Foursquare’s superuser program, now 40,000 people strong, is getting an overhaul.
The company says it’ll soon launch an automated test that will make it easier for users to become superusers — they’re the ones with special privileges to edit business listings and venues in Foursquare’s database of 55 million places. (Non-superusers can only suggest changes to businesses and venues in Foursquare’s database.)
The test, which may be ready as soon as next week, will give users a list of suggested edits and then measure their responses for accuracy. Those who pass the test can immediately get promoted to superuser status.
Until now, Foursquare’s six-person support team has manually reviewed all superuser applications.
The idea, ultimately, is improved local search results and location reporting. Foursquare expects the change to improve its venue database, which — in addition to powering the Foursquare mobile apps and website — is also used by Waze, Instagram, Uber and other partners.
Foursquare says it typically sees more than a million edits to its venues database each month. And, while testing new tools recently, the number of edits is up 400 percent.