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I'd like a suggested style guide for creating and editing venue info.
I'm happy to spend time editing addresses and such, but I'd like to be consistent about naming chains (e.g., In-N-Out - Fisherman's Wharf vs. In-N-Out Fisherman's Wharf) and listing addresses ("at Market"? "Market"? "btwn 2nd & 3rd"?)
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I’m
thankful
6Hi Maria P, Stargazer, and others:
Thanks for calling me out, Maria P! I'm being sincere. It means I'm saying something worth responding to. You bring up a valid point, for sure. I am absolutely going against the Foursquare Style Guide with my professing a "Venue - Location" standard because I firmly believe the current guide is maddeningly flawed.
I don't think enough wording has gone into it. I think it was posted with a developer's mindset rather than a usability mindset. Mind you, these 4sq developers are brilliant and they certainly do get usability right most of the time. I just think they failed to consider all aspects of their own game when posting it. They knew they needed a guide, but missed some important steps for helping us check in faster and integrating their service with Twitter and their own website in particular.
I was fortunate enough to talk to co-founder Dennis Crowley in person a couple of weeks ago about this. He said that it's an easy fix that they're aware of. I believe him when he says it's easy, based on the ability to include other data fields in some manner. But they still haven't done it other than showing a secondary address field that is not always immediately helpful. Nevertheless, I've backed off on my editing of venues and regular replies to this thread because I was comforted by the fact that Dennis and Co. are thinking about it. I'm playing wait-and-see.
Here are specific problems with the current user guide that I think make the game less functional by following it to the core of just entering Venue without Location:
1) It's been well-ballyhooed that SMS users are left in the dark. I don't use SMS anymore, but this is really too bad. These folks clearly want to play, and following the guide makes it harder for them. I believe in tech advances, but carefully...
2) Posting Foursquare check-ins and mayor announcements to Twitter and Facebook becomes disappointing and sometimes annoying (some would argue it's always annoying, but I think integration serves a useful purpose when done right). Because the information is generic for chains, the info is less valuable. Example: "Brian C. just became mayor of McDonald's!" Okay, which of the several thousand? I guess I could click the link that goes with it, but I'd rather not. Give more info! "Brian C. is the mayor of Arby's - Stadium Village." THAT tells me something.
3) Similarly, when I see "Arby's - Stadium Village," I immediately know where I am. Addresses are not always immediately helpful, and I mean IMMEDIATELY! I have a host of examples: Two Dunn Bros Coffee on University Avenue bookending the University of Minnesota; two Starbucks not far from each other on Grand Avenue in Saint Paul; several Starbucks all very close to each other in Times Square; and what would be my biggest nuisance if the Location were wiped from the naming--my local SuperAmerica gas station. It NEVER comes up on Places refreshes. I don't get why the GPS can't read it, but it doesn't. The only one that comes up automatically is a couple of miles away. I always have to search for my SuperAmerica. If I couldn't see the Location, I'd be riffling through a few dozen generic SuperAmericas each time I checked in, which I'm actually not likely to do because it's too much extra work each time.
4) GPS pinpoint placement is not exacting enough yet to rely solely on that. Maybe for the newest phones it is, but does this mean that my first-gen iPhone is already obsolete. That kinda sucks.
5) And here's one of my biggest style guide flaws: The Foursquare website. I look at the mayorships my friends hold. It's interesting to see which neighborhoods or suburbs they dominate. It's not readily apparent without Location identifiers because only the Venue name is displayed on one line. Say my friend is the mayor of three different Starbucks and The Bulldog. Which Bulldog? Nord'east? Lowertown? South Minneapolis? Those are big differences. Which Starbucks? There are only like 300 to choose from. Why make this harder to figure out?
If you're still reading, Maria P and Stargazer, I'm impressed. I'll close by saying I'm all for rules as long as they're sensible. I've said it before: the current style guide cannibalizes Foursquare's own advancements (mayorship stats on website, Twitter feed of Foursquare check-ins).
Maria P, I don't know why you would be taking the time to go through and REMOVE information that is currently of use to many people. I respect your adherence to the style guide, but I still wish you would help me create a better, more useful style guide. There is a certain level of redundancy, sure. This could be fixed if the 4sq team made "Unique Location Identifier" or something like it a separate data field. They're on their way by adding the city name, but check the difference in one local venue:
Dunn Bros Coffee - Elliot Park (Minneapolis, MN)
vs. what it would be...
Dunn Bros Coffee - (Minneapolis, MN)
Currently, you can't put "Elliot Park" anywhere other than in the Venue, and "Elliot Park" is exactly the kind of identifier that turns generic chains into unique places.
Stargazer, to your point that multiple styles erodes professionalism. Totally agree. Now tell all the peeps that check in with all lowercase or ALL UPPERCASE or in California rather than CA or with full-name "Street" rather than "St" or with the wrong street name altogether or no number with the street name or the wrong spelling of the venue or not taking the time to see if it's Walmart/Wal-Mart, McDonald's/McDonalds, Dunn Bros Coffee/Dunn Brothers, SuperAmerica/Superamerica/Super America, and so on. There's still a lot of junk in the system because of folks outside this conversation thread.
Thanks for the healthy debate, folks. I'm glad we all care enough to write and try to help in our own way. Ultimately, I recognize that I'm not the game's owner. But I do have informed opinions. As do you.
Overwhelmingly yours,
G. Sax -
I’m
indifferent
5Here is a new concession for something to add. Can we adopt the USPS standard of abbreviating predirectionals and postdirectionals? Those are term for the cardinal direction in addresses like 4323 North Main Street, or 4123 Oak Ave Northwest.
They would be 4323 N Main St and 4123 Oak Ave NW with no periods!!! No periods people look this stuff up on USPS.com if you don't believe me. You NEVER use periods when abbreviating addresses. -
I’m
appreciative that people are working hard behind the scenes. Thanks 4Square team!
8Here's a thought regarding SMS. I use SMS a lot to check in and have been struggling with this concept of stripping the location out of the venue name despite having multiple locations for a chain of stores/restaurants.
So, in the new world of Foursquare: Everywhere, is it feasible to set up a SMS sent command to set my location. That is, could I SMS my location first... And then, my actual check-in. That way, you could identify the business in the town.
For example, let's say I'm starting off as "Jeremy Bautista in Westmont, IL"
SMS #1: @@ Downers Grove, IL
That would make me now: "Jeremy Bautista in Downers Grove, IL"
SMS #2: @ Panda Express
Then, my check-in would pick up that Panda Express, listed in Downers Grove, IL which would distinguish it from Panda Express in Lombard or Bolingbrook or elsewhere.
That said, that works for most towns, but probably not most cities where there's multiple locations in the same town or zip code.
Another thought I had was if there was an SMS command to do a "Search Venue" and have a response SMS back to the phone as to matches for that search.
For example, say I want to search for Panda Express.
SMS #1: # Panda Express
Then, I would get a SMS response back to my phone saying something like...
Return SMS:
Venue #11111: Panda Express - Lombard, IL
Venue #22222: Panda Express - Downers Grove, IL
Venue #33333: Panda Express - Bolingbrook, IL
Then, I can send my check in via venue number:
SMS #2: @22222
Then, my location is specific and confirmed upon check-in.
Just some thoughts... -
5Gotta jump in on this long discussion since I've been taking it upon myself to edit inconsistent venue names and it's a runaround process.
I've been following the suggestion to strip off location identifiers. While it seems good in theory to add those in, there's a quagmire of mistakes in doing that. What determines the location identifier? It's not always uniform. You can't always use the neighborhood (multiple locations, multiple names sometimes for neighborhoods) and you can't use the street name (multiple locations on one street). Getting rid of the extraneous after dashes or @ symbols or whatever sets a level ground on that. Then you're not going back and forth with another well-intentioned user on whether that one CVS is on Broadway or Belmont or if you should call it the Boystown or the Lakeview (heck, the East Lakeview, maybe?) area CVS.
As for SMS users, there should perhaps be a way built in to identify which Starbucks or McDonalds or whatever the person is at if they send the location with the name and the address maybe? Like, instead of saying @Starbucks, they'd SMS @Starbucks 1 Main St. Or something like that. It would take the extra effort to look at the outside of the building you're in to see the exact address, but, really, is that difficult?
It sounds great in theory to add in identifiers, but there's no way to keep that uniform. I'm an editor by trade and it drives me nuts to see Chipotle -- Main, Chipotle @ Jackson, Chipotle Mexican Grill -- Chicago, Chipotle on Michigan, etc. etc. Strip off the identifiers. Use the name the chain company picked and the address in text message check-ins to keep things consistent is my best suggestion. -
I’m
ANGRY
8Given all the input in this thread saying that "Venue - Place" is a whole heck of a lot easier for people to find, edit, and enter venues I can't believe that the Foursquare team is tweeting to tell people to drop them.
Dropping them without another solution such as a sub-name for a venue is a bad idea for each and every one of the points made above. -
I’m
frustrated, and a little pissed
9All of us SMS users are getting screwed. Someone has been stripping off all the location identifiers from venue names. Now it's impossible for SMS users to check into a particular location. Dennis, why are you recommending in your style guide that location-specific suffixes are no longer needed? Sure, with iPhones or Androids maybe location in venue name is not "needed", but I know a lot of those folks who liked having a quick location reference in the venue name rather than trying to figure out the address. But worse, us SMS folks are screwed. No way I can check into a Starbucks in Seattle now, I mean, are you kidding me? Which one will it randomly choose?
I spent a lot of time and energy editing venue names to include good location info, and now someone is stripping them off. SMS folks are getting screwed, and I got screwed out of spending my time trying to make the data better. -
3I agree. The Android app has been making it difficult to check in easily.
Keeping the identifiers on venue names makes sense because it's easier to find the venue you want to check in to, makes it easier to see where people are in your friends list, and makes more sense when you look at the Recent Mayors list (you don't see 8 people the mayor of Starbucks). -
3I've been holding off in joining the voice of the choir even though I have been humming along from the back. Until a time where GPS can pinpoint exactly where you are (and it doesn't) location specific identifiers is a must, especially when you have a dense area or many different chain entities in the same area. What seems to be the norm and visually works well in the Boston/NH area is Chain Name (location identifier).
Whatever is decided, I do think it is mandatory that there be such identifiers. I know that I have been logged in to the wrong location several times. -
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confident
7As an editor by trade, I think a style guide is absolutely necessary, but I was concerned today when I saw that we're no longer needing to enter the location for chains. I think it absolutely necessary to enter "Place Name - Location" like we do here in Minneapolis/St. Paul unless Foursquare staff intends to do it automatically. The points made by Carlo M and Chad Ford above emphasize my points exactly.
In addition, the extra location indicator is a huge visual help for check-ins on the fly. I don't often think in terms of addresses for businesses, and I don't think many other people do. Hell, it's hard enough locating addresses for venues that aren't already listed. We think in terms of cities/suburbs, neighborhoods, intersections.
I think you can trust us superusers with this task. Reading through comments today, I recognize a lot of like-minded, clean-data-loving people. We got your back, Dennis.
It seems to me the greater debate is whether to use dashes or parentheses as our location separator. In my home city, space-dash-space rules the roost, and I've learned to really like it. -
4I still go by "Place Name - Location" because whenever I check in on my iPhone and type "Walmart" I automatically get checked in to a Walmart someplace else.
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Please do send. We're going to take a stab at fixing the way we handle chains / multiple locations in the next few weeks. Thx! -
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I was thinking the same thing, I was going through editing some Chipotle locations in NYC and was thinking it would be nice to have a style guide so that if someone doesn't like how I was doing it they wouldn't just go through and change them all again.
I like the Venue Name - Location idea and then using best judgment on cross street. Sometimes places are on the corner other times in the middle of the block. -
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excited
Mike, I agree about the cross street -- though sometimes I can't decide between writing "at Market St" vs. just "Market." Seems pretty trivial, but I don't want to waste someone else's time by having edit wars over it!
Dennis, if I wrote up a style guide, what's the best way to suggest it to you? Should I send an email or do something in getsatisfaction?-
I like adding the "at" or "btw" because when the venue shows up for checking in, the address reads more naturally: i.e. 123 Main St, at Fraser Ave.
I also use the cross street box to put more clearly where a venue, i.e. "in Village Place Mall at Smith St." which also shows up helping with checking in to the right place. -
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Doing it here is prob best... we can use this as a forum for going back and forth on ideas. (I'll get HarryH on this thread too)
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1Just to throw in my hat, this is how I've approached things:
Naming:
- Always capitalize based on how the venue identifies itself (some don't capitalize the first letter, eg: "alto")
- It seems appropriate to drop off superfluous details from the 'formal' name: 'Old Chicago' versus 'Old Chicago Restaurant and Tavern'
Syntax:
- Multi-location venues (chains): [Venue Name] - [Location]
- Businesses / companies (not 'venues'): [Company Name] HQ
Cross Streets:
- If the address is clearly at a numbered street and named street, no cross street necessary. For example: 1601 Market is at 16th and Market.
- If a cross street is identifiable (again, not an obvious numbered street) then include the nearest. For example 240115th St in Denver is appropriately labeled 'Platte' as the cross street.
- If necessary, add 'btwn A and B' if blocks are fairly large and it's not clear where the venue could be in relation to the street/address number.
Common Venue Tags:
(frequently added, in addition to those outlined on the help/badges page)
- gym
- food truck
- hotel
- airport
- live music
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And adding venues like 'Safeway' and 'My House' are kinda frowned upon but often ignored (don't clean them up, don't tag them, don't care, etc.), is there an official stance (ie: are these really 'venues'? can they be deleted in the near future?).-
The venue name should be the same as it is on the building unless it is a chain and then it should include the store number. If its on the corner it should have the cross street as "& Main" if in the middle of the block should be "btw 1 & 2" tags should include what type of venue it is and what is available there such as any games the type of food any special amenities and if its a bar any special type of draft beers that you don't find everywhere.
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1I mostly agree with Devin's guidelines. A couple of thoughts:
It's not always clear what the cross street is from a numbered address. At least here in San Francisco, 845 Market actually isn't between 8th and 9th. I'd err on the side of putting extra info.
I actually like the idea of stores as venues. Sometimes shopping can be a social affair. Maybe Safeway is a bad example, but I like checking in when I'm at Westfield Mall. I think it's as valid a location as an airport. -
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2In Boston, I've been naming venues with naming formatting such as:
Tommy Doyle's (Newton)
Starbucks (Harvard Square)
Corrib Pub (Brighton)
The parens are better than a mere hyphen in making it more obvious it's not actually part of the place's name. I've also been using the actual name of the place whenever possible, no matter what locals may call it. For example, EVERYONE and their mom refers to Natick Collection as "the Natick mall", but that's no longer the official name, so I stuck with that. Likewise, we all call our airport "Logan", but it's in there by its official "Logan International Airport" designation.
If a business has its name in ALL CAPS, I'm going to ignore that unless it's some kind of abbreviation (like IBM or FBI). It's damn annoying and nobody wants to see "BEST BAR" listed when "Best Bar" works just as well.
For crap like "my kitchen" and "my house" that pop up, I've tagged them with "WTF?" so we can find them later easily in the even those WTF venues need to be addressed...and I think they should.
As for cross streets, I generally leave them off. They may make sense in NYC, but definitely not in Boston where the streets are not on a grid. Actual addresses work best.
For some venues, the best address is not even an address...but a location. For example, Disneyland in Anaheim has an address, but it's off to one side on a street. If you put Disneyland's address as "Disneyland", it ends up right in the middle of the park...which is better for finding it via geolocation.-
Lots of good points. I think tabling the venue formatting discussion would be best as muti-location venues/chains is set to be a feature of the new database (naming may be unnecessary).
I've thought about tagging the 'wtf' venues but decided to just ignore them.
And yeah, I've noticed the same on venue addresses versus names. 'Denver Airport' actually gets a better result than it address, too. -
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I do the same kind of naming of places. Where there are two in the same city, like Starbucks, I try and use whatever the local familiar identifying term would be.
Example:
There are three Starbucks in Nashua, NH
1) Starbucks (South Nashua)
2) Starbucks (Nashua Exit 6)
3) Starbucks (Amherst Street)
All three identifiers are different types, but are the most clear to people in the area. -
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I’m
against chain names without showing the city on the iPhone listing
1Please add the CITY to the iPhone listing. Without the city it can be impossible to tell which Starbucks ro Target is being referenced. Street names alone with no city named are NOT enough. -
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Hey, cool! My post is linked from the "style guide" pop-up on the web site! =)
But I have more question. I don't understand how chain venue names are supposed to work if we say "Starbucks" instead of "Starbucks - Downtown." Are the names no longer required to be unique? And if so, how will that work for SMS and mobile web users? -
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1The short version is, it doesn't work for SMS or mobile web. I just tried it out.
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4I still go by "Place Name - Location" because whenever I check in on my iPhone and type "Walmart" I automatically get checked in to a Walmart someplace else.
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2I agree with Carlo, I'm still putting some sort of venue-identifier in the chain venues.
It helps in the mayor list on a user page, the "recently crowned mayor" list on the logged-in homepage, and the emails & tweets that arrive announcing you've been ousted.-
I agree, especially for multiple venues in a small area. For instance there are about 6 bank of america's in my ZIP code and it'd be nice to have a field to put in the strip mall name or something
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2The people who I know uses this always does [venue] - [city or street]. Such as: Caribou - Penn Ave or: McCormick & Schmick's - Edina.
The problem lies in where we have multiple Caribou coffee chain shops in one city. I have also experienced typing in "Arby's" when it isn't in the list on the iPhone and it tags me at an Arby's 20 miles away.
So - Why is Foursquare saying "Its no longer necessary" to include a city or street in the name?-
The theory is that the location-based services should be good enough at pinpointing where you are so as to exclude any "false hits" from venues that are out of your immediate area.
When I first started using Foursquare, for instance, I tried to check in at my local "Starbucks" in downtown Toronto and ended up inadvertently checking in at a Starbucks in Brampton (~25 miles away), as it was the first hit named "Starbucks"
This seems to have been fixed from a location-based point of view, although I agree with the other posters in this thread that the location identifiers still provide useful additional cues when looking at places and locations in various listings. I've actually made it a mission of mine to go through and find placeless stores and correct them wherever possible in my area to avoid confusion. -
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I’m
confident
7As an editor by trade, I think a style guide is absolutely necessary, but I was concerned today when I saw that we're no longer needing to enter the location for chains. I think it absolutely necessary to enter "Place Name - Location" like we do here in Minneapolis/St. Paul unless Foursquare staff intends to do it automatically. The points made by Carlo M and Chad Ford above emphasize my points exactly.
In addition, the extra location indicator is a huge visual help for check-ins on the fly. I don't often think in terms of addresses for businesses, and I don't think many other people do. Hell, it's hard enough locating addresses for venues that aren't already listed. We think in terms of cities/suburbs, neighborhoods, intersections.
I think you can trust us superusers with this task. Reading through comments today, I recognize a lot of like-minded, clean-data-loving people. We got your back, Dennis.
It seems to me the greater debate is whether to use dashes or parentheses as our location separator. In my home city, space-dash-space rules the roost, and I've learned to really like it.-
Not only do I find space hyphen space the most readable way to specify a neighborhood, I find it the easiest to type. If we still care about SMS users (er... do we? this change makes me wonder) then this is the easiest format for most keyboards to type.
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1When you check in via SMS, you don't need to type the hyphen. E.g., I can check in to "Starbucks Eastlake" and it will load "Starbucks - Eastlake". (Or I could before someone removed all the location appellations from Seattle Starbucks...) I don't know if this applies to parentheses or not.-
Wait a minute, SMS checkins strip out some punctuation? I never knew that! I think this should be a documented feature...
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3I've been holding off in joining the voice of the choir even though I have been humming along from the back. Until a time where GPS can pinpoint exactly where you are (and it doesn't) location specific identifiers is a must, especially when you have a dense area or many different chain entities in the same area. What seems to be the norm and visually works well in the Boston/NH area is Chain Name (location identifier).
Whatever is decided, I do think it is mandatory that there be such identifiers. I know that I have been logged in to the wrong location several times.- view 1 more comment
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For places like Starbucks I normally look them up in their online store locator and use the name that appears there. The Store locator is also useful for finding postal codes and phone numbers to add to the entry.
In some cases where the official entry only specifies a street address I'll fall back on picking the nearest significant intersection when the store is located at a corner or at least within a reasonable distance from the corner. -
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hawks5999, I've done a ton of editing in cities all over the map, and I don't think there's an epidemic of identifiers that aren't specific enough. Most of them are adequately unique, and those that aren't usually get adjusted by Superusers before too long.
And yes, I do exactly what Jesse does: If a chain's website provides official store names (Starbucks, Target and Wendy's all do, off the top of my head), that's what I go with. Otherwise, I'll use the neighborhood or the shopping complex or the closest intersection, depending on what makes the most sense. -
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I’m
seeking improvement
2Has there been consideration to remove the suggestion that location be excluded from a venue name?
The android 4sq app has been flakey recently, and I've been using the mobile web app. Searching for a particular instance of a chain is remarkably frustrating when there is no location-specific info embedded into either the name of the venue or the tags associated with the venue. I've been tagging the venues I visit with a location identifier e.g., NYSC on Varick street is now tagged with "varick." Otherwise, I most likely would never checkin if I needed to identify which NYSC through the hundreds of search results in the web app.
SMS is a relative disaster in itself, but I still use then when the mobile webernet connection is weak. I think that's even case sensitive, which is far worse than simply being character-by-character sensitive. -
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3I agree. The Android app has been making it difficult to check in easily.
Keeping the identifiers on venue names makes sense because it's easier to find the venue you want to check in to, makes it easier to see where people are in your friends list, and makes more sense when you look at the Recent Mayors list (you don't see 8 people the mayor of Starbucks). -
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The other problem with not having venue identifiers is that it only works if people enter useful address information when creating locations. The geo-location works best with postal codes, but you can get away with it as long as there's a reasonable street address.
Unfortunately, it's not uncommon to see something like "Yonge St" listed as the only address information for a place like a Starbucks, and as anybody in the Toronto area knows, Yonge St is 1,896kms long :) so there are potentially a LOT of Starbucks along there (realistically, Yonge St proper is only 56 km long, but that still leaves a lot of ambiguity). -
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seems to be a basic modal box now for styles on edit screen -
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I don't like the location being in the title. When I search for a venue (in the Android app) I always see the title, and underneath it says the location. Why have it also in the title?
This seems to be a user interface issue, that shouldn't be fixed by messing up the data.-
I agree with that in principle, except that I think there's still a fair bit of work to be done on the UI before this is practical. For example:
- The search capability on the web site needs to be enhanced so that you can actually find a specific location from amongst a sea of hundreds of identically-named venues.
- Foursquare needs to filter out venues that don't have unique enough identifying information (a street address or postal/zip code) so that you don't get false checkins when somebody creates a generic entry like with a non-specific address like "Yonge St."
- The mobile web app and SMS apps also need to be fixed to handle this, since they don't have the luxury of geo-location information to go on. -
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For my fellow Canadian superusers (and even those in upstate NY), I'd also like to point out that the proper name of Tim Hortons does *not* include the apostrophe. In other words, it's Tim Hortons, *not* Tim Horton's. As the most popular coffee shop chain in Canada, we're going to have a lot of these in Foursquare (we already do, in fact, and it would be nice to be as consistent as possible.
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Until Foursquare fixes the search bug of accent sensitivity, I recommend you do NOT use accent marks. You only encourage dups being created for those searching for caffe and not finding caffè. Apostrophes are not an issue for search, as Foursquare does include venues in search results both with and without apostrophes. So the proper use of apostrophes IS recommended.
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Agree with @John Kelso
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2Not sure were to post, so apologies
how about a nickname field for venue name
e.g. Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine might be colloquially known as St. John's or St. John the Divine or Saint John's Cathedral
some people will not know (or search for) each iteration
i suggest
venue name: formal
then beneath, submenu
venue nickname fields
this will prevent edit wars as people attempt to clarify
this could be a solution for addresses too
e.g. 134 Old Clinton Rd. could be the same physical place as 134 Rte. 81
for addresses perhaps titling the field
alternate address name rather than nickname would help-
This is just what I was thinking as I read down this thread. At least you take care of the "style" issue, and possibly the "search results" issue -- 4sq can set the way it wants venues to show up in search results, and users who search colloquial venue names might have greater success.
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I’m
frustrated, and a little pissed
9All of us SMS users are getting screwed. Someone has been stripping off all the location identifiers from venue names. Now it's impossible for SMS users to check into a particular location. Dennis, why are you recommending in your style guide that location-specific suffixes are no longer needed? Sure, with iPhones or Androids maybe location in venue name is not "needed", but I know a lot of those folks who liked having a quick location reference in the venue name rather than trying to figure out the address. But worse, us SMS folks are screwed. No way I can check into a Starbucks in Seattle now, I mean, are you kidding me? Which one will it randomly choose?
I spent a lot of time and energy editing venue names to include good location info, and now someone is stripping them off. SMS folks are getting screwed, and I got screwed out of spending my time trying to make the data better.- view 4 more comments
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I'd also toss in that there are going to be certain locations that location aware (GPS or tower based) is never going to work as well as people would like in every situation. Say you check into the McDonald's at a big mall. Are you checking in at the one on the 4th floor or the Basement.
Same with Starbucks on opposing corners or Tim Hortons on the other side of a small city square. -
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I'd also toss in that there are going to be certain locations that location aware (GPS or tower based) is never going to work as well as people would like in every situation. Say you check into the McDonald's at a big mall. Are you checking in at the one on the 4th floor or the Basement.
Same with Starbucks on opposing corners or Tim Hortons on the other side of a small city square. -
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I’m
ANGRY
8Given all the input in this thread saying that "Venue - Place" is a whole heck of a lot easier for people to find, edit, and enter venues I can't believe that the Foursquare team is tweeting to tell people to drop them.
Dropping them without another solution such as a sub-name for a venue is a bad idea for each and every one of the points made above. -
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1with the removal of the place identifier, people are checking into the wrong location more and more. As the number of venues nearby has increased dramatically, I'm having to utilize "Not in list" / search many times. When I search, I don't get the full location details to select from. So, I'm provided with the choice to randomly select from the list of "Starbucks" vs. selecting the appropriate one, such as "Starbucks - 135th & State Line"
It would also be nice for superusers to be able to flag locations as "not found" using GPS so that the location can be verified and reviewed. It may have to do with the different GPS coordinates vs. actual. -
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I’m
frustrated
I've been saying this for MONTHS, but Foursquare REALLY needs to display both the street address AND the city/town name. Street address alone is not good enough.
It's a problem that I don't think they see in NYC where everything is all grid-like and everyone refers to everything with cross streets, but in reality I don't know if the Starbucks listed at 123 Main Street is the correct one for the town I'm in or if it's the next town over.
I see this as BY FAR the largest issue with Foursquare right now and I can't believe they haven't fixed it yet since the fix is so simple. Just SHOW US the town names! I'm convinced the only reason they haven't done it yet is because they're in NYC and don't see the problem there.
PLEASE FIX THIS! ADD TOWN NAMES TO LISTINGS!
Until then, I will continue to use some sort of location identifier in the venue name. That's the only way around this problem. -
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Hey check out version 1.4.3 which is now in the iTunes store... should clear up a lot of these issues w/ better geo-location and revised checkin flow.
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@rainbowdarling +1. Lots of people don't use smartphones.
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Greg Sax, +1 for that last comment. That perfectly illustrates why identifiers are so helpful and valuable.
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I’m
frustrated
It still doesn't tell me what town the venue is in. If I see Starbucks on Main Street, how do I know if it's the town I'm in or the next one over?
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Where are you located that the towns are so small and densely packed that GPS puts you into the wrong town? I'd expect this to be a bigger issue in NYC than in other towns - with its dense 5 burroughs but it is clearly not the biggest issue facing 4SQ. Do you live on the border of multiple towns?
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The Boston area has many small towns...some of which have highly populated areas right on the town line. If I see "Dunkin Donuts" and my only clue as to which one I want is the "Massachusetts Ave" address, that's no help...since Mass Ave runs through many towns and there's a Dunkin Donuts every 10 blocks.
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5Gotta jump in on this long discussion since I've been taking it upon myself to edit inconsistent venue names and it's a runaround process.
I've been following the suggestion to strip off location identifiers. While it seems good in theory to add those in, there's a quagmire of mistakes in doing that. What determines the location identifier? It's not always uniform. You can't always use the neighborhood (multiple locations, multiple names sometimes for neighborhoods) and you can't use the street name (multiple locations on one street). Getting rid of the extraneous after dashes or @ symbols or whatever sets a level ground on that. Then you're not going back and forth with another well-intentioned user on whether that one CVS is on Broadway or Belmont or if you should call it the Boystown or the Lakeview (heck, the East Lakeview, maybe?) area CVS.
As for SMS users, there should perhaps be a way built in to identify which Starbucks or McDonalds or whatever the person is at if they send the location with the name and the address maybe? Like, instead of saying @Starbucks, they'd SMS @Starbucks 1 Main St. Or something like that. It would take the extra effort to look at the outside of the building you're in to see the exact address, but, really, is that difficult?
It sounds great in theory to add in identifiers, but there's no way to keep that uniform. I'm an editor by trade and it drives me nuts to see Chipotle -- Main, Chipotle @ Jackson, Chipotle Mexican Grill -- Chicago, Chipotle on Michigan, etc. etc. Strip off the identifiers. Use the name the chain company picked and the address in text message check-ins to keep things consistent is my best suggestion.- view 7 more comments
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I don't know about all chains, but I know that Starbucks and Target calls out their store locations by name (ex. Queen Anne, Northgate, Oak Tree). So shouldn't that be in the name description?
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I don't know about all chains, but I know that Starbucks and Target calls out their store locations by name (ex. Queen Anne, Northgate, Oak Tree). So shouldn't that be in the name description?
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I’m
ANGRY
2We still haven't heard anything back from the 4SQ team regarding the concerns raised in this thread.
Now that adding locations no longer requires an address because, apparently, everyone who MATTERS uses an iPhone with super-awesome GPS we're going to get even more bad venues added.- view 2 more comments
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Thanks for responding, Chrysanthe. I know I've done a lot of bitching about this in this thread, but it's gotten really, really frustrating to see all of these users and superusers speaking out against the style guide and see no feedback from 4SQ staff other than "But the new iPhone app is cooler!"
I apologize for being so snarky at times in this thread, but this is something that really needs to get sorted out. There are so many new venues getting added every day. The longer it takes to get a real, good, permanent solution the closer to impossible it will be to clean everything up. -
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I hear you! The team is usually busy working on stuff instead of commenting on stuff, which is where I come in. It's getting attention now!
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1Unless I hear otherwise, I'll continue to add venues with the "Venue - Place" syntax if there are multiple locations in the vicinity.-
If there are multiple venues in a vicinity, the cross street box can be used to give more details on its location. It shows up along with the address when you search for the venue.
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I’m
silly!
I will keep following the style guide until it is officially changed. I find the location identifiers exceedingly redundant when venues are named with the exact same info that shows up in the address and cross street (and even the city!) info.
Sorry SMS-users!-
I understand that *you* think it's redundant, but perhaps you are unaware of how this affects many of us. It's not just SMS users who are screwed-- it's those of us who have to use Mobile Web to check in, too. I have a Palm Centro. It may not be glamorous, but it's not possible for me to buy a new phone just because one of my once-favorite activities arbitrarily decided to make things harder for those of us who don't own an iPhone. Those "location identifiers" make 4sq much easier to use and search and if they were gone, I'd be far less likely to use it. It may not matter to some, but it's unfair and frustrating.
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2One thing that I think helps when the location info is removed from the venue name, is adding that info to either the "Cross Street" box or adding it as a "Tag." For example:
Starbucks - Strawberry Hill
123 Main St.
Is changed to:
Starbucks
123 Main St.
at Strawberry Hill Mall
That makes it just as easy to see the correct location since address and cross street info is displayed. Also, when "strawberry hill" is added as a tag, it will still show up when people search for "starbucks strawberry hill."-
Stargazer...I'm sorry, but your'e incorrect about name/tag combos working in search results. An example:
http://foursquare.com/venue/453066
Here's how it's listed:
7-Eleven
1538 York Road
At Margate
Lutherville, MD 21093
On Twitter: @7_Eleven
I tagged it with "margate". Then, I did a search for "7-eleven margate". The result:
"Sorry no results found. Want to add a venue?"
The same search also failed to yield a result on my BlackBerry app. -
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Starting to see a lot of unconventional venues pop up, such as taxis (by medallion number), buses (by route) and subway stops (by street / lines). This is especially interesting vis-a-vis cabs, not from a location standpoint but a frequency and customer service standpoint. What are the naming conventions for these types of venues?- view 2 more comments
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Oh I believed you, just hadn't seen it before! IMO an address isn't appropriate there, it should be a moving target. But hey, if people want to play the game of spot-the-medallion, why not? All I do when in NYC cabs is curse the fact that I'm not on Cash Cab. ;)
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I’m
appreciative that people are working hard behind the scenes. Thanks 4Square team!
8Here's a thought regarding SMS. I use SMS a lot to check in and have been struggling with this concept of stripping the location out of the venue name despite having multiple locations for a chain of stores/restaurants.
So, in the new world of Foursquare: Everywhere, is it feasible to set up a SMS sent command to set my location. That is, could I SMS my location first... And then, my actual check-in. That way, you could identify the business in the town.
For example, let's say I'm starting off as "Jeremy Bautista in Westmont, IL"
SMS #1: @@ Downers Grove, IL
That would make me now: "Jeremy Bautista in Downers Grove, IL"
SMS #2: @ Panda Express
Then, my check-in would pick up that Panda Express, listed in Downers Grove, IL which would distinguish it from Panda Express in Lombard or Bolingbrook or elsewhere.
That said, that works for most towns, but probably not most cities where there's multiple locations in the same town or zip code.
Another thought I had was if there was an SMS command to do a "Search Venue" and have a response SMS back to the phone as to matches for that search.
For example, say I want to search for Panda Express.
SMS #1: # Panda Express
Then, I would get a SMS response back to my phone saying something like...
Return SMS:
Venue #11111: Panda Express - Lombard, IL
Venue #22222: Panda Express - Downers Grove, IL
Venue #33333: Panda Express - Bolingbrook, IL
Then, I can send my check in via venue number:
SMS #2: @22222
Then, my location is specific and confirmed upon check-in.
Just some thoughts... -
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I’m
indifferent
5Here is a new concession for something to add. Can we adopt the USPS standard of abbreviating predirectionals and postdirectionals? Those are term for the cardinal direction in addresses like 4323 North Main Street, or 4123 Oak Ave Northwest.
They would be 4323 N Main St and 4123 Oak Ave NW with no periods!!! No periods people look this stuff up on USPS.com if you don't believe me. You NEVER use periods when abbreviating addresses.- view 6 more comments
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Elliot, with all due respect, I must disagree with adopting U.S. Postal Service standards.
People are not mail-sorting machines that rely on OCR-ready addresses.
Periods are nice. 4323 N. Main St. looks nicer and more human-friendly than 4323 N Main St, in my opinion.
(The postal service also prefers all uppercase letters in an address block. So it would be 4323 N MAIN ST by their preference, which is even more user-unfriendly.)
I would agree that if someone were going to use Foursquare to print envelopes for mailing, it should spit out USPS-ready address blocks with barcodes on them. But until that day comes, I think we should allow some humanity into our abbreviations. We are not computers, and I hope that we never will be. -
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(sorry for duplicate posts.)
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I’m
looking for clarification.
Hi Elliot & Dennis, I'd like to know if the question has been answered for whether or not we should be editing venues to show "Place Name - Location" or just "Place Name".
I live in Minneapolis also and have been updating venues to include/correct the full address/Ph#, as well as removing the " - Location" following the style guide on the 4sq site. But if Greg Sax (or other MSP SUs) are going through and editing the venues to include " - Location" when I'm deleting it out, you can see how there is an issue with consistency.
To clarify, I do use a smartphone. So I can determine which location I am at without the need for " - Location" in venue names. I can understand having it included makes it even easier to pinpoint where you are, but I feel that it is redundant. If SUs are going out of their way to update the full information, shouldn't that information be enough for both smartphone users and SMS users? Would then, the final format for a venue be per the style guide, i.e only "Place Name", be sufficient enough?
Please don't get me wrong, I am not sure what SMS users see when a venue is edited with full location address and the " - Location" removed. Do you receive a txt back that shows the full address also? Is it more difficult or can you determine your venue location without the location being in the name?
I would really like to know if I can go forward and delete locations out of the venue names or if I should start editing them back in. I appreciate your efforts! Thank you guys!-
I think that question has been answered very clearly in the Style Guide that all people are asked to read before they add a new venue. Here it is copied and pasted:
> For chains or venues with multiple locations, you no longer need to add a location suffix. So "Starbucks" or "Apple Store" is fine (instead of "Starbucks - Queen Anne" or "Apple Store - Uptown").
> When possible stick with abbreviations: "Ave" instead of "Avenue", "St" instead "Street", etc
> Cross Street should be like one of the following:
at Main St (for venues on a corner)
btw 2nd & 3rd Ave (for venues in the middle of a block)
> Cross Street should not repeat the name of the street in the address. -
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I think someone chimed in as well to follow USPS conventions (i.e. no periods following postal abbreviations such as "Ave", "St", or "Ln", or "W", "N", "S" or "E"
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1The so-called "Style Guide" started off as just a post by a user suggesting formatting, and somehow the Foursquare folks lazily adopted this without any thought of their own on how that would affect people who don't use smartphones.
SMS users do NOT see address info. They don't see anything. They only text the venue name to Foursquare. The only way to know what to text, is to look it up before you leave the house, so you know what the exact spelling of a venue name is. So texting that I am at "Starbucks" becomes useless without the location name in the venue.
Until Foursquare fixes this issue for SMS users, I will continue to add location name into the venue name. In fact, I am adding location name back into venue names where they have been stripped off. It's the only way I can use Fourquare until this issue is fixed.- view 4 more comments
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Fair enough; I actually have an Android phone myself, I don't use the SMS service. But having the location in the title doesn't HURT non-SMS users, so it's perfectly easy to take care of the problem SMS users are having - just allow locations in venue titles. Problem solved, nobody else hurt.
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It doesn't hurt--that's true. But having a inconsistency doesn't look professional or polished. When you look up venues on the web or on a the apps and see lots of redundant information, it looks amateurish.
I agree that the SMS system needs to be fixed so that it is usable for everyone. However, I don't think putting location info in the venue title is a long term solution.
I saw a suggestion by someone else that SMS users get a reply with more venue details (like location/city) if there were multiple venues with the same name. I thought that was a good idea. -
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I’m
a bit frustrated
2Stargazer, I think you have missed the points I was trying to make. I'm well aware of what the guide says as I've mentioned following it my original post. But thank you for reposting it, it's helpful for those who may not have read it.
My point is, if I'm editing venues and removing the location suffix but another superuser is editing them to include them, obviously there are inefficiencies with the process. To follow that, since SMS users do not see address info, as John Kelso has just mentioned, and we are remove the location suffix - this causes another problem.
It's becoming a conflict of information - leave out location suffixes but in doing so, you screw over the people who are using SMS. Leave it in and superusers who see the guideline but don't read these posts on Get Satisfaction could just go through and delete all the suffixes.
The style guide is not comprehensive enough for all phone users and I had only wanted 4sq to address this issue with their style quide so that Superusers would be editing venues in the same format.
Just because SMS doesn't work where you live does not mean the issue is moot. Don't get me wrong, I don't even use SMS but I want to ensure that the integrity of the game is preserved and that everyone is able to access it.- view 3 more comments
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Maria P, the guideline merely says that "you no longer need to add a location suffix" but it does not say that you should REMOVE them. As more and more people start using smartphones with GPS, the need to add suffixes will become less and less when checking in to location. However, as many have mentioned, the location is very useful when the check-ins and mayorships are tweeted as well as when viewing people's profiles.
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I’m
thankful
6Hi Maria P, Stargazer, and others:
Thanks for calling me out, Maria P! I'm being sincere. It means I'm saying something worth responding to. You bring up a valid point, for sure. I am absolutely going against the Foursquare Style Guide with my professing a "Venue - Location" standard because I firmly believe the current guide is maddeningly flawed.
I don't think enough wording has gone into it. I think it was posted with a developer's mindset rather than a usability mindset. Mind you, these 4sq developers are brilliant and they certainly do get usability right most of the time. I just think they failed to consider all aspects of their own game when posting it. They knew they needed a guide, but missed some important steps for helping us check in faster and integrating their service with Twitter and their own website in particular.
I was fortunate enough to talk to co-founder Dennis Crowley in person a couple of weeks ago about this. He said that it's an easy fix that they're aware of. I believe him when he says it's easy, based on the ability to include other data fields in some manner. But they still haven't done it other than showing a secondary address field that is not always immediately helpful. Nevertheless, I've backed off on my editing of venues and regular replies to this thread because I was comforted by the fact that Dennis and Co. are thinking about it. I'm playing wait-and-see.
Here are specific problems with the current user guide that I think make the game less functional by following it to the core of just entering Venue without Location:
1) It's been well-ballyhooed that SMS users are left in the dark. I don't use SMS anymore, but this is really too bad. These folks clearly want to play, and following the guide makes it harder for them. I believe in tech advances, but carefully...
2) Posting Foursquare check-ins and mayor announcements to Twitter and Facebook becomes disappointing and sometimes annoying (some would argue it's always annoying, but I think integration serves a useful purpose when done right). Because the information is generic for chains, the info is less valuable. Example: "Brian C. just became mayor of McDonald's!" Okay, which of the several thousand? I guess I could click the link that goes with it, but I'd rather not. Give more info! "Brian C. is the mayor of Arby's - Stadium Village." THAT tells me something.
3) Similarly, when I see "Arby's - Stadium Village," I immediately know where I am. Addresses are not always immediately helpful, and I mean IMMEDIATELY! I have a host of examples: Two Dunn Bros Coffee on University Avenue bookending the University of Minnesota; two Starbucks not far from each other on Grand Avenue in Saint Paul; several Starbucks all very close to each other in Times Square; and what would be my biggest nuisance if the Location were wiped from the naming--my local SuperAmerica gas station. It NEVER comes up on Places refreshes. I don't get why the GPS can't read it, but it doesn't. The only one that comes up automatically is a couple of miles away. I always have to search for my SuperAmerica. If I couldn't see the Location, I'd be riffling through a few dozen generic SuperAmericas each time I checked in, which I'm actually not likely to do because it's too much extra work each time.
4) GPS pinpoint placement is not exacting enough yet to rely solely on that. Maybe for the newest phones it is, but does this mean that my first-gen iPhone is already obsolete. That kinda sucks.
5) And here's one of my biggest style guide flaws: The Foursquare website. I look at the mayorships my friends hold. It's interesting to see which neighborhoods or suburbs they dominate. It's not readily apparent without Location identifiers because only the Venue name is displayed on one line. Say my friend is the mayor of three different Starbucks and The Bulldog. Which Bulldog? Nord'east? Lowertown? South Minneapolis? Those are big differences. Which Starbucks? There are only like 300 to choose from. Why make this harder to figure out?
If you're still reading, Maria P and Stargazer, I'm impressed. I'll close by saying I'm all for rules as long as they're sensible. I've said it before: the current style guide cannibalizes Foursquare's own advancements (mayorship stats on website, Twitter feed of Foursquare check-ins).
Maria P, I don't know why you would be taking the time to go through and REMOVE information that is currently of use to many people. I respect your adherence to the style guide, but I still wish you would help me create a better, more useful style guide. There is a certain level of redundancy, sure. This could be fixed if the 4sq team made "Unique Location Identifier" or something like it a separate data field. They're on their way by adding the city name, but check the difference in one local venue:
Dunn Bros Coffee - Elliot Park (Minneapolis, MN)
vs. what it would be...
Dunn Bros Coffee - (Minneapolis, MN)
Currently, you can't put "Elliot Park" anywhere other than in the Venue, and "Elliot Park" is exactly the kind of identifier that turns generic chains into unique places.
Stargazer, to your point that multiple styles erodes professionalism. Totally agree. Now tell all the peeps that check in with all lowercase or ALL UPPERCASE or in California rather than CA or with full-name "Street" rather than "St" or with the wrong street name altogether or no number with the street name or the wrong spelling of the venue or not taking the time to see if it's Walmart/Wal-Mart, McDonald's/McDonalds, Dunn Bros Coffee/Dunn Brothers, SuperAmerica/Superamerica/Super America, and so on. There's still a lot of junk in the system because of folks outside this conversation thread.
Thanks for the healthy debate, folks. I'm glad we all care enough to write and try to help in our own way. Ultimately, I recognize that I'm not the game's owner. But I do have informed opinions. As do you.
Overwhelmingly yours,
G. Sax-
I'm not sure if the current guide is necessarily flawed. Perhaps that depends on some people's interpretation of the guide. The guide merely says, "you no longer need to add a location suffix" which I took it as: you don't NEED to add the location suffix, but you can if you want to. So if it helps identify a venue, then I always put it on, but if I think that there would be little/no confusion, then I omit it.
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Totally OT of the venue naming, I'd like to suggest that as the style guide is formalized (hopefully by 4SQ. itself) that there be well defined suggestions for the "cross street" concept, as well as street and venue naming;
I know much of this has been hashed out above, but:
* Leaving out "restaurant" et al. on venue names.
* Formalizing West -> East, North -> South rules on cross streets (ie - btw streets should attempt to follow some sort of normalized pattern: list the northernmost street before the southernmost street, etc. Exceptions should be documented: btw 5th & 6th, not 6th & 5th, or major street before minor street)
* Formalizing punctuation: as in, there should be none.
* Formalizing cross street address format - always put Ave/St? Or Never? I'm in favor of never.
Also, suggestions for 4Sq. - easy searchability/moderator notification for venues without data - no cross streets, no phone numbers, etc. I'm happy filling in extra data a few minutes a day, but would be great to easily find venues that don't have all the data available.-
I agree that the shortest version of a business' name should be used (to a point), but I can see the businesses themselves wanting the name they prefer...and understandably (and rightfully so), 4SQ needs to cater to businesses, since their participation is what their future business model is based upon.
Regarding cross streets...I don't think it matters at all which order they're in. I can't imagine that "btw Main & Elm" and "btw Elm & Main".could possibly mean anything different to anyone.
I think the only punctuation that needs to be eliminated is the period, and I think that should be stripped out automatically. There are too many other things that would have a negative effect if eliminated (apostrophes, hyphens, ampersands, etc.), and besides, I believe 4SQ ignores spaces and punctuation in searches.
Eliminating street suffixes like "St" or "Ave" would be a nightmare. Virtually every large city has at least a handful of streets with the same name but different suffixes. Hell, ALL of Manhattan is like that.
Regarding venues without data, I think that feature should be eliminated entirely. As more and more people get the new iPhone app, those are popping up too fast for us to chase down and they're causing too many duplicate venues to be made. -
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Wow, thanks for the really thoughtful comments and suggestions, everyone! This is definitely something the team is thinking about and working on.
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My first instinct is to point you all to existing Standards. I am not very familar with those in the US, but certainly in Oz a great deal of material exists with Standards developed for things such as Street Addressing (eg in Australia AS/NZS4819) and Standards for Exchange of data (eg AS4590), plus data models developed for government data sets, including the VicMap Features data, and national PSMA data models. I am not suggesting that any of these are perfect or fit for purpose, just suggesting that there is likely to be major elements where there alignment with established conventions for features data and points of interest (eg standards for representation of Avenue (Ave), use of hyphens in names etc that could provide a starting template to make all your lives easier, and may even help in some cases to avoid reinventing the wheel.
On the flip side, I am keeping an open mind , following discussion with interest because lots of very interesting ideas and discussions are flowing here. Perhaps a user driven approach left to itself could teach us some new ways of thinking about how to structure location based data. -
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I’m
feeling helpful
What do we do when a business is in a shopping plaza and we want to indicate the cross street. Can we indicate the plaza name like "in Plaza Name?"
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My question was regarding the cross street field.
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My question was regarding the cross street field.
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Ah. In that case, sorry. I would put the name of the plaza if I put anything. -
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I'd like to see this venue-naming thing standardised before I start editing stuff =/ -
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Aside from the philosophical and social reasons others have noted, there is an extremely practical reason to keep the location identifier for chains: when I try to add "Starbucks", the Foursquare iPhone app says, "Nope, duplicate venue" even though I have already checked to make sure it's not. Only by adding the location am I able to add the venue & check in.- view 2 more comments
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This is also the case sometimes on the Android app. Whenever this happens, I just switch to the mobile web.
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Yes, that's AFTER entering a unique address.
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I’m
frustrated
What about venues placed non-English-speaking country?
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I’m
annoyed that this hasn't been dealt with for a while
1. If you're a Power SMS user, someone who will download a list of venues and their venue ID, let us do @353291 to check in at a Walmart (as an example)
2. If we check in via SMS with a generic location (Walmart, Starbucks, etc.) send a list back of venues that match that name in the area (using the Place setting idea that was mentioned.
3. If we check in via SMS with a name and intersection (@Walmart Spring Creek & US-75) and there is only 1 venue for that name and intersection, count it.
In short, give us a more robust SMS command language so that SMS users can spec the location better without having to come and get someone to edit the location so SMS check ins can get counted -
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I’m
concerned, kinda--mostly annoyed like I would be with a pesky mosquito.
1I noticed a disturbing trend here in the Vancouver, Canada area today. With the 2010 Olympics going on, there are a number of duplicate venues being created because some places have changed their names just for the 2-weeks of events. But that's not the problem.
The problem is that I've submitted merge requests, but instead of the venues being merged, someone is CLOSING one and leaving the other, leaving all the checkins (sometimes 100+) and the rightful mayor out in the cold.
I've had to re-open them, request another merge and resort to filling in the Cross Street box with: "Please MERGE do NOT delete" hoping that the next person will do the right thing.- view 1 more comment
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For what it's worth, I just checked and the only venues waiting for merge are all locked (by Foursquare on behalf of the venue owners, usually). If you want to send in some more, I'll keep an eye on Vancouver.
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Thanks for checking!
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I’m
frustrated
Any update from the FS staff? There are many locales that I frequent that I keep up to date, and someone keeps going through a lot of them and changing the format. Per FS instructions, I try to maintain the formats for the Cross Streets to either:
"at Market St" with the word "at" followed by road name followed by suffix or
"btw 2nd & 3rd" with the word "btw" followed by names of 2 streets without suffix
These are the explicit instructions on the FS website when you try to enter/edit the venues. I wish there was a "Report Super User" button ... -
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I’m
frustrated
1I'd like to add something to this discussion... I wish there were a select few who could edit locales. I try my hardest to keep Foursquare stuff in Pittsburgh clean and to the style guide. As a reporter, I know all about following a style guide (Hello, AP style). But I find that too many people just add stuff willy-nilly without any thought to having a proper way of posting.
And, beyond that, they rarely follow a store's guide, too. For instance, it's no longer "Wal-Mart," now "Walmart."
I also tend to put the actual municipality where a place is located and not just the postal code. As somebody who is pushing a "think hyperlocal" belief, it's important to recognize the actual community and not the postal address.
Just my two cents... I'd love to help the Foursquare staff out by keeping things orderly. -
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I would like to see more categories like Salons, Spas, and other service type places. Maybe something for garages, town halls, libraries and things alike.-
"Salon / Barbershop," "Spas / Massage," and "Gas Station / Garage" are all sub-categories under "Shops"; "City Hall" is a second sub-category under "Home / Work / Other" --> "Government" and "Library" is a sub-category of both "Home / Work / Other" AND "College & Education."
If you want to suggest categories that don't already exist, the best place is here:
http://4sq.com/MissingCats
That link is found on all users' History page on the main website. -
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I’m
anxious
Flagged in error. Sorry. -
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I’m
confused
1At my University I noticed a few buildings had the Venue Name as the building name (ie "Williams Hall") and the my university as the Cross Street (ie "Bradley University").
But most had the university & building name as the Venue Name (ie "Bradley University - Williams Hall") with the address and no cross street.
It is much easier to see which building is which with the venue name as only the building and the cross street as the university, but I don't think this fits the guideline. Please let me know if both are acceptable (but which is preferred), or if only one is acceptable.
Thanks!-
what i usually do is this:
name: school initials (but never full name) building name, official abbreviation,
street: main school address, unless the building has its own
cross: university/school name
for example
http://foursquare.com/venue/565570
i typically don't add the full university name to the venue name...it makes it too long. thats why i keep it to the abbreviation, like UCF, FSU, etc. not sure if Bradley University is commonly referred to as BU.... -
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So any offical movement on this?
In lieu of something offical, any thought of having Foursquare fix the title as
Name - City
or
Name - City (Street name)
or
Name - City (Street name Cross Street)
after the appropriate deets are input? Seems like a good idea to use the data that is already there (and descriptive too). -
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Hi,
I am trying to add a phone number but the formating is wrong when I save the settings :-( What can I do?
In Denmark, the format is: +45 (country code) 1234 5678 (the actual phone number - there is no area code).
Cheers,
Mohamed -
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I am an online Marketer for a hotel in Bangkok and concern to the hotel location which were added by others in 3 different points. 1 is mine that the right one but other 2 not. Anyone please advise how can i merge all to mine that is the right because i have some promotion concerned to check-in activity.
Thanks,
M. Chanwit
m.chanwit@gmail.com-
go to 'Search' and type 'Asia' and you will see a thread dedicated for Asia users for merging..and request for a merge there
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go to 'Search' and type 'Asia' and you will see a thread dedicated for Asia users for merging..and request for a merge there
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what is the appropriate naming guide for a home? for example, I've seen homes named "Slaughterhouse" and "The Death Star" and I feel like this is inappropriate as it communicates false information about the venue.- view 6 more comments
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Yeah, the checkbox is only there when you create a venue - it's not there when you edit a venue (or at least I can't see it as an SU for venues that I didn't create or am not mayor of), so I guess it's still work in progress.
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The checkbox is there after creation, but apparently only for the creator. Unfortunately those making these venues seem to be the least likely to go back and fix them. I made a fix request on getsatisfaction at one point saying with a little rewording of the sentence (and maybe listing the creator) that box would be useful to anyone with edit privileges.
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I’m
happy
2I would like the idea of having sub-venues for food courts etc.
so you would have one venue for say, McDonalds, and then this would be listed as in Plaza Food Court, instead of an address for the McDonalds.
With this we could then potentially make it so that, rather than checking into the Plaza Food Court itself, you can only check into the sub venues, eg McDonalds.
Then the mayor of the 'Plaza Food Court' can be determined by the person who has had the most check-ins across all of its sub-venues.
Eventually this could be set up to work for citys, so that for example, the person who holds the most mayorships inside New York City would become the Mayor of New York City. -
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2The problem with putting a location in the venue title is that then all these venues come up as search results when the location is searched for. This may not be as big of a problem when the location is a city, but if the location is a shopping center, it makes it near impossible to find the shopping center itself.
For instance, when searching for "Tyson's Corner Center", then main venue would get hidden among "Starbucks - Tyson's Corner Center", "Chipotle - Tyson's Corner Center", etc.- view 3 more comments
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Yep, that's exactly what the cross street field is there for - extra info. :)
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Although it occurs to me that unless the aliases containing Tyson's Corner Center are removed, those venues will still come up in search.
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1Cat change please:
https://foursquare.com/venue/8170426 - Road/Highway
https://foursquare.com/venue/28155225 - Field- view 2 more comments
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Hey J. you hit the wrong forum. Categories updated. hehehhehe
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Oops, should go to bed now...
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What I have been doing (at the suggestion of some thread here) is to put the location in the cross street. For example for a Starbucks in Applewood Mall, I'd have Starbucks as the name of the venue and "in Applewood Mall" in the cross street. It shows up when you try and check in and is an easy identifier.
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i usually put main venue in the address field http://aboutfoursquare.com/style-guid...
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EMPLOYEE
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