Transparent "Watopian in review"-process?

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1

First of all: The zwift community is a lovely place in general - and I like it quite much. This bases mainly on the vast majority of zwifters following the community guidelines. But where is sunshine, there might also be rain sometime. And so, there is information on how to report or flag another zwifter.
What I could not find is information on how these complaints are handled on the one hand and what happens to “watopians in review” on the other. What I found in these forums is a zwifter complaining that he got no feedback after set to this “half-baned” status and a zwifter seemingly unintensional using the a racist murderers-organistion’s abbreviation as his profile name.
[A single case described here in the beginning is not of relevance to what the thougts about]

The terms of service figure 5-b-x leaves it to zwift’s “sole judgement” to handle this and all other cases. That’s what we all signed up.
But as zwift is - and hopefully stays - a growing community beyond a training platform a bit more transparency could be well. Some thoughts on that:

  • Misbehavior is one thing. But there is a morale right of knowledge on the allegations I am blamed for. There may be cases when someone has to be sent into review suddenly. Isn’t it possible to handle at least this first step within a time span of 48 hours (maybe 72 regarding the weekend)?
  • Is there any chance of rehabilitation, if a watopian is reviewed? (Any other then being Luciano and even cycling press is reporting about your case)
  • Person A’s action may be reported by B. As long as it does not come to a ban or review A seemingly won’t recognize that this action is found offensive by B - missing the chance of changing behavior. I guess - I never had to flag someone else - B will be left in doubts on what happend, too.
  • In soccer the referee can warn a player (for example: “your comment on B’s activity has been marked and deleted”), show a yellow card or the red one if needed.
  • For me there is a big difference on why someone is reviewed or banned. For example: I don’t care about a “miscalibrated” trainer as I don’t race. But someone else won’t invite a “flier” to the next meetup.

Ride On!

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If anyone is shadow banned, they are always emailed (there’s a possible exception of human error) to the email address that we hold for them on file.

There is always a chance that any shadowban can be revoked upon appeal. They are differing lengths for differing offences and there’s a team dedicated to reviewing users that have been flagged (I believe we also have software that triggers a case to be reviewed based on the text that is used).

We also offer warnings for first offences.

4 Likes
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Thank you very much for this reply, James! This basically sounds like a well balanced procedure. Errors may happen - just as rage posts in the heat of the moment (and things like that). But there is a chance of revision for a covered zwifter.
These informations are also helpful to prevent rumours. You could think of publishing it easily to find.

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Thanks Michael. When we email members in these circumstances, the process is covered in the communication.