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anchskier
Denali
Status: Open To Voting

Activity flagging and the idea of community moderation works fairly well, but there are always ways to improve it.  Here are a few ideas to consider or where I feel the current system is lacking in some form:

1.) Reset people's ability to flag activities at midnight, local time.  Currently, it is set up to reset 24 hours after the last flag was applied, which means you are always guessing when you will be allowed to flag another activity the next day.  There is no indicator telling you whether or not you will be able to flag an activity until after you have gone through the entire process and try to submit it, only to find out that you are still temporarily blocked.  This is a big waste of time.  Just reset it at the same time every day so it is obvious.  Another idea is to have some type of counter showing how many flags you have remaining in a day and/or when they will reset.  A note when you apply a flag that states something like "You have 5 flags remaining today" and/or "Your flagging ability will reset at 8:00am EST on XX/XX/XXXX."

2.) Nominate or allow local ambassadors who have more liberal flagging limits or abilities.  These people can be ones who submit an application and can be vetting by the location of the bulk of their activities over the past X number of years.  This will greatly help to clean up segments if someone is willing AND ABLE to flag more than 5 or 10 activities at a time.  

3.) Have a graduated limit to flags per day.  The more active the person is on Strava, the more flags they are allowed.  New members only get maybe 3 or 5 as a limit, but long-standing members get up to 100 (or whatever number works best).  These limits can be reduced if it is shown that they are abusing the system, determined by a percentage of flags applied that get overruled or otherwise proven incorrect.

27 Comments
Status changed to: Open To Voting
Soren
Denali
 
Duffman
Mt. Kenya

With all the different types of devices being used to record rides we’ve all seen glitches on segments that produce unrealistic times. Usually this is GPS drift or the device not pinging satellites often enough resulting in inaccurate times and speeds. Older phones and watches trying to conserve battery are notorious for this. 

Currently when flagging rides it says to provide an explanation with evidence for the flagging. However there is no way to provide a picture or screenshot of something like obvious gps drift or “teleporting” through a segment. Then if the flag is disputed there is no way to back it up. One user on our local trails hit “70mph” on a segment and while this was obviously bad data, his time was allowed to stand. 

KBowen
Shkhara

Hello! First time posting here. Does someone at Strava review these threads. All great ideas from anchskier but I see the post it a year old and we're still at 10 flags/day. This is killing segments in my area. If he current QOM/KOM doesn't review immediately upon receiving the notification (or doesn't understand Strava well enough to know they can/should), that segment is toast. I live near a bike park where people ride then hop in their car and forget to turn their devices off. On road segments, you often have to go 20-30 deep to rind a "real" time. With a limit of 10 flags/day, it's impossible to clean up segments. More car times keep flooding in while I wait for the counter to reset.

How do we drive change? do i need to get more people to comment/kudo the OP?

zecanard
Superuser
Superuser

Another problem with the 24-hour waiting period is that your window will just keep drifting. If you’ve waited 26 hours to submit more flags, your next window opens 50 hours after the original lockout, rather than 48. It’s not just a waste of time, it “forces” you to be ready right on the dot. People have more important things to do.

Video games that used to do 24-hour lockouts on eg. spells/rewards all changed to a fixed-time reset for that reason. It’s predictable, flexible, and user-friendly.

JenBa
Mt. Kenya

I've been waiting 3 days to flag a group of people who use Strava to record car trips for work since flagging quite a few rides. It shouldn't be this difficult Strava!

GrahamvdR
Mt. Kenya

There are a few motorcyclists in my area who record their activities as rides and steal KOMs from the cyclists. I’ve been flagging the offending activities, but I run up against the flagging limit before I manage to do them all. I’m not sure how long it takes for the flagging limit to be reset – it seems to be more than a day for me. By the time I remember to check and try again, the athletes have logged more activities. Is there some way to report repeat offenders? It’s only a few athletes, but many activities to go through.

Duffman
Mt. Kenya

What happened to Strava's new algorithm that was supposed to automatically flag these types of activities???  We have the same problem with a group of e-bikers that just want to troll people on regular bikes on the climbing leaderboards.  Post all of their rides as regular bikes to take the KOMs.  I took it upon myself to try to regulate this in our local trail systems but a couple of them blocked me.   So I can see their spot atop the leaderboard but I cannot flag their ride since I am blocked and if I try to click on the activity it says activity not found.  Way to go strava.  It used to be a good tool, now its a joke.  Between riders with motors and riders using phones/watches that record with awful GPS frequency it is becoming unusable.  

You can report these repeat offenders but it is a ton of work and I doubt Strava would do anything anyway.  They wouldn't want to lose any precious subscribers.

anchskier
Denali

@GrahamvdR - It does generally reset after 24 hours, but that is measured from the time you flag the 10th activity and reach the limit.  It isn't a fixed time each day, so it is hard to keep track of.  

As far as repeat offenders, I have had good luck by submitting a ticket to Strava through their support link found on most pages.  It takes a few steps (you have to skip through the articles they suggest to get to the option to submit an e-mail).  Fill it out the best you can and explain that it is a habitual problem that regular flagging doesn't fix.  

GrahamvdR
Mt. Kenya

Thank you, @anchskier. Yes, I think you’re right about the reset period. I was trying the next day, but earlier in the day. If I do it later in the day (ie more than 24 hours later) it does seem to work.

OK, that’s good to know you’ve had success by submitting tickets. For now I’ve flagged all the activities from these athletes that got them onto leaderboards, so I’ll keep an eye out, and if I see them at it again I might try the ticket submission.

RR
Mt. Kenya

I've seen several parts around SF where people record their drive home from the presidio (dozens of drivers, the whole up hill route is people avg 30+ mph and maxing 40  mph up a 1.5mile hill. Some record their water plane and helicopter tours. Impossible to clean up.

Ian
Elbrus

There is a new user in my area who is apparently using Strava to record daily car commutes as "bike rides".  Each day they get multiple KOMs by going 45 mph up a 15% hill (the local pro cyclist has the genuine KOM at about 28 mph) and they often go above 50 mph on flat roads.  I have flagged about 20 of this user's Activities in the last month.  If a user is getting more than a certain percentage of their Activities flagged it ought to trigger some kind of warning about inauthentic use of Strava, and some guidance on more appropriate ways to record car journeys.  Maybe there should be an Activity type of "car journey" if people want to record their motoring, but without the ability to compete on Segment leaderboards. 

ARoger
Pico de Orizaba

We need these suggestions to be implemented!

JenBa
Mt. Kenya

I have an entire workplace using Strava to record their work driving trips. Many of the activities have drive in the title. Strava leaderboards iare becoming a joke due to these individuals. They have a lot of staff turnover and it's a constant battle. I'm tired of contacting support and get inconsistent responses depending on who replies. The people involved in driving and recording should be banned forever.

ARoger
Pico de Orizaba

I have literally hundreds of activities to remove in my area. There are some places where people often use their bikes to go and take a bus to return. After the bus, they get into their car, messing up leaderboards all over the city. It`s quite frustrating that I can only remove a few every 24h.

anchskier
Denali

Bumping this up so people who are newer will see it.  These issues are all still issues I run into frequently.  I used up my flags for a given 24 hour period, but because I didn't know the specific time of day I did the last one, I tried again the next day before 24 hours had gone by.  This ended up extending the block on flagging and I ended up not able to flag for over 4 days total.  A reset at midnight would solve this completely and still retain their control over their worry of abusing the flagging system.