Last week we outlined a number of planned changes to address harassment and further safeguard the health and wellbeing of the Zwift Community.
Among the communicated changes were plans to hide the visibility of height and weight from ZwiftPower in an effort to encourage individual health and wellness. This raised concerns within the Zwift Racing Community regarding fairness in racing. Though our intent is to protect potentially vulnerable users by removing labels that can trigger unhealthy behaviours, we also hear the concerns of the racing community.
As such, we have agreed to pause this change while we develop tools that deliver greater transparency to Zwift racing while promoting wellness. For the time being, height and weight will remain visible on ZwiftPower.
We would like to thank the community for your passion and feedback. Your voice is important to us. In the future, we’ll continue to bring potential product ideas and changes to members of the Zwift Racing Community, with the hope that you’ll embrace this as a collaborative effort to help shape the experience.
Other planned changes communicated last week, including plans to improve the reporting features in Zwift will be rolled out as planned. Additionally, we’ll be moving forward on hiding height and weight from Zwift Companion and Web. We remain committed to protecting the health and well being of the broader Zwift Community, and we look forward to enacting additional measures in the future.
Thank you for listening to howling mob. We’ll put the pitchforks and torches away for the time being.
Really, we appreciate that ZHQ has taken our concerns to heart. We all desire the same thing here: fairness and a enjoyable experience on Zwift. I’m sure we can get there, working together…
Your voice is important to us. In the future, we’ll continue to bring potential product ideas and changes to members of the Zwift Racing Community, with the hope that you’ll embrace this as a collaborative effort to help shape the experience.
Better communication, and a bit of give with the take is all anyone can ask for.
Thanks Shuji and everyone at ZHQ that took concerns seriously. I hope that your coming tools will be available soon so you can fully implement the community welfare and anti-harrassment measures that I’m sure were well-intentioned.
Thank you for listening to the overwhelming feedback from the “vocal minority” of racers.
I do hope that there are good updates for racers, race directors and club administrators in the pipeline to both address harassment concerns as well as provide fair and transparent racing within the community.
This is a sign of a good organization.
First to try and do the right thing.
Get it wrong.
Listen to the users and change back.
This is how positive change is maid.
Change is not dangerous.
Not listening is.
Kudos to you guys.
I think the way to face problem is to go against it straight.
The problem isn’t people’s height or weight, the problem is idiots that have nothing else to do than disrespect others. They are the ones that need to be “hidden”/banned.
I recognised Zwift’s original concerns but it’s good to hear there’s movement in this.
What anyone wants - in any competition or any game - is to feel that it’s fair, and as they look to make changes going forward, I hope people at Zwift always keep asking themselves the question:
“How can Zwifters see these races are fair?”
Keep answering that question and you’ll keep most people on side. Whatever your answer, some people will never like it, but there has to be a clear, credible answer for the majority to support.
Forgive me for being the skeptical voice here, but before everyone gets all excited… let’s also try to keep in mind that nothing changed and all issues with e-racing that have been around for years remain… …None of the feedback the racing community has been giving for years now has been taken into consideration.
Categorization remains insensible, sandbagging remains unaddressed, no measures have been introduced to increase transparency, or widen the toolbox of race organizers to organize fair races. And there seems to be no plans in the near future to address any of this.
The only thing that happened was the announcement and (temporary!) retracement of a wildly unpopular solution for a problem that arguably doesn’t exist. That doesn’t call for excessive applause… It’s like shitting on your boss’s desk and expecting to get promoted because you cleaned it up when he kindly requested you to. That’s not how life works… at least not where I work .
.
