Everything
How do I report a fake mayor? The mayor of our office doesn't work here.
Promoted
Response
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I’m
Angry, annoyed, frustrated, hopeless
3The cheating problem is absolutely out of hand. In my opinion, to preserve the game at all, this needs to be addressed before BlackBerry rollout and any other rollout. You can't expand until you fix the first problem, can you? I'm in Chicago and the cheating I see from at least 3 people has totally made Foursquare so much less fun. I used to love telling people about it and while I still do, I'm a little less passionate every time a cheater wins - which, in Chicago, is nearly every week.
And there are simple things that can be done ... Like telling someone they can't enter "a cab" and become mayor of a different cab and get the new venue points. If you want to be mayor of cab 2765 and you are in that cab often, great!! But "a cab" is not a venue.
Also not a venue? Strabucks, when there's a correct entry for Starbucks at the same location. You don't have to be a champion speller, just don't cheat!
Seriously, Foursquare - I open topics often. I try so hard to preserve the game for those that care - but I could use a little help here.
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2Ha! (sorry!)
I'm working on some cheater code today... lemme hit that up and get back to you, k?-
mattkroll January 14, 2010 00:05Hey Dennis- did the cheater code ever get rolled out?EditDeleteRemove
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Eric January 14, 2010 00:35When is this cheater thing going to get rolled out? We have someone in Boston who is so blatantly cheating it's ridiculous. He has gone to 3 movie theaters today alone (but doesn't obviously watch any movies since he's immediately eating at 5 star restaurants and then chugging down coffee like there's no tomorrow).EditDeleteRemove
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Cool thanks, can I suggest a new badge for fake mayors? You could call it the douchebag badge :)
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Yeah, and the name of that badge needs to be renamed. You need to give the douchebag badge to real douchebags.
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If possible, maybe give people a Cheater Badge? Something that makes their cheater check-in code more strict? ie if you have the Cheater Badge, you have to check in within X (50?) meters of the location and never be mayor. And then after some number of valid check-ins, the badge will get removed?
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I’m
peeved
I'd like to see something done about this as well. I work in the Downtown Crossing area of Boston, and also spend non-work time there as well since there's shopping and eateries and bars, so I check in there pretty often. (http://foursquare.com/venue/37721) I've become mayor... I don't know, 5 or 6 times? Every single time I've become mayor of Downtown Crossing, http://foursquare.com/user/gradontripp has ousted me within half an hour or so. I know it's a busy place with a lot of people, but the speed with which I am ousted every single time is very suspicious.- view 4 more comments
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I don't think that's uncool, as long as I'm understanding @Gradon Tripp correctly. If you're a mayor and you're ousted, it's your prerogative if you want to run down to the venue (physically) and check in to preserve your mayorship -- that's part of the game. I get that the point of Foursquare is about finding people, and so jumping up and running to your venue, if only for a moment, may not be conducive to meeting new people; but it does keep Foursquare fun and competitive. It's certainly not cool to check in at a place you're not at. If @Gradon Tripp is checking in from home every time he loses a mayorship, that's cheating.
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Meredith, you bring up a valid point -- checking in when you're not physically there is definitely a fail. Klobby got my point. When I say "jump and check in", I mean I'm physically there, grab my phone & check in.
I'm sure @Tape is content, though, as I don't work in Downtown Crossing anymore, relieving him of his biggest competitor for mayorship. :) -
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2Add a check-out requirement.
Isn't the whole point of foursquare to "be there" for friends to find you? If you can take 30 seconds to check-in you can do the same to check-out. Not only does that let your friends know you left, but poser Mayors will have to actually stay a while to earn their Mayorship.
If not a required check-out, at least create some type of minimum stay time stamp to become a Mayor. Keep the system as is for the loners just racking up their own stats and badges.-
How about how much time you spend somewhere is taken into account when deciding who's mayor and only checking in assumes you spent a minimum amount of time there?
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couldnt someone then just log in and never check out and still be fake mayor? sorry for being negative but I just dont see how that fixes anything
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1Hey all, thanks for being so patient with this. We've been tinkering with this for months and we're getting ready to push some code live to help fix.
One of the reasons we've been waiting was because of the Blackberry app - we have so many people using BB / mobile_web that it wouldn't be fair to apply "cheating" rules to iPhone users and not to those on Blackberry's
So with the BB app *days* away, we're getting closer. Stay tuned. :)
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I assume that the 'rules' of the game will be made clear or adjusted as the app is changed.
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Why is it necessary to change the app to implement a fraud analysis? Perhaps it is possible to look at the frequency of logging in, a minimum of time you should stay at a certain venue and for instance when the combination of the distance between two venues and the timestamp of checking in makes no sense?
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I’m
confident
Вы должны отнестись без раздрожения :) -
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This should be addressed. I know it will cause me to stop using four square.-
The team is working on this--there will be a fix soon, promise!
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I’m
Angry, annoyed, frustrated, hopeless
3The cheating problem is absolutely out of hand. In my opinion, to preserve the game at all, this needs to be addressed before BlackBerry rollout and any other rollout. You can't expand until you fix the first problem, can you? I'm in Chicago and the cheating I see from at least 3 people has totally made Foursquare so much less fun. I used to love telling people about it and while I still do, I'm a little less passionate every time a cheater wins - which, in Chicago, is nearly every week.
And there are simple things that can be done ... Like telling someone they can't enter "a cab" and become mayor of a different cab and get the new venue points. If you want to be mayor of cab 2765 and you are in that cab often, great!! But "a cab" is not a venue.
Also not a venue? Strabucks, when there's a correct entry for Starbucks at the same location. You don't have to be a champion speller, just don't cheat!
Seriously, Foursquare - I open topics often. I try so hard to preserve the game for those that care - but I could use a little help here. -
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I’m
frustrated
is it Otis St. Clair "The Mayor" in in Nashville, TN? grrr too many error codes... sorry for wasting [our] time trying NOT to look like an ass out of my "league" #iFAIL -
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I’m
frustrated
1or it could be
"jakethemayor" or even the real mayor! i tweet @ gov ppl every day! responses are both hysterical and sad at the same time... -
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My apologies. I had a week of temporary insanity. Full documentation here:
http://www.krazydad.com/blog/2010/02/...
There will be lots of other fraudulent mayorship problems, sadly, but not from me.-
To me, this is kind of like putting glue in the sandbox. Sure, you can make cool sculptures with it, but you're still messing with everybody else's fun. Not cool, IMO.
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I’m
impressed
Dennis, jbum just rocked your system like 4chan. But he also probably doubled your database for spots north of the 45th parallel. Seems like an even trade if you ask me.
Though it was pretty clear that people would get more upset about loosing mayorship of their local Starbucks than the Statue of Liberty. That's not really much of a learning set. What is more interesting is to see how flocking models over time using that RSS feed. That's some awesome data.
Automate that and you've got a method for dynamic advertising or, better yet, social action. -
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I’m
tired from all that flapping
1Interestingly, while the Guggenheim triggers the "far far away" badge for being above 59th street, Mount Rushmore, Barrow Alaska, and the Taj Mahal do not. :)
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I’m
frustrated
Will this anti cheat-code get active soon or can this problem be addressed in a different way? A cheater is claiming all venues in this neighborhood, including my own home. This is taking the fun out of this game for sure. :(-
Same exact thing here, we've got people snatching up places left & right.
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I’m
annoyed
Yes, someone named David Leibowitz (@liebowitzd) fraudulently checked into a SEASONAL ice-skating rink that ISN'T OPEN RIGHT NOW and hasn't been for 3 months. I've been the mayor of the location (The Pond at Bryant Park) for about 7 months. The Pond at Bryant Park is CLOSED, folks. They even tore down the rink because it's used for NYC's Fashion Week, so it's closed and also NONEXISTENT AT THIS TIME. It will not reopen until Fall 2010.- view 5 more comments
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I never said The Pond is an event. In fact, I said it wasn't. It's not just a skating rink, though. It's got dining, entertainment, shopping, etc. And apparently it's all gone right now. Additionally, Bryant Park has other venues within it - the reading room, carousel, restaurant, etc. I really think Mollie has raised a tough question here. I have no idea how seasonal venues should be handled. If being "on the site of" a venue is enough, people could check in at the Stardust in Vegas, even though it was demolished in 2007. So that's not an answer. I really don't know how to handle this one...would love to hear more thoughts, people!
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it's possible to "close" a venue but it seems the issue is bigger than that. A possible feature fix could to have an "auto-close" where a venue could be tagged to close at a certain date. Not perfect but a possible fix.
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I’m
indifferent
I noticed that there's some new location checking going on. When I was in Europe I was checking in at the end of the evening (when I had wifi) but some checkins weren't counted because of:
a) distance from checkin point
b) time between checkins
Glad to see these new features though it sounds like there's some issues still around fake mayors. -
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I’m
frustrated
Ya, I checked in at a grocery store when I left, drove 7 minutes, checked in at the condo I'm staying at and it told me I couldn't check in because of my super human speed. About 75% of the time Foursquare won't let me checkin for points, I'm sorry, but that's an unacceptable failure rate.
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I’m
amused
I was Mayor of a semi-major Subway terminal in NYC for about an hour before it was reclaimed by the previous mayor (Joe M.). I went out of my way to go there 8 times this weekend to reclaim it (kinda of childish), but also to prove to myself that he was cheating.
In all seriousness, there is no way that no way that someone would need to be at the same subway station more than 4 times in an entire day. You'd think that at the very least, under normal situations, that my and his check in count would be neck and neck and that the mayorship would be going back and forth between us. Pretty sure that he went to the mobile site and checked in a bunch of times within a few hours to get more ahead. http://foursquare.com/venue/172365
I know it's stupid to complain about a subway terminal, but still...-
Mayorships aren't computed by the gross number of checkins, it's computed as the number of DAYS checked in over the last 2 months.
checking in 4 times in one day just counts once. -
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Oh. Well, then I guess I was being silly. Although, I should have been mayor again at one point. Kind of disappointed.
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I’m
confident
I'll also make a suggestion that to put a damper on cheaters, that there be per day limit on check-ins. At least no points, etc. if you check in more than twice a day (3 times a day, tops).
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Not really. There are limits to how many times you can checkin within a short timespan (no more than 3 in 15 min) but no real restriction on total checkins per day.
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I thought this was specifically talking about checking in multiples times per day at the same venue. I thought you only got points for the first time per day.
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Andrew: The mayorship is only calculated based on DAYS checked in. So you can check in 20 times at the same place in one day - but for the mayorship, you only get "one day" towards the total.
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I’m
amused
I know this user is the mayor of my entire town it seems like. http://foursquare.com/user/-165055 To me this is bs. It just ruins it for everyone else. flagrent mayor abuses should be dealt with like islamic terrorists. Start cutting of their heads and they will stop car bombing (mayor bombing) eventually! LOL -
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I’m
confident
Personally i think the best way to cut down on the cheating is just to limit how far away from the venue you can check in whilst still getting the points.
I can check-in to places when my iPhone says I'm a good 400m away from the venue. It should be limited to just 100m, 200m at the most. That way you would actually have to be inside the venue and not just sat at home, driving by, etc because when I'm actually inside the venue, my iPhone never say's I'm anymore than 70m away.-
It would be nice if it where that easy, but first thing not every phone has that good of gps signal all the time, Second I think that (I could be wrong) most cheaters now are using the mobile web or the api directly or an app i saw (there maybe more than one) to auto checkin to any and all venues that are close enough.
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I’m
fucked off
The fake checkins will kill foursqure unless they find a way to stop people cheating. Im over having my hard earned mayorships taken over by people doing fake / drive-by checkins
As a result of this I am boycotting foursquare and flagging all the venues I have created for deletion.-
OK I understand your not happy, but PLEASE don't flag real venues for deletion. as that clogs up the queue and wastes someones time that maybe could be fixing a REAL problem.
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We don't delete venues anyway unless they are determined to be non-existent.
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IT IS A REAL PROBLEM !!!!
and I will continue flagging my venues as closed and for deletion unless a workable solution is implemented.-
In doing that you are beginning to mis-use the system just as the cheaters are. Fraudulently flagging venues to be closed and deleted that are legitimate, is not the answer to the problem.
If it is that much of an issue for you. There is one deletion I could suggest to you: http://foursquare.com/delete_me -
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I’m
watching TNT
Can you just leave 4sq? Maybe take a step back, look at your bucket list and think about what's possibly going on with you? -
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I will follow josh c suggestion and use the delete_me link
Turning it back into being my problem does not solve the underlying issue that the mayorship system is fundamentally flawed.
It is able to be manipulated and abused by cheaters for their own personal gain.
Thank You for your useful comments but I'd rather not be part of a system that supports cheating. Im sure many feel the same. -
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I’m
Pleased
My mission is complete. Foursquare have today announced changes to allow venue owners to oust "Fake" mayors. So now that the cheating aspect is being dealt with there may be some usefulness in returning to 4sq.
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CHAMP
