Golden Ticket Awards: And the winner is...

PhantomTails:

They host CoasterCon next year as well so you may be right.

It's highly likely. Maybe a few paid advertisements between now and then will help cement that?

Surprisingly I actually think this year's list is "the list."

It's always looks strange when you separate wood from steel.

Captain coasters list is still a popularity contest in the end. Regardless of what people claim they have ridden. So are most online lists

In the end I'll accept this list over the others because of the combination and exclusiviness of only enthusiasts who have been on a wide array of coasters for many years. As apposed to 95 percent of voters being fanboys, and semi enthusiast to their local rides.

I believe this list to be cannon.

kpjb:

I never understood why they'd move a park because it's landlocked then put it somewhere else that's landlocked.

I've been to Denver twice for work, and I remember passing Elitch on the way from the airport to my hotel and thinking, "that's where Elitch's is?" It literally couldn't be more in the center of the metropolitan area.

And yet, almost inaccessible except by car.

Or light rail, a short walk to the main gate.

I think the current location of Elitch's was kind of a result of politics at the time. I recently read something about Sandy Gurtler finalizing a location in Highlands Ranch, the south metro area. However the people of Highlands Ranch fought it. And then Denver wanted to keep it in city limits. The park was built on an old railyard. It was all about revitalizing the Platte River Valley. I believe the city incentivized the move to that location, while the new arena for the Avs and Nuggets was being built next door and the aquarium on the other side of the river. Really hot weather and poor reviews (lack of shade and trees, an inferior Twister, no log ride, etc) doomed the park its first 2 seasons. Low attendance and mounting bills caused Sandy to sell it to Premier Parks, who then purchased Six Flags 2 years later. The park was quickly overgrown in that small and oddly shaped location.

It hasn't even been 30 years, and they're already talking about redeveloping that location and moving to a third. I hope it happens, Denver can support a larger park with bigger rides. I would love their signature coaster to not be an SLC. Ha

I think a lot of times, they try to get people that have been on recent international trips, as they are more seasoned riders. I know after I did the ACE trip in 2002 to Europe, I got a ballot for a couple of years.

Looking at the wood & steel lists, it is great to see many classics still in top 50...many of which are in my top 10. Rides like Whizzer, Riddler Mindbender and SFOT Shockwave are all favorites. Also great to see many foreign coasters in the lists. Rides like Millennium Force will never be in my top 10 lists. I have mentioned this before, but I actually have Lost Coaster of Superstition Mountain in my Top 10 wood.

Sure some might think this is a sham poll. But I don't think it is as bad they think it is. Is it perfect...no. But I don't think you could do a perfect poll. It does help to get those riders out there that are well traveled. Their opinions are going to differ greatly from those that don't leave their state.

Just my two cents.

Can a poll ever be perfect? No. Can a poll be better than a popularity contest? Yes. I don’t know their methodology, but if you have to hand select your sample, you’re “doing it wrong.”

I don’t think that vetting voters makes the poll more wrong. It’s like the Academy Awards versus the People’s Choice Awards. Neither is more correct, but one is the perspective of well-traveled enthusiasts and industry members, and the other is from anyone who has access to a computer.

Here’s the huge difference between any of those typical comparisons, though: It is expected and trivially easy for The Academy to watch all the candidate movies. It is basically impossible for a voter in the Golden Tickets to do so. I think the clear way to combat this is with poll methodology (like Jeff’s or Mitch’s) and not with an “experienced sample” popularity poll. I love me some Apollo’s Chariot (obv.) but it’s ridiculous for it to be 8th.

As I recall they do their best to make sure there’s a wide range of voters and the distribution is even. And by that I mean the country (the world) is divided into regions and there’s a limit to the number of voters allowed in each region. As you can imagine, some of the regions are tougher to fill than others. My region, the one that includes Ohio, was hard to get into. Other regions were short on panel members. I seem to remember that voters were hand selected and there were other criteria. Maybe someone here who’s participated knows more than me.

I think you have to weight it to be meaningful. That's what I got out of the Hawker poll back in the day, I just generally disqualified it because there was no floor for statistical significance. That's why I throw out half the votes in mine but still have a threshold. I don't know if it's "right" or not, but it feels right.

My issue (as a pure math nerd, not necessarily for this particular application) is that there is any bias towards coasters that more people have ridden. If there's any such bias methodologically, I can't accept the poll.

That's impossible to overcome. You can't expect every person to have been on all the rides.

But the way you weight the data can compensate for that. The way that the CBuzz 100 and Mitch’s poll are designed, less riders does not necessarily imply lower rank, all other things being equal. Any kind of “add up the votes” method, even with “experienced riders across diverse regions” will have that bias.

It's still bias, however unlikely it is that the ride you disqualified for only having two riders really is the best ever.

Okay, sure. There’s some statistical significance threshold that has to be met, but to me that is a completely different issue and one that affects all polling methods. It may disqualify certain rides, but it won’t change the ordering of the rides which qualify.

That is much more intractable than just changing the way you weight and/or tally votes.

In the end, it's a "best coasters" poll. Regardless of poll methodology, I feel the same about them as I do any such "top 100 drummers of all time" or whatever.

Is Consumer Reports still a thing? Years ago I used to get their magazine and it made me mad that they wasted money and effort on determining what the best tasting anything was. Everyone's tastes are so different why even bother.

I must be doing something wrong. When I click on the link it only shows the 2019 issue of the magazine and not the 2022.

Yeah, I don't take the results too seriously either way, because "roller coasters". But I take polling methodology very seriously, especially as things like ranked choice voting methods are being experimented with in actual, meaningful elections and the two party system (a direct result of first past the post voting) continues to entrench polarization.

If you want "way too much" information, ask me what I think about tournament design.