What the point to rank not verified results for challenges?

[Den_Thorn]

Hi folks,

I like idea of individual challenges.
But why it is ok to use both unverified and verified results on Boards Of Honor etc? Why not the only verified can be accounted?

Fresh example - Valentine Challenge 2017 started today.
Checked early morning - there were everything legit, eg 55 ppl with 35km as a longes distance. Now tonight it became look like a circus without means. Longest distance currently is 3000km (can you calculate the pace chap had to row if really would do 3000km in 10-15 hours? hillarious! ). And I believe we'll get more such moonrakers very soon.

Why such definitely disturbing results can't be simple rejected for challenges to avoid confusion of the ppl who really row and wanna be honest?

[Citroen]

Write an email to rowing@concept2.com and ask them to explain the anomalies and how they're allowed to be entered on their system.

[Carl Watts]

Do a search on the forum, this comes up time and time again but Concept 2 don't want to fix the problem. Until they kill the manual meters entry its always going to be a problem.

I even suggested they have ONE Challenge a year that had verified results ONLY but still no action.

The end result was I quit entering any of the challenges .I suspect many other people feel the same way, they just don't enter either or bother to voice their opinion.

They also need to add an average pace column to bring some perspective to all the meters rowed. Meters without pace information is worthless.

My advice is stick to looking at your own results and set yourself goals and challenges for the season.

[ivan141]

You have a point about ludicrous results being entered, but there is little to win, so in the end participation is
for your own motivation more than it is about ranking.

I for one was (and sometimes still am) happy with the option to enter meters manually. My former PM2 monitor
did not support verified results, and it get's old really fast to have to take pictures of the monitor.
Now that I have a PM3 my home meters are all verified, but I had to manually enter my new PB's that I set at a
race event last weekend. I would be disappointed if those were not considered valid (although I would respect
a request for some form of verification in case that time is in contention for a challenge or record).

[sander]

You have a point about ludicrous results being entered, but there is little to win, so in the end participation is
for your own motivation more than it is about ranking.

I for one was (and sometimes still am) happy with the option to enter meters manually. My former PM2 monitor
did not support verified results, and it get's old really fast to have to take pictures of the monitor.
Now that I have a PM3 my home meters are all verified, but I had to manually enter my new PB's that I set at a
race event last weekend. I would be disappointed if those were not considered valid (although I would respect
a request for some form of verification in case that time is in contention for a challenge or record).

I agree with this. I like to enter race results, which I can only enter manually. Also, the C2 logbook API (http://log.concept2.com/developers/documentation/ ) allows third party apps to upload results. Before they are allowed to do this, the app's developers have to play in a sandbox C2 logbook for a while and get allowed only when Concept2 approves the application. However, there are no formal restrictions for what are valid results.

The best in my mind would be for Concept2 to do some simple checks to warn users/apps entering clearly invalid results (splits, stroke rates that are physically impossible, distances like 1500km, negative heart rate values, etc) but allowing someone to enter an unverified 5:53 2k time even if nobody has ever seen that person row faster than 7:00.

I believe Apps who get the "verified" tag have to do something more (see the API documentation) and are promoted to "trusted" apps. That is also good.

[Den_Thorn]

I would be disappointed if those were not considered valid (although I would respect
a request for some form of verification in case that time is in contention for a challenge or record).

IMO it can be easily worked around with promotion on request from referees board computer (or somehow else verified and checked by referees before entering).

Otherwise imagine you run a marathon and some ppl just doing shortcuts accomlishin a distance in some of more or less great time. And at the finish line nobody check where certain guy comes from , just logging his results.
Now imagine you are really interesting in ranking you currently have there, but it is really impossible for you to see you real ranking just because you don't know how many ppl were running through full the distance and ´what were their results.

I believe challenges suppose to motivate ppl while in such form that they are currently are they'd rather demotivate - will be you motivated in participating in the marathon event like above?

Even "verified" results currently can be cheat. All I need is just visit as many gyms as I can tonight and steal whole the kms/miles off teh all the concepts I'll find out there. Voila! I did about 600km*number of found rowers*number of visited gyms in just a one day, and all these kms are "verified".

[Carl Watts]

Yes it will always be possible to cheat (especially if you get to a technical level with the rower) but the first thing you do it to make the cheating much harder and far less convenient and easy to do. While the manual meters entry system exists, its just too easy to fudge your numbers.

As I have said earlier, rather than trying to change the current system, which clearly many people object to changing, why not just set-up a series of challenges throughout the year for verified meters only ? this keeps everyone happy.

Perhaps a totally different group of people would become interested in putting in the effort for a separate challenge.

[edinborogh]

i finished the Mud March challenge few days ago.
i take a photo with my phone after each rowing session for my personal Excel tracker i have on my laptop at home. i also record the verification code for each session.

i assume its a matter of trust, no? i mean C2 has templates for the certifications and creating them doesnt cost anything, so why bother with authentication? its not set out to break a world record or get a cash prize or similar. those who cheat - cheat only themselves. those who are legit, have the right to be proud of their achievement. I did a half marathon and i did 3 extra meters. i contacted C2 because i wanted the certificate really bad ( juvenile, i know.. but hey i rowed hard for it ) - they told me to log the correct distance manually. i still have the verification code of the original session with the extra 3 meters. just to say that its an individual thing in my opinion..

[mickyduck]

I agree with the above you are only cheating yourself by entering fake data. My lady and I rowed almost 1.5 millom M in the january challenge almost every m "verified".. the odd hicup with the iPhone and ERGData did force us to add some data manually... yes I could have got the laptop out and connected it to the PM5.. but again at one point even the PM5 said it needed to fix my data and nothing would be lost BUT it was.

There were no prizes excepy a downloadable certificate so why bother to cheat?

The challenge was massivly motivatiing for us as we had never really rowed before... so thats the "use" of these challenges for us novices but I fully understand that the more serious rower will be pissed by the cheats

In the end we were reasonably serious .. I took the day off work on 31 Jan so we could both row all day 30 min on 30 off so we would be top of the Virtual Teams less than 5 members most M rowed per person... Lucky me got to go out to see Black Sabbath so left Susan to it

Team is "Need to lose 5 Kilo".. and we have just done March Mud maddness and entered the world EGR challenge.. doing Ok for a pair of old cyclists

[Carl Watts]

There were no prizes excepy a downloadable certificate so why bother to cheat?

You guys simply don't understand the mentality of those that cheat and why they do it. No prizes or money has nothing to do with it.

The thing is you don't need to understand anything other than the cheating happens and its easy to eradicate it. The Concept 2 utility now and a logcard is all you need, you simply never need to manually enter the meters. If my RowPro crashes during a row, the verified result is always on the LogCard and it can be uploaded via the utility, there are no excuses. If you still have a PM1 or a PM2 then tough luck, you pre-2003 technology shouldn'd be holding everyone else back.

As I keep banging on here, just run ONE verified only challenge each year and I can stop posting over and over on threads like this.

[bisqeet]

We should make a name them and shame them thread....

[Citroen]

We should make a name them and shame them thread....

No. Two reasons.

1. They won't see it and don't care anyway.
2. You may be risking libelling them.

Just send emails to rowing@concept2.com until they fix it.

[Carl Watts]

There is only one solution to this, it was created in 2003 but not fully implemented, its now long overdue.

Your just going to go round and round in circles until its verified rows only and the manual meters entry system is deleted.

[hjs]

There is only one solution to this, it was created in 2003 but not fully implemented, its now long overdue.

Your just going to go round and round in circles until its verified rows only and the manual meters entry system is deleted.

So I can,t log my meters because you want me to verify everything.

I have an other feature, people need to do a race every season, if not you can,t enter any meters. Very important to keep the races in the picture

Challenges is an other point, but again its personal, what others do or don,t in the end does not matter.

[Carl Watts]

Use your brain, you can separate out having to have only verified meters for one or even all the challenges.

Really your in the dark ages if your not using the concept 2 utility to upload, RowPro to upload or all the other options like ErgData to give you a verified result so why not dump the manual meters completely ?

Sorry but the only people that would really object to a verification process are the cheats.

The annual meters board doesn't really worry me these days, neither does the rankings as now you can sort by "verified only" rows so I simply remove everything thats not verified.

The problem is the challenges, they are a joke.