Originally Posted by
canklecat
Set up your own private segments and ignore most of the others.
Too many popular segments are potentially risky -- high traffic areas, finishing too close to an intersection or actually requiring blasting through stop signs and traffic lights to get anywhere near the top 10.
I only pay attention to the segments that are continuous for a mile or longer without any stop signs, traffic lights or vehicle traffic hot spots (places where cars tend to leap without looking into the road from parking lots or driveways). Oh, and some critter crossing zones -- there are a few places on my rural rides where I'll never crack the top 10 because I always slow down for certain zones where I've seen deer and other critters crossing from blind spots, thick trees, etc.
And I don't care what Strava admin do about contested KOMs. Until they offer something of tangible value, such as discounts or coupons for accomplishments within age groups, weight loss groups, etc., it's not worth worrying about. As a moderator on a photography website for years I watched the daily melodrama over the ratings and praise given to mediocre photos because some groups were better than others at gaming the system. There was nothing to win or lose so all the drama was pointless. Offer some tangible reward and, sure, it's appropriate for admin to step up their scrutiny of suspect users.
Rather than "tangible," I think what you're getting at is that the difference comes when the prize has value in some context outside the contest. While cash and similarly valuable prizes connect the competition to the rest of life and the world in a certain way, by doing so they complicate matters. The old-fashioned idea that such prizes make the sport or game "unpure" is not so much a moral value judgement, it's a simple fact. What makes something a game is the way the rules are totally arbitrary, and they form their own little world where nothing else matters except those rules: "winning isn't everything, it's the only thing." Once prizes with some outside value come in, that little world that was created gets "contaminated" and it starts to become a business. But like I said, that's not a moral value judgement, it's just a complication, and it's totally understandable if the people who set the rules don't want to worry about the implications of making it (part of) a business.