Nominate Spots for Deletion/Deactivation?
So I'm sure this is going to step on a few toes, but I figured I'd ask.
Is there a process to nominate spots for deletion or deactivation? I don't want to name names, but in San Francisco I'm starting to see a lot of spots being created for things like mailboxes and every stop for certain bus lines. If there were something special about these places I could understand creating a spot for it, but creating a spot for every 38-Geary bus stop seems a bit excessive.
That being said, I personally would rather see spots get deactivated instead of deleted. This way, no other user can check into the spot, but the spot creator doesn't get punished (as in, making their checkin count go down) for creating the spot. This is already somewhat done for limited edition spots. Theoretically, though, this could be used to game Gowalla to get the spot-creation-related pins (even though I don't see a real reason someone would do that).
The gray area: What about chains? What would be the guidelines for a "delete-worthy" spot? You can probably tell, going down this road could get messy.
Your thoughts are appreciated.
Is there a process to nominate spots for deletion or deactivation? I don't want to name names, but in San Francisco I'm starting to see a lot of spots being created for things like mailboxes and every stop for certain bus lines. If there were something special about these places I could understand creating a spot for it, but creating a spot for every 38-Geary bus stop seems a bit excessive.
That being said, I personally would rather see spots get deactivated instead of deleted. This way, no other user can check into the spot, but the spot creator doesn't get punished (as in, making their checkin count go down) for creating the spot. This is already somewhat done for limited edition spots. Theoretically, though, this could be used to game Gowalla to get the spot-creation-related pins (even though I don't see a real reason someone would do that).
The gray area: What about chains? What would be the guidelines for a "delete-worthy" spot? You can probably tell, going down this road could get messy.
Your thoughts are appreciated.
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Inappropriate?What's to say that even if a less-than-desirable spot was deactivated that someone else wouldn't come along and make another one?
Not trying to stir anything up; it's an honest question.
I’m not flaming!!!
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I had the same thought. Like I said, it's a tricky situation and I was hesitant to even bring it up. But imo, I see things like generic bus stops and mailboxes as spam, no matter how you play Gowalla.
It's hard to say what would happen if the spot got recreated, but I'd think it'd be like dealing with duplicates: deal with them as they come up. -
Inappropriate?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???". -
Inappropriate?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? -
Inappropriate?Interesting, I just posted something very similar here: http://getsatisfaction.com/gowalla/to...
I knew this would have to be discussed sooner or later.
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Inappropriate?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.) -
I think what we're really looking for are more filters when searching nearby spots. SoCal doesn't have as many spots as up here in SF. If you were in the SF Downtown area, you'll see what happens when there's "congestion". Makes it tougher to pick up a spot that you are looking for in your "Nearby spots" search results list. Although there are other categories available to filter, it'd be nice to have one for filtering out the places you've already visited, and "chains", especially if you are looking for something unique or interesting to the area. -
Agreed on a filter to remove spots you've already visited - often I won't check into spots I've already been to because I'm on a mission to increase my stamp count.
As for checking location - a lot of the time this is caused by the GPS being out, or the older iPhone hardware having to use a far more approximated position. All you can do is ask for them to be moved, I guess. -
I think the main question I had was what would determine a delete-worthy spot? What is mundane to me may not be mundane to others (or Alamofire), so some sort of criteria would be worthwhile. And I agree, no one but the creator or Alamofire should be able to delete a spot, but the Gowallasphere (I love that word) should be able to nominate spots for deletion.
FWIW, I'd much rather see 100 McDonald's spots than 1 mail box spot. -
This makes total sense... -
Inappropriate?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. -
Each Underground spot I think is valid, since it's a major thoroughfare. My main concern, like you pointed out, is that there is no category for a bus stop. Most bus stops aren't very interesting, so what's stopping someone from making a spot for every street corner? -
Nothing is stopping them! See my post below :( -
Inappropriate?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. -
Inappropriate?Love this discussion, everyone. Keep it going!
Feedback on spots is definitely worth considering.
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Inappropriate?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. -
Inappropriate?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?
I’m frustrated
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From what I can see, it is play and let play. This player probably has his/her reasons for making bus stops. That being saidthey could use their ow category so non-riders have the option for filtering, which is the real need. I think that players censoring other players spots for deletion wouldnbring out some problems I'd it's own. -
It looks to me like he's using gowalla to create a transit map, I don't really want to censor anyone, but ultimately if he keeps it up that is all i will see when I go out making it a crappy game for me and others, short of never looking at my Travel & Lodging, if I could have an option to filter or flag spots i dont want to see I'd be happy with that. -
Inappropriate?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. -
WOW. -
Your city have something against even numbers? (Yes, Pier #2 is present, but c'mon!) -
Hah! Actually, the piers are odd in one direction, even in the other direction. The user who created all those spots was probably walking towards Pier 39. -
Is there really a pier 29 1/2...? -
This reply was removed on 01/18/10.
see the change log -
Inappropriate?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!
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Inappropriate?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.
I’m happy it didn't rain today.
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Inappropriate?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)?
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Submit the URLs to GS and someone will do a merge for you. -
What's the best way to submit...email or on this message board? Start a new topic every time?
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