Instead of all of gestures broadly at this trainwreck of a thread, how about you use this endless font of energy to come up with a way to keep events in check without displaying weight info publicly? I bet you can come up with a couple ways in a couple minutes.
(Performance-based ranking will not solve the problem, btw., because the rider will get a better ranking with lower weight. In all other respects it’s the way to go, ofc.)
This does not deter harassment. In all likelihood, it will invite more of it. There’s actual people whose actual job it is to understand social dynamics and none of this is particularly new.
Edit: this sounds a bit too harsh, I’m sorry. Leaving the original up, but point being that while it’s great you (and others) are throwing out suggestions, there’s a complex reality to online harassment, and it’s best left to professionals.
I agree but sadly zwift chose to list this as one of the primary reasons for banning transparency in racing which I think is wrong again zwift at fault for creating another issue now seems like the racers who want transparency are anti eating disorders which is so not true thanks zwift. Eating disorders are complexed individual and sensitive like you say should be treated with respect wd also add every case is different so wd’nt expect Zwift to deal with individual cases which is what’s needed professionally away from Zwift just thinking on zwift cd do a good deed and put advice before signing up to Zwift proffesional guidelines this wd be much more helpful to help prevent more harm to those individuals suffering or prone to suffering with helpful advice on recognising signs and triggers for individuals to get help before things become very difficult so friends family or professionals outside of zwift can help that person in need with any kind of eating disorder or addiction to exercise I know both can go hand in hand in some cases which can also be very harmful.
My comment was referring to a possible way for Zwift to rethink the rollout (vs blanket removal of metrics):
Communicate that height and weight can be hidden from public view (if this is already possible in ZP, not many would be aware so communication could help)
Zwift then measure how many users choose to actively ‘Opt out’ from height/weight being displayed
If its a considerable number (suggesting this is an important issue) then this could be made default for new accounts (with the option to opt in if possible)
The ironic thing is, I feel this move may result in more ‘harassment’ amongst the racing community, in the form of accusations along the lines of “you’ve probably got your weight and height set wrong”, with no way now of transparent of legitimate races being able to evidence otherwise. 
This is non-sensical. People who have eating disorders require real help and development of habits which change their behavior and thought processes. Not listing what they already know and have to see on a results page doesn’t alter this. The people with the eating disorders and their loved ones need to go about ensuring those changes need to be made. Zwift and Zwiftpower hiding weight and height is non-sensical especially if you are racing that just has to be a fact of life. I am not the heaviest rider nor the lightest at 91 kilos and would love to weigh 80 kilos to become a high B, but I am not giving up my 4000-5000 calorie diet to achieve it because I can’t get to 80 kilos and become a high B rider without eating! No that’s not an eating disorder, that’s what someone who weighs 91 kilos and has a FFM of 76 kilos has to consume if they are burning 800-1500 calories cycling per day.
The biggest thing is the hidden behavior is the problem with eating disorders and no behavior psychologist worth their license or certification would ever advocate engaging in a process which hides known facts such as height and weight from their subjects and want those subjects to still participate in such activities. If the subject is at a point they shouldn’t measure their mass or height it’s highly likely they are also restricting such a subject from participation in results or performance related activities where mass and height have an impact.
I didn’t indicate that nothing was perfectly fine. Rather that hiding the data won’t improve the situation from either point of view. Using your car driving analogy. People should drive the speed limit all the time, that after all is the law. However the majority of users on the roads only pay attention to the rules when its in some way immediately enforced either by the presence of a police car or a speed camera. The point, a useless rule is as much use as no rule at all. This change is a useless rule and about as much use as no rule at all. That’s not the same as saying there should be no rules what so ever.
I’m not actually attempting to belittle Zwift racing by comparing it to other computer games. I’m actually belittling the people who take part in Zwift racing and think that the results actually matter enough to get indignantly outraged about them.
I also disagree with your comparison to other games companies. Current Madden and Fifa “pros” receive the new years copy well in advance (and usually for free) in order to practice long before general release.
The whole ultimate team model for both of the those games is based around the ability to be competitive by spending money on the product. Similar MOBA games release unbalanced playable characters who are available instantly for money to give those willing to financially dope an instant access advantage.
So the definition of “keep their platform fair” is determined by what fits with the business model for each individual games profits. In that respect Zwift is no different. There could be no need for Zwiftpower at all if the riders were policed inside Zwift itself. However, that would likely result in the people who were sandbagging or doping not wanting to subscribe to the service and Zwift would lose money.
In the current model, zwift makes money from the people who want to see themselves win in the video game, and the people who want accurate race results and have voluntarily signed up to zwiftpower.
Once again I’m not suggesting this system is fair, or working, it’s just the way it is because it’s what makes the company the most money. Once again, no different to most other games companies.
Fair enough. I agree with some of your points, and I didn’t know that about new eSports releases going to pro players early. I was referring more to the fact that they do actively try to prevent blatant cheating, through software, reporting functions (that presumably actually exist) and other tactics. If anything, considering Zwift involves physical effort it should be given higher priority, but as you say there’s probably little or no incentive to do so. Cheats are paying customers too. Doesn’t mean we should all simply accept it, IMO we should be able to expect consistent improvement of the platform over time. I don’t believe that’s unreasonable.
Just because you apparently don’t care about the results doesn’t mean others shouldn’t either. Many do. If you consider that worthy of ridicule then that’s up to you.
For the life of me, I cannot see why height data needs to be hidden. It’s not private, personally-sensitive information - I can see how tall someone is IRL by the simple expedient of looking at them! If anything, height information should be more prominently available in ZwiftPower, and, as per my previous suggestion, locked-in so that in-game heights cannot be reduced at will.
I agree that the physical performance basis of Zwift sets it aside from other computer platforms. And yes appropriate measures should be taken to try make it fair.
Like everything though it needs to be on a spectrum or continuum,
What stopped me playing World of Warcraft eventually was that we no longer taking satisfaction from killing the dragon (or whatever) but falling out over the gaming pixels of loot that the dragon gave us because we killed it.
So on the spectrum of caring about Zwift results it needs to be a healthy medium. Me not caring about my results is probably one side of the middle, and those who care so much to get angry to the point of abuse is off the other side of middle.
Similar to the viral videos of parents reactions to kids “competitive sports” games. Or fans of a football team who posts on the players social media that they hope they die of a horrible disease because they left the club.
People need to look at themselves before they kick off and ask is what I am angry about really important enough to justify the reaction they are about to deliver
Why does your opinion give you a right to belittle how other people uses the platform and what they should or should not care about? For almost any game out there one of the most basic principles is fairness, since it part of what keeps it interesting or fun to play. So for me and im guessing almost everyone else is not that the results matter, but my trust in the results. If i was beaten by 10 stronger or smarter riders no problem, but if i was beaten by 10 riders weighing 39 kg and measuring 170 cm (actual rider in a race i did yesterday) it becomes a problem
The pre release to players is a whole lot different than weight or height cheating in zwift. The pre release is questionable but doesn’t really fall under cheating as such and therefore isnt relevant. A more correct analogy is using something like wallhack or aimbot in FPS games, which is definite cheating and is correctly santioned very hard. In fact steam(Valve) supplies anti cheating software to be used that dates back to 2002 way before any type of competitive gaming became big.
Isn’t that the definition of opinion? An individuals point of view which allows them to define how they perceive the world.
I don’t care about the results therefore the people that do to the point of rage quitting the platform foaming at the mouth hurling abuse at people on social media, to me yes they need to get a grip.
Similarly to your opinion that early release of games to players who are already at the pro level in order to keep them there. isn’t an unfair advantage.
To some extent “way before any type of competitive gaming became big” is simply your opinion. Pac Man arcade was released in 1980. To this date only 7 people worldwide have an accepted perfect score. Along the way people competing have received letters from presidents and 6 figure sums of money have been offered as prizes in the competition. To me that’s pretty big, all of which happened before 2002.
So yeah we all have opinions, we are entitled to voice them, doesn’t mean you have to agree with someone else’s or it makes it true for anyone but the person who has it.
The whole purpose of this move was to stop harassment.
Was anybody actually harassed by anyone concerning their wt?
Was the harassment the self imposed variety?
People would harass others if their Zwift data did not line up with Strava.
I saw a lot of aggressive interactions between people but usually it appeared to be balanced - remember this is like bike racing not spin class.
Please everyone, don’t make personal attacks because that does not help your position.
IRL, is it possible to hide your weight or height? The interest of displaying height and weight is to allow a mutual control of the cyclists. Anyone who displays an unrealistic height/weight ratio knows that he/she will appear as a cheater in the eyes of the community. He is therefore automatically dissuaded from doing so. The impact of weight display on eating disorders seems to me to be totally overestimated by Zwift. On the other hand, not knowing if I am competing against cheaters will quickly lead me to cancel my subscription to Zwift….
Since zwift took over Zwiftpower, there have been no enforcements of outrageous performances, rapid weight changes etc. I have stopped flagging dodgy race results in Zwiftpower-results to Zwift, nothing happens. Back in the day, when zwiftpower was independant, the admins were quick to resolve complaints.
Until today, the display of weight/height on zwiftpower would allow the community for flagging suspicous performances to the race organizers. That possibility now is a lot more distant and deterrents to cheating are basically gone.
Zwiftpower was created for people interested in racing, hopefully in a transparent and fair way. As with all competitive sports there will be people left behind feeling less able or insufficient. As in real life, comparing yourself with others can have consequences, hopefully motivational and positive consequences but in some cases also negative. This is a basic element of competitive sports. There are plenty of non-competitive events on Zwift were people do not have put their physical stats in public view. For competitive sports, IRL and virtual, transparency and visibility should be a basic requirement. If users want to compete then accept the transparency otherwise zwift racing becomes a shell as hollow as ZwiftHQs current efforts towards transparency.
It should be quite easy to disallow weight and height updates within a given timespan. So, for example, you could enter your weight when you first register and then only update once every 2 weeks (with exceptions for people using connectable scales such as Withings/Fitbit).
You could also argue that people over 18 should only be able to enter their height once at registration.
I’m sure they have been, and it’s not a good thing. The platform lends itself to such things though, since they’re not doing anything at all to address the issue of fairness in racing. Edit: it doesn’t excuse people being dicks, just want to make that clear. But it provides an avenue for frustration.
An interesting hypothetical question is whether Zwift has done anything about people accused of harassment. They’re paying customers too, right? 
This all feels like a very simplistic solution - instead of actually addressing any root causes they just get rid of the data. Job done.
Agreed Dave. Similar to when I played competitive hockey. If during a game the refs were being loose and not calling many penalties (even when they clearly should have been) the game gets out of hand because we, the players, take matters into our own hands to right perceived wrongs by the other team and not called by the refs. Which usually led to fights or more dangerous checks. It could have been avoided easily by objectively applying the rules of the game.
We basically see the same thing in Zwift. Zwift has abdicated from enforcing (or for that matter creating any objective rules for e-racing outside of the elite divisions) so other Zwifters took it upon themselves (rightly or wrongly) to try and enforce objective rules to make the game a fair event.
Until Zwift steps up to the plate and realizes the current issues are of their own doing (for the most part) nothing will change. And I gladly await the day that society as a whole stops with the kindergarten approach (ie someone or some people are behaving badly so instead of being an adult and punishing/correcting those specific individuals everyone gets punished the same).
And you are giving medical advice in your professional role of a physician, psychiatrist, or dietitian?
Yes - but will end up racing against other people who perform the same, thus removing the advantage.
I suggest we stop publishing all performance data in ZwiftPower. I’m certainly ashamed of my pitiful performance on a regular basis, why should that lousy performance be open for others to look and laugh at?