Weekly steps challenge rules aren’t fair

subra said:

No, the rules of most challenges aren't fair because they do not take age and gender into account.

The age is pretty irrelevant at Steps Challenges. I'd tell that in average old healthy people walk more than young ones (having simply more time for the walks).

Additionally, the Steps Challenge already takes in view different performance categories. If you are a high performing ultra trail runner doing 250k steps per week, you will not be in the same group with someone who barely leaves the chair, and does 20k steps per week. You are always assigned to a group with similarly performing users, so you always have the chance to beat them all, regardless what their age, gender, or health are.

It cannot be more fair than that, I'd tell.

I think everyone in the group who reaches the goal number should get a point. That would be fair. I’m in a 100k group but usually the top 3 are 110 or more. I see people come and go in a group. Often mid week there is a new person who shoots way up to #1 and hasn’t been in the group all week. That’s not fair. 

5054522 said:

Often mid week there is a new person who shoots way up to #1 and hasn’t been in the group all week. That’s not fair. 

100% agree !

5054522 said:

I think everyone in the group who reaches the goal number should get a point.

I see no challenge in such system. If you just meet your goal, you already get other badges like the "10K a Day Challenge" or the "60-Day Goal Getter".

5054522 said:

Often mid week there is a new person who shoots way up to #1 and hasn’t been in the group all week. That’s not fair. 

That looks fair to me, since the person has to do the most steps of the group (hence more than his own usual weekly average) anyway, and the conditions are equal for everyone. If you wish, and think that it somehow helps to get to the top, you can join a new challenge just before it ends, too, after all. 

I participated in a step challenge last week. I was bouncing between 1st and 3rd all week for the greatest amount of steps. The top four people, we were all just below or 15,000 steps above 100K for the week. Last night I was ranked in 3rd place for the challenge. Today when I logged onto the site I saw that a man who had zero steps all week won the challenge with 273,931 steps. That was 158,574 more steps than 2nd place! It just doesn't seem fair, especially when I was walking 6-7 miles per day.