Add Duplicate Activity As A Reason For Flagging

[ChrisBerry]

When flagging an activity, the choices are currently Activity Was In A Vehicle, Wrong Activity Type, or Bad GPS Data. There should also be a choice for Duplicate Activity. I see lots of people recording the same activity on multiple devices and posting all of them as if they were different. In some cases the start and finish times are basically the same, and in other cases they are staggered but still overlapping as if the person is deliberately trying to game the system to rack up more miles than they have actually ridden.  

[Scout]

​​Thanks for submitting your idea. It has been reviewed by our team and is now open to voting.

[calebdexter]

I second the motion on this. Strava needs to have an algorithm set to not allow duplicate activities to be posted by users from different devices like bike comp, garmin watch, fitbit, etc.

I have been flagging users who are always double posting and I don't see Strava doing anything about it. This creates misrepresentation on the athelete's data, making it seem that they are doing a certain mileage every week when it is exactly half of it and also creates false data on the leaderboards.

I hope Strava will reconsider this motion. Thank you.

[DART]

Agreed it makes a mess of local hero stats in addition to weekly leader boards.

[Jane]

Hello @ChrisBerry 

I just wanted to update you on this request.  We list the following reasons for flagging an activity in our Knowledge Base article on activity flagging:

When to Flag:

• Top leaderboard spots were earned because the data was recorded with vehicle assistance (motor-pacing or drafting a vehicle, receiving a lift in a vehicle, leaving the device on while driving, etc).
• Top leaderboard spots are earned because the GPS data is erratic or recorded at large intervals (10+ seconds).
• Top leaderboard spots are earned because the activity is categorized as the wrong sport type. For example, a bike ride is categorized as a run.
• A Strava athlete is recording duplicate activities.

Please feel free to flag duplicate activities.  

[ALS]

I am guilty of duplicate entries… on occasion.  It is deliberate.  The reason is that sometimes I forget to “resume” a ride that I have manually paused on my gps, the battery dies, or the data quality appears inaccurate (eg poor satellite reception with my non-Garmin gps).  That’s when I will also import the data from my Apple Watch.  I mark one of them DUPLICATE in the ride title.  What I would like is a check box so that I can tag a ride as duplicate and have that entry excluded from stats/goals. My account is private so it does not get counted toward leaderboards, so that is not an issue. But it throws off my stats/goals.  I want to keep both entries in the same place because the data fields collected by both is not the same (my watch does not give me cadence, elevation is VERY often discrepant between the two)  I know others who routinely upload from two sources, not to cheat, but because it provides a more complete picture of their bike ride.  A simple check box asking if it is a duplicate ride could help sort the cheaters from those who have a reason for uploading duplicates.

[newnton]

The problem here as someone recording from 2 devices which automatically upload, is my only choice to deal with duplicates is to delete data and disconnect sensors from my Strava account.

That’s unacceptable when there could easily be a simple way to either combine the duplicates or hide one from your stats not just your public feed. 

To me, flagging users for reporting dupes doesn’t fix this at all, you need to enable users to easily report accurate stats