I recently enabled Foursquare email notifications for check-ins. You see, for once, the way Android handles notifications is inferior to the iPhone. For reasons posted by Joe Lapenna last year, Android cannot handle Foursquare push notifications like the iPhone, and after a few months of Foursquaring, I really did feel like I was missing out on half the point of Foursquare; knowing where your friends are. Of course, I could open the app each time and look at recent check-ins, but that’s a pretty substandard way to do things, so I thought, “What the hell, how many emails can I really get a day?”, checked the box, and boy was I surprised.

At first, it was fun! But very quickly, I was shocked at the places [and frequency at which] people checked-in to! I guess this is the first question that crossed my mind; why the hell do people check-in to these random places, or, conversely, why do I check-in to the places I do.

I, for whatever reason, seem to have taken to the moral high ground on places that are “worthy” [I will elaborate on this at some point, just not this post] of check-ins, and am pretty much not concerned with the points/leaderboard side of things. This is definitely not the case for others, where, to some extent, anywhere they are, is game. 

The list below, compiled in collaboration with @marawlings, @rajeshvemasani and @renny510, is a list of… “guidelines”, you could say, of venues to [or not to] check-in to. I personally object to some of the ones deemed acceptable here, and won’t check-in to many of them, but we had to reach some level of consensus, so I’ll live with it.

Note: I’ve also given credit to the people that were the “inspiration” for each of these venues.

No-nos

• Toilets [thanks @marawlings, @jymmysim] 

• Airport Gates [thanks @adrianjuarez]

• Flights [thanks @adrianjuarez]
• UPDATE: Your home [thanks @kazwala, @reetssydney]
• Your bedroom [thanks @gerdschenkel]
• Your bed [thanks @gerdschenkel]
• Your bed [alone] [thanks @gerdschenkel]
• Your home desk [thanks @gerdschenkel]
• Streets & Highways [thanks @adrianjuarez, @reetssydney]
• Other people’s homes  
• Other people’s homes masked as commercial establishments [thanks @renny510]
• Train stations [thanks @jessnichols]
• Bus stops
• Ferry terminals [thanks @elsplatto]
• Taxi ranks [thanks @rajeshvemasani]
• Suburbs
• Venues that are NOT places of interest [by “places of interest”, I kinda mean look for exclusions above]

So-sos

• Offices – Check-in once a day [thanks @jessnichols, @zander1979, @rajeshvemasani, @montyhamilton, @adrianjuarez]
  

• Malls – Check-in once a day to the same mall, as well as any subsequent shops you visit within the mall, but only if you’re in the shop for more than 15 minutes [thanks @rajeshvemasani]

• Airports – Check-in once a day to the same airport, as well as any subsequent shops you visit within the airport, but only if you’re in the shop for more than 15 minutes

  [thanks @montyhamilton, @zander1979, @leondoyle]
  

  UPDATE: When it comes to interstate travel, it’s fine to check-in to the origin and destination airports on arrival and departure [HT @leondoyle]

• UPDATE: Airport lounges – Check-in once a day to the same airport lounge [thanks @zander1979 for the explanation [see comments below]]
  

That’s the list for now. Would love for you [especially the #dop Sydney crew] to add, question and abuse it, because this still is a work in progress, and the wording, for one, is terrible.

P.S. Thanks for the inspiration re: blog post title, @jessnichols.