So, I signed up on foursquare’s website a few years ago. After trying out their app I was quickly disappointed that their GPS system was very inaccurate when it came to where I lived. They tried to blame my iPhone’s GPS for the issue, but I was playing with Gowalla at the same time too and their GPS location for me was spot on. So I ranted a little bit about them & then forgot about them…

And that was until last summer when I was backstabbed by Gowalla. Do you remember that set of blog posts I did? I quickly jumped back into foursquare and soon got aggravated by all of the duplicate and inappropriate venues in my area. I jumped back onto GetSatisfaction.com and posted under foursquare’s threads to get the venues I found fixed. I check back in a few day to a few weeks later and most of the duplicates and inappropriate venues were still there. So, I would repost the venues that weren’t fixed. Eventually some got fixed. And this same reposting of duplicate and inappropriate venues that were never merged or deleted continued, for months. One time a superuser from outside of the US tried to correct some venues for me. I guess his English wasn’t all that great because it took several different locations of company’s venue I was trying to get fixed and merged them all into one location. That’s a bit aggravating.

So I decided that I wanted to help foursquare clean up their venue database for Delaware up. I found out that you have to be active on foursquare’s GetSatisfaction.com support forum to get noticed. OK. I kept posting venues that needed to get merge, moved, or deleted.

As time went on there would be more and more new duplicate & inappropriate venues popping up and I would continue to post them to get fixed. Funny how foursquare is slow to react to venues that they state themselves are inappropriate and will be deleted. They don’t delete them or the superusers that read the posts on GetSatisfaction.com don’t mark them for foursquare to delete. You can still do a search for “traffic” in Delaware or “on a plane” at the Philadelphia International Airport from foursquare’s website and get a lot of venues popping up that match those key words.

I wanted to get noticed by foursquare. Another funny thing is the only time they do notice me is when I had issues with them, so I decided I would start the “Make @The_BORG A Superuser” campaign. I wrote up my blog post and tweeted it to my followers. Many regular followers gladly retweeted the tweets I had for this. To those followers, I thank you dearly. Thank you for showing me your support. Then there were a few that maybe retweeted my tweets once. Thanks for trying fellas. You heart wasn’t into it, was it? And then many other followers of mine that didn’t even bother. Thanks. You’re some good friends & followers.

Then I started to tweet, mentioning a few foursquare (official & unofficial), about how the venues I posted onto GetSatisfaction.com were not getting fixed. Mostly this is because whoever runs the foursquare forum on GetSatisfaction.com only allows like 15 posts to be listed under the thread for fixing venues in my part of the US. So, another 15 people post on that same thread and my posts get deleted. Not too smart of a system… Well, back to the story: So I got a reply from Chris at @aboutfoursquare. We sent a few tweets back. One of his last tweets to me was that he was endorsing me to become a superuser to foursquare.

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And shortly after I got an email from foursquare stating this and to fill out a short superuser application & submit it. I read everything, answered the questions, and submitted it. Chris, THANK YOU for your endorsement. So now it was just a matter a time before I heard back from foursquare.

Last night I get home from work and there’s an email from foursquare. Look. It’s a form letter stating that my application to become a superuser has been denied, but don’t worry, you can try again in 30 days.

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In the letter they give a list of possible reasons for being denied to be made a superuser. Not much help there in determining why I was denied. It’s pretty vague. And they basically gave you the answers in the application itself before you submitted it. And I’ve been a foursquare user for 2+ years. In the past foursquare has made superusers from BRAND SPANKING NEW users that have only checked in a handful of venues only a few times. SO I DON’T GET IT!

I have not seen anyone from this area take any public interest in becoming a superuser to help clean up the mess of bad venues in Delaware. I have been the only one and foursquare denied YOU, the people of Delaware, the one person that was actually interested in doing so and working with a local organization, a local chapter of a nationwide company, and every other foursquare user in Delaware to help clean up the mess that’s here.

Now, what are my choices? Well, (1) I could do nothing and wait 30 days to try again, (2) delete my foursquare account and remove it (and other apps tied to their venue database) from my iPhone and rip foursquare apart for this, or (3) Use the account of a co-worker that is an inactive foursquare user and a superuser.

Option #1 doesn’t seem so good when it feels like I’ve been stabbed in the back again or getting pissed on by foursquare while they’re shaking my hand & smiling. And that doesn’t sit well with my boys and girls. Option #2 I’ve thought about. One thing that has slightly irked me was the quest for badges in foursquare and in other apps like GetGlue and Miso. Do we really need these stinkin’ badges? “(We don’t need no stinkin’ badges!” – The Wild Bunch). And then there is the ever-present “mayor” thing. Finally there is option #3. I would have preferred that foursquare acknowledge me by making me a superuser and help them and their users out by cleaning up all of the bad venues and not do it by sneaking around their backs with another loophole that they have open (They have had many loopholes open over the past few years.).

There is another option, but that mainly entails me sticking around and seeing what happens with a few things. Is it possible for a large US organization request that I be made a superuser on the condition of uploading their database to foursquare? How about the Governor of Delaware? The Vice President of the United States? Would they help me?

For now, I’ve been put off from using foursquare. The biggest losers in all of this is foursquare and their users in Delaware.