Promotion from what to what?
From one category to the next. Sorry, I’d assumed that was obvious.
Or, viewed another way, promotion up the rankings, which is tantamount to the same thing. My view being that performance is a reasonable way to seed people into “about the right place”; but they shouldn’t be able to stay there if they keep winning races.
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In the case of a ranking, promotion up through the ranks. So you were 10,003rd in the list, you keep beating people then you move up to 10,002 or perhaps even higher.
Which may or may not shift you to a different pen depending on the details of the system.
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Similarly, in the ZHR TTs back in the day, I would give any new rider their handicap based on their W/Kg at FTP (potential performance). Anyone quicker than their predicted time (results) was moved up the scale and given a greater handicap next time.
There was no moving down the scale - unless someone bought a new trainer or came back from a major injury - as handicaps were based on PBs
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I was in the race and looking at the ZP results I was quite surprised by their power output, then I read their bios and was quite surprised. What do they get beating a bunch of amateur “C’s” that are just having fun and like competition?
One of them is currently on the banned from sporting for drug use in the real world of racing. He is the 15x champ lol…guess we know why he has been champ for so long.
They supposedly have been dq’d in the wtrl world but still appear on zwift power so I guess zwift doesn’t particularly care if there are cheaters in the zrl.
It sucks and I have to reevaluate if I want to bother putting in the effort only to be hammered by not only the cheaters but careless organizers.
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Can’t take results from something that isn’t a race. Result = performance in an event compared to the field. For results to be valid, they must be produced under agreed-upon conditions. You can’t use TdZ for results because not everybody is there to race.
For cases where there are no results (= no ranking), or where the organizer deems results insufficient for their purposes for some or all racers, you could use additional mechanisms to determine categorization or pen split directly.
Using race data is fine (and preferable). What they lack is the enforcement. Wrong cat? Up you go.
And specifically teams, not individual riders. This is incentive for teams to figure out how strong their riders are beforehand, which is what they should be doing anyway.
It depends what you consider “results/data”.
If you’re only interested in finishing positions then you would only take results from races.
But if you believe power output is also a key factor in how you should be categorised then non-race activities could be factored in (as Zwiftpower does). This could give you useful data to categorise people who race less often.
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Oh, I dunno. Many “group rides” are ridden like races too. 
Particularly marquee and celebrity guest type ones.
Some ride them that way, yes.
Pretty sure my highest 20 min wattage is from a neokyo “non-race” event 
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As noted a few posts up, I did a “D paced” recon ride and got an FTP bump.
One thing is for certain.
If Zwift actually want to do something about sandbagging and cruising. They will absolutely have to take ALL RIDER DATA into account.
By very definition, sandbagging and cruising is a rider hiding their true performance.
Enforcing categories from race data alone will help, but will categorically not stop the determined cheats.
The power curve needs to be complete rider data. Obviously, some sort of date range curve needs to be included. However, even that strikes me as dangerous. It allows riders with no recent race results to enter lower categories and ruin the races. The entire issue the thousands of posts here are attempting to prevent.
Personally, I’d hire a dedicated team of data sleuths. Anyone caught intentionally category cheating would be warned. If caught again. I’d simply ban them from racing.
The softly, ‘it’s okay to cheat’ policy Zwift has adopted till now has resulted in a gigantic mess. A firm, but fair enforcement of the actual rules, is likely the only solution going forward.
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A really naive and daft question as I am still a relative newbie compared to others here on the forum. I spotted this on how to create a club on Zwift Insider and understand the concept of setting up an event. I am assuming there is no ability to enforce categories at the moment and this is one of the points we are trying to hammer out, as opposed to race organisers not enforcing categories. I know the club events are for meetups, but some do race in them anyway. I don’t believe in making assumptions (and have assumed this far, maybe naively that organisers cannot at the moment), hence the basic question
The Zwift rider who cancels in the summer to ride and race outside won’t have any data for maybe six months. So any lookback window as short as the suggested 90 days (as used by Zwift Power) is flawed. It should look back a whole year.
Even then, it won’t catch people who train on a different platform and just come in to Zwift to race. Nor those who delete activities rather than storing them.
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I think you, TheBandit and me are all on the same page here. I believe it’s about choosing the “best” data and for some people, the best data will be more recent than others, and in some it will come in different activities.
You’re right that it’s impossible to categorise/rank people who train elsewhere and just come into Zwift to race but, realistically, that must be a tiny proportion of people, and if there was decent enforcement they would only be mis-categorised/mis-ranked once.
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Clubs and Pen/Cat/Dog Enforcement are completely separate.
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DOG - Digitally Organized Groups.
DOG - Drop Out Generator
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Dropped Out (of) Gate
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But if a club organised an event, could they enforce cats?