Nominate Spots for Deletion/Deactivation?

This does bring up an interesting idea. The reason why I didn't go with Foursquare was that when I pulled it up, I saw a bunch of "mundane" spots. Being an early adopter with Gowalla, I was hooked with my first trip out to Berkeley to check in. I really liked the fact that I was finding places of interest to see (i.e. I seriously never knew about Normandy Village while I was at Cal). The fact that we are in a big city will mean that literally every spot could potentially be covered, thus cluttering up our spots to browse, and we may miss out on something cool/interesting. Personally, I think how one can "play" this is to just not check into those spots. The great thing about being a spot creator is to see how popular your spot is, maybe you just don't "reward" it by not checking in? It's interesting to see how new players go about when they first load Gowalla. They're most invested in creating spots anywhere and everywhere. Hopefully over time they learn to appreciate the art of creating quality spots.

But yeah, I'm not really a fan of creating spots at bus stops, mailboxes, etc unless they have something of interest, and if so, that spot creator should add such detail in the description. Nothing worse than going to check in to the spot, and look blankly around you like "what gives???".

It's a tricky question and worthy of discussion on here, so well done for bringing it up.

As Irene has pointed out, having too many spots in an area 'masks' other spots on the 'nearby spots' tab of the app. Twice recently I've checked in to a spot I've created to find that someone else has created a spot a few metres away. Like Irene, I was thinking, 'What?!'. It seemed to me that the spot had been created for the sake of creating a spot, not because it was a worthy place to visit. On top of that, both spots were actually covered by the spots I had created and were effectively a spot within a spot. I'm sure that there are numerous examples of this around.

I don't have a particular problem with mundane spots per se (Gowalla does say that it's about sharing your experiences everywhere you go) but I think that an 'on the face of it' mundane spot is all about the description making it interesting. Does that make sense?

Interesting, I just posted something very similar here: http://getsatisfaction.com/gowalla/to...

I knew this would have to be discussed sooner or later.

Going back to the original question which was a process to nominate a spot for deletion, I don't see why you wouldn't just report it under the current process the same as you would a duplicate spot or a spot in the wrong place.

I don't think anyone except the person that created the spot or the Alamofire staff should be able to delete a spot.

However, as Gina said, there's nothing to stop someone else (or the same person) from creating the spot again.

As for "chains", I don't see how the existence of the Starbucks on your iPhone screen truly impedes your ability to enjoy Gowalla. I think not checking in to those spots you deem to be boring or unworthy is enough. (Especially if Alamofire finds a way to either filter spots or increase the number of spots that show up on your phone.)

Personally, I'd just be happy if people would take the time to check the location of the spot they are creating to make sure the spot is in the right damn place. Half the spots I run across are in the wrong place, sometimes off by a block or two.

(Disclaimer: "YOU" is the universal "you", not any one person in particular.)

Personally, the rule of thumb I use for whether a spot is interesting enough to be tagged or not is category. There's no mailbox category under services (and I hope there never will be) so I don't tag a mailbox. The thing that cements this for me is that bus station/depot is a category, but bus *stop* isn't.

This is what makes me feel justified in making a spot for each London Underground station (and indeed suggesting a trip for some of them) but not making one for every bus stop.

As for chains... I think as we see more achievement-style pins like the 10 coffeeshops pin, the more chains we'll see starting to pop up. It's telling that Starbucks is the default example that people use.

I love the idea of filters, especially if there's a way to toggle them on and off. I wouldn't want to filter out spots I've been to, only to forget that I've already checked in somewhere and mistakenly create a duplicate spot.

I also like the rule of thumb from Lewis. Excellent point.

Great ideas to be brainstormed into realities.

If users could rate a spot this would help.
maybe on a scale of 1-5, some combination of scenic, cool, etc.
Then we could filter for these.
I could see using it on a vacation, filtering to only 4+ stars to see all the great spots in an area.

I live in a large city and have a new player who is going around congesting areas by riding the streetcar (of which we have many) and creating every single stop along a route.

That I've seen just over the last few days, he has made close to 60 spots that are nothing more than a street corner where that line makes a stop, not a station or even major intersection.

Far be it from me to tell anyone how to play the game, but as Lewis said above, there is no 'streetcar or bus stop' category, I assume this is why. If there was, there would be nothing else coming up on my screen when I go out.

Eventually my city will become one huge check-in spot as we have hundreds of bus routes & streetcar lines that run from one end to the other. Is there an official position on someone doing this or is it play and let play?

This is what I am afraid of if we take a "play and let play" attitude to all spots:


Since the iPhone app currently has a limitation to the amount of spots it can show, this is really problematic. To me, this is spam, and not really useful to anyone. I appreciate the enthusiasm for spot creation, but this is going to make it so actually useful spots don't show up.

This looks very much like what I'm looking at with the streetcar stops.

I was up there in range of several this morning, I didn't check into them on principle!

I am not in favor of denying access to any player to creating spots or checking in. I think about a year from now (or more) when more people have this application (especially with iPhone upgrades plus Android and with BB releases pending) so they can create new spots to get pins. It will potentially lead to oversaturation of an area.

However, as stated, more spots are created with no purpose other than because they can (player is bored/nothing else to do). Are they Gowalla-pin-aholics or Gowalla-spot-aholics? So what do we do?

I like the idea of a feedback option. If no one posts comments when they check in and/or there are multiple low scores. For instance, a "like spot" or "dislike spot" or "rate the worthiness of this created spot on a scale 1 to 5 stars" or there is little to no activity (no one checks in for 6 months let's say). Then, it can be deemed available for deletion/deactivation. Just put it in the language of the Terms and Conditions (how many really read this anyway) and if they have spots deactivated, then their numbers can be altered as well.

Another option is you have to have an item in order to create a spot. Hit the "+" to add and choose your item...Oh Shenanigans, No item available, No creation allowed. This may limit the number of mundane spots and the creators will be careful where they create and not waste an item that they need for their vault or for future creations.

What are they going to do, ask for a refund? IMO, it rewards good playing versus sloppy playing.

What about incorrect locations, is there any way to correct something that is a duplicate (one in the wrong place and one in the right)?