Mitch Hawker's Wooden Coaster Poll

[rjholla2003]

http://www.ushsho.com/currentrankingswoodrollercoasterpoll2006inseason.htm

Balder retains the number 1 spot, but shares it with The Voyage.  El Toro made it in the top ten, holding a four-way tie with Avalanche, Shivering Timbers, and Raven.  Click the link to see the rest of the top 26.

[overlord]

I dont agree with a 4 way tie for 10th place. El Toro should be top 5 easily. Hopefully this wont effect the votes for the Golden Ticket later this month.

The page is very hard to read....dont they know about tables?

[WadeJ]

The entire poll is very biased anyway.

[rjholla2003]

Apparently he doesn't.  I was like "Tables Please" when I read that poll.

I don't think there's any way to have a non-biased coaster poll.  Too many fanboys on every side to ruin it.

[overlord]

You can have non-biased polls. It just comes down to the right people doing them. Well its better then not cracking the top spots.

[rjholla2003]

One thing that I learned in my Marketing Research class is that there is no such thing as a bias-free poll/survey.  Bias is always present in the poll or survey based on who is conducting the poll, who is taking the poll, the way the questions are asked, the available answers, and a whole host of other things.  The key is to control the bias as much as possible.  From what I've heard, Mitch's poll is the best at neutralizing some of the bias. 

[GADVwow]

From the first post: Balder retains the number 1 spot, but shares it with Balder.

HUH?

[WadeJ]

I think he meant "but shares it with Voyage" lol

[PcMan]

Ok these ranking are all wrong.
THe Legend is at 19  while the Raven is at 10
It should be the other way around.
THe Legend is almost double the length and a much better coaster.
I never give a __ about these rankings  how can everyone ride every coaster and vote.
Where is the Beast and J2   ?

THis poll looks like it originated in Europe see top voting countries below (this is Steel from last year). Also a see a lot of overseas coaster that most of us never rode or ever will. And when they come to the USA they hit the "big parks"
   
       39      Germany   

   24   United Kingdom   

   23   California   

   19   Pennsylvania   

   16   Illinois   

   15   New Jersey   

   13   New York   

   12   Canada   

   10   Massachusetts   

   9   Ohio   

   8   Texas     

   7   Florida   

   7   Minnesota     

   7   Virginia   

   6   Georgia   

   6   North Carolina   

   5   Australia   

   5   Belgium   

   5   Maryland   

   4   France   

   4   Michigan   

   4   Vermont   

   4   Wisconsin
   3   Arkansas   

   3   Switzerland   

   3   Tennessee   

   3   Washington   

   3   West Virginia   

   2   Austria   

   2   Indiana   

   2   Sweden   

   1   Alabama   

   1   Connecticut   

   1   Finland   

   1   Idaho   

   1   Iowa   

   1   Maine    

   1   Missouri   

   1   New Hampshire   

   1   Norway   

   1   Oklahoma   

   1   Rhode Island

[rjholla2003]

From the first post: Balder retains the number 1 spot, but shares it with Balder.

HUH?

Haha, typo fixed.  Thanks for pointing that out.

[stew560]

Reformatted:


Mitch's poll is the best at removing bias, because it doesn't work on the "OMG MF Iz Da BEST" concept, but rather it ranks rides based on a "Win Percentage" based on "Wins" and "Losses" from people who have ridden the rides.

If you look at the "counts" (Which have been updated to show Voyage as #1 because the majority of riders who rode both Voyage and Balder (Assumed) preferred Voyage, which gave Balder a Loss. Voyage has a 99.71% Win % because it has 169 wins, 0 losses and 1 tie. So 169.5/170 = 0.997058.

The completed ballots are tabulated as follows:

   Each coaster is compred one at a time to every other coaster to see whether
more people who have ridden both of them preferred one or the other.
A coaster is given a "Win" for each coaster that more mutual riders ranked
behind it, given a "Loss" for each coaster that more mutual riders ranked ahead
of it, and given a "Tie" for each coaster that the same number of mutual riders
ranked above it and below it.

  Coasters are ranked by their overall winning percentage (where ties count as
half of a win and half of a loss).    In the event that two coasters end up with
identical winning percentages, the tie is broken (if possible) by determining
which of the two won the mutual rider comparison between those two coasters.

So in the case of El Toro, 11 people submitted ballots that included it. Of those 11 people, those that had ridden both, a majority of the 11 thought that El Toro was better than 143 of them, and a majority of the 11 thought there were 6 coasters better than El Toro. And there were 10 rides that people had equally above and below El Toro.

Example: (Not based on anything, just random numbers for an example)
Of the 11 people, 5 had ridden both Balder and El Toro. Of those 5, 4 had Balder higher than El Toro, therefore El Toro gets a "Loss" because the majority of the mutual riders put Balder ahead of it.

Now for Raven, 10 of the 11 had ridden both. 5 people had El Toro higher and 5 had it lower. In this case, El Toro gets a "Tie".

Then Rolling Thunder: 11 of 11 rode both, and all 11 had El Toro better, El Toro gets a "Win".

Repeat this process for all of the coasters ridden and you get the total Wins, Losses, and Ties. From this number, calculate the Win Pct by (Wins + Ties/2) / Total (Wins + Losses + Ties)

With only 11 ballots in for El Toro, these numbers are just scratching the surface, The "InSeason" poll is to give a rough picture of how the new coasters will do and it will continue to change as more ballots come in with 2006 results. The real meat will be in the final results when more riders have ridden the new coasters. I would not be surprised to see El Toro pop up a few spots (Maybe to the 7-8 Range), but  only time will tell.

[overlord]

After you have explained, it does seem like a good poll. Just early to really guess on the final counts.

[WadeJ]

Awesome explanation Stew!  I'll admit I'm actually somewhat impressed by the poll.  However, we could go on and on about the enthusiasts that take part in these type of things

[sir clinksalot]

Actually, I think Mitch's poll is probably one of the most un-biased out there. Unlike the Golden Tickets.

But I still can't believe Ghostrider is that high.