Community Welfare and Anti-Harassment Update [April 2021]

Very poor decision - need MORE transparency in races, not LESS!

You are rewarding the cheats. I would not be surprised if the only people that actually complained about harassment turned out to be those gaming the system and fiddling their weight to stay in a particular category. I’m gonna be checking the competition (RGT) out again now where they aren’t afraid to police racing and call out the cheats.

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I could understand the hiding of weight/height data if at the same time there was a new system to detect weight/height doping and stronger action against cheating.

I can’t see anything like this mentioned in your post though, @shooj

So this seems like it’s just going to encourage more cheating.

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Genuine question: What percentage of Zwifters are sending in weight verification videos? I’ve heard this is a requirement for the pro races, but how many people does it really effect?

Is weight verification a part of all the ZRL races? I honestly don’t know… Is this a solution looking for a problem?

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do i unterstand this decision in the right way? the community asks for better performance of zwiftpower, of ranked races instead of the old wkg system,

and what does zwift deliver: hey lets disable weight and height information…

what a bad news for today.

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ZRL weight verification is mainly at the pro end. In theory a couple teams each week from other divisions should be checked each week but i don’t think it’s being actively done due to all the other zp issues that have effected zrl.

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100 % agree. Terrible decision by Zwift. Maybe its time to try a new eCycling software?

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There are a significant number of outstanding bugs/issues in Zwiftpower that have not been addressed, I assumed because they did not fully understand the code; but clearly they are not interested in fixing these issues otherwise they would not have the time to find a solution to a problem that doesn’t exist.

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So sod those paying customers who want transparency and fair race system…

Let’s support those who feel they need to cheat the system…

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“Zwift is all about having fun, rewarding, and positive experiences…” Absolutely! But how is Zwift racing going to be fun, rewarding and positive if I can’t trust other riders’ data? However laudable, this looks like a solution to a small problem that creates a far bigger one. What is Zwift’s plan to address the inevitable consequences?

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How will the weight verification work.
If it is video it will need a lot of checkers especially on some nights when we see in excess of 250 riders in some races.
If it is a case of just verify your weight it will be a waste of time… the of course mine is right attitude from most people.

If it reduces the number of people succumbing to eating disorders, and saves some lives, surely that is more important?

  • Eating disorders affect at least 9% of the population worldwide.1
  • 9% of the U.S. population, or 28.8 million Americans, will have an eating disorder in their lifetime.2
  • Less than 6% of people with eating disorders are medically diagnosed as “underweight.”1
  • 28-74% of risk for eating disorders is through genetic heritability.1
  • Eating disorders are among the deadliest mental illnesses, second only to opioid overdose.1
  • 10,200 deaths each year are the direct result of an eating disorder—that’s one death every 52 minutes.2
  • About 26% of people with eating disorders attempt suicide.1
  • The economic cost of eating disorders is $64.7 billion every year.2
    (source https://anad.org/get-informed/about-eating-disorders/eating-disorders-statistics/)
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Sure, but this is even more admin overhead on volunteer organisers who have enough on their plate.

How many will a) take the time to look, or b) do anything about it. What even could they do about it? I don’t think there are any tools in place for race organisers to ban riders or enforce categorisation.

The whole racing piece in Zwift is still miles behind where it needs to be. Maybe good enough for the pro level, but mostly inadequate for community racing.

I understand and support the good intentions behind this change, but it’s not going to do anything to improve racing for people in general.

Out of sight, out of mind? I guess we’ll see.

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Why not to leave the decision about visibility of the weight up to people? It is not neccessary to punish all racers in zwift when somebody does not want to show his/her weight.

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I don’t disagree with any of that, but they’re tackling the symptom, not the root cause which is embedded in their product.

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I understand your question, but the (possible) death of community racing would be a harsh price to pay. I’ve never been a fan of the “if it saves even one life it’s worth it” approach when the impact is felt by large numbers of people (which is overstating what you’ve said, but is illustrative of the idea).

I’m not saying it wouldn’t be a worthwhile price to pay, but a large one.

I hope Zwift can put in place systems that preclude the need to display personal data like height and weight, but still enable Zwifters to see the authenticity of their opponents.

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This won’t work because people will become suspicious of others who choose to hide their data; and they will in turn come under peer pressure to expose it.

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I have a question. By not showing their weight, still won’t a rider be pushed to get to their lowest weight possible as it will still make them go faster. I don’t see this getting rid of eating disorders as weight is still a factor in game but I may be wrong. I would like to understand why you feel this would help

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Who’s to say that the weigh-in videos required for pro racing on Zwift don’t cause eating disorders. Maybe Zwift should remove all racing just in case? And cancel outdoor racing too, because there are examples of eating disorders there? Just because one issue exists it doesn’t mean that literally anything that helps with it is ok.

What about those who might feel that this is the final straw for community racing in Zwift, give it up, and then suffer worse health through doing less exercise?

There are plenty of better ways to handle this, and Zwift have been aware of these issues for some time. Having better anti-cheating controls and real sanctions against those guilty of such offences, combined with hiding height and weight data, would be considerably more constructive.

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Sadly I very much doubt that Zwift will go this way, but if you support verification and performance data transparency its worth checking out eBiopassport.

Extremely angry. More cheating.
Stop de those stupid thoughts. Police the harassment but let us ride fairly!!! God we want more fair, you’re going in the wrong direction. We re talking about sport!!! Of course in sport you compare to yourself and you need to see others s watts weight and wkg!!!

April joke???

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