How we maintain gym listings
In our How we curate gyms article we wrote about the process we use to initially curate gyms that are submitted to the Map of Strength.
Over time however, information gets stale. And the same is true of the information on our directory and map. That is if we didn't regularly maintain them.
You've probably experienced the consequences of stale information before - you've spent hours of time researching only to find that the gym you were excited to train at has shut down or moved to a new location when you arrive. There's nothing more frustrating.
In our case, people rely on our directory for up-to-date information about strength gyms. We know from experience that gyms can change drastically over time. Equipment breaks, new equipment gets purchased, and sometimes gyms close or move to larger facilities.
There are currently three methods that are used to keep the gym information on Map of Strength updated and relevant.
The re-review queue
Much like our curation queue, we have a re-review queue of gyms.
It works like this - if a gym hasn't been updated in the past 3 months, it gets added to the queue ready for us to review the gym again. It's essentially a shortened version of our curation process
We:
- take the first gym in the queue
- check the data for any obvious errors
- check all of the links to make sure they're not broken
- review the website and social media of the gym for any changes or updates (things like moving to a new location, new equipment, new prices, closing down, etc)
- update the information
Individual updates
On Map of Strength, we allow gym owners, managers, or other staff access to their gym's page. This allows them to update the page as they see fit.
If the owner of the gym's page updates the information every so often, it won't hit our re-review queue.
This is great, because it shows us that the gym is being cared for, and that the information you're seeing is as accurate as it can be.
Even if their gym does hit our re-review queue we can notify the owner to update it. Or we can review the gym again ourselves.
Other updates
If a gym is on our directory, we are very likely to follow them on our Instagram page. And if we happen to see important changes to gyms, we can manually update the information before the gym ever hits our re-review queue.
Additionally, you can help us keep the information up-to-date. If you happen to train at one of the gyms on the directory and you think some of the information is stale, you can contact us and let us know what's wrong.
When we re-review gyms there is a chance that the gym we are reviewing can be removed from the directory. It could be that there isn't enough information about the gym, or maybe the gym has sadly closed its doors for good.
But that also means that our process is working. You get the most up-to-date and accurate information about the strongest and best gyms to train at in the world!
