I’m willing to accept that masking athlete height and weight may be a good thing, especially from the point of view of reducing eating disorders.
However, you are aware that some riders manipulate their weight. You said that:
We encourage community racers to report suspected cheating (as well as harassment) offline , rather than making public accusations. Our Customer Support agents have all the tools to look at egregious changes in weight and make informed decisions if someone is “weight doping” or not. This process maintains privacy for all parties and that’s why we’ve been doing it this way since last September.
CS agents are busy. They have to handle a number of other game issues. Do they have guidelines on how much variation is normal? Do they have the time to peruse someone’s profile and racing history? How often do they take action? Are they assisted by algorithmic detection? How effective are the algorithms?
Zwift doesn’t really have a history of being prompt to address this concern, and several other racing concerns like enforcing category boundaries. There are many relatively minor bugs that have been present for some time and not fixed. This is obvious, but I think it needs to be re-stated: the community is skeptical that Zwift is able and willing to consistently enforce reasonable weight and height inputs. We also won’t know if you are doing this, unless some of us are willing to test the system by manipulating our own inputs - and I am not, for the record.
I’m willing to accept that you are policing the pro Zwift races, but there’s a problem further down the ranks that is markedly impairing the experience for a lot of amateurs.
Inertia and critical mass will play a part I guess. Other platforms are still relatively small (which has its own attractions); and just moving “the league” over won’t be successful if there aren’t the racers to fill it. Not everyone wants to pay multiple subscriptions, so it’s quite a leap of faith to persuade people to ditch what they know for something else.
Depends what you’re doing and which platform. If you want to race on Magic Roads on RGT, for example, then the race organiser at least needs a paid subscription.
I have information that perhaps say’s otherwise , but its in confidence.
Lets just say , we are being listened too . This forum and this thread has been picked up.
We get into very dangerous territory if we start assigning any trust or insider knowledge to those not actually the spokespersons , as you have said is what is important . Zwift are the only ones who can talk about this with due authority , no one else .
There is certainly no one here whose opinion , unless it is unacceptable and personal , more relevant or important than anyone else’s. Sometimes it is even more important to listen to those who have not been around for a long time , or “insiders” as they come with no baggage and come with fresh ideas.
I would also as it goes respect and trust that input when it didn’t accuse us “mere users of the system” of just pedalling hot air.
Well yes, at least we both agree that really it’s only Zwift’s opinion that counts. Though I think there are rather a lot of uninformed opinions being thrown around here, Bryn and Robert are probably better informed than most.
I think we should end that there . No clauses as that are not based on any informed fact. And certainly not used to close down the ongoing forum on this issue. Which to restate is I have reason to believe having an impact , how deep and how likely that is to change course and what that change might look like , I wouldn’t like to say.
“Rowing is a few weeks away” - June 2020
“Anti-sandbagging tools will be in the next update” - April 2020
“Anti-sandbagging is coming soon” - January 2020
Assuming anyone at ZHQ reads this, can I request that at least you leave the weight of the leader on a group ride. I’m a C mixed with very low absolute power and usually the lightest by at least 10-20 kg -so for example I was considering a sub 2 ride tonight as an easier spin but checked ZP and the leader is 85 kg - nearly double my weight - meaning I’m going to be pushing close to 3 wkg in that blob draft … not an easy ride.
It would be so frustrating to sign up “blind”, realise I’m struggling to stay on and have to quit the ride … and possibly miss the late start for a better suited ride (and joined part way through).
Actually Daren, Mr. Baldi gets cheezed off at others here that disagree with him on a regular basis. Last time I checked, one’s contributions to the Zwift community do not give them Carte Blanche to go off on people nor does it make them an authority about what’s going on in ZwiftHQ, especially when those that are in ZHQ don’t seem to know what’s going on…
Seems some people thought my post was offensive and flagged it, whilst another 5 have liked it.
Just stating an observation that Baldi did have a very public cancelling of all of his events on Zwift to go to RGT but then as soon as he appeared to get a little bit of attention from Zwift HQ came straight back to Zwift despite many Zwift caused problems still occurring with his events.
Baldi is claiming some sort of insider knowledge. I’m questioning how reliable that information is given his recent transfer away from Zwift. It does seem since he’s come back he’s been very defensive of Zwift. It just makes me question how reliable his claims of a points based system are. That’s the relevance.
Daren, there is huge difference between you getting cheesed off and Mr. Baldi getting CHEEZED OFF. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen you go off because someone disagreed with you. I’ve seen and experienced Mr. Baldi going the eff off because someone or I did not share his opinion about steering or pack dynamics or group chat or whatever. Yes, ZHR has been an important contributor to the Zwift Community but that does not excuse the abuse I’ve seen him dispense.
I truly enjoy the discourse with you, Daren because you are a gentleman. Please keep it so.
