Mitchs best woodie poll

I should imagine!

At least this poll takes everyone who's ridden any two coasters, and matches them head to head to see which coaster of that pairing the riders prefer. A GP poll would have a bunch of people who only visit their home park, or maybe one or two others, yelling that their coasters are the best. But compared to what?

matt. said:

It would be interesting, as Jeff suggests, to design something that updates in real time and is very easy to fill and rank, ...

See the rankings at coasterfanatics

I prefer this ranking over Mitch's

Lord Gonchar said:

But I argue that it's not supposed to mirror the overall population's preference. I say it measures the trends of hardcore coaster nerds and that's the point.

Sorry, I should have clarified that when I said "population" I meant the "population of interest" and in this case I would say that is very much coaster nerds, and not the general population. We're on the same page.

Paul Miner said:

See the rankings at coasterfanatics

I prefer this ranking over Mitch's

I'm not a survey research expert by any means, but if I understand this correctly then people are "rating" coasters on a scale of 1-10 and then they're being ranked according to the ratings. I think that's kind of a fatal flaw for this one, as it's really hard to gauge a thing like preference with explicitly asking for a...preference. Maybe I'm misreading the methodology or something, it just seems like they're measuring one thing and then making something else the outcome.

Yet this is essentially the same as the scheme used for judging of various sporting events (e.g. diving, gymnastics, figure skating).

The reality is that there are flaws in all mechanisms for determining a social preference from a large set of alternatives. For a detailed description, you could google Arrow's Impossibility Theorem.

Mitch's poll uses a technique called ranked pairs, whereas CoasterFanatics uses a variant of range voting. Neither is perfect, but my preference is for range voting.

Wow...I am shocked at how high I ranked The Boss and The Beast this year...

It's called having good taste, you'll get used to it. :)

I rode Boss in 2003, 2008 & 2009. I enjoyed my rides this year more than the previous visits.

I do get really annoyed filling out the vast majority of my ballot, even if it's already been filled out from last year. My solution - just don't. I really don't care about where any coaster outside the top 25 falls, so I don't vote for any coaster that doesn't have a shot at being there. I trust that Phoenix and El Toro will beat <generic wooden coaster> without my vote, so I just don't include <generic wooden coaster> on my list.

Paul Miner said:
Mitch's poll uses a technique called ranked pairs, whereas CoasterFanatics uses a variant of range voting. Neither is perfect, but my preference is for range voting.

To each his own, I suppose, but I prefer Mitch's poll, even though I've ranked my coasters on the Fanatics site too. The problem with ranking coasters on a scale from 1-10, is as soon as you have more than 10 coasters to compare, you have ties, with no way to rank subtle differences.

It's easy for me to rank the coasters at the top and bottom of the list. But when I get to the bunch in the middle, what works for me is to ask, if I got to ride one coaster before park close, would I choose Coaster A or Coaster B? Putting it that way makes it simple for me to rank coasters that aren't my most or least favorite.

Maybe this belongs in the thread about die-hard coaster geeks, but I have a spreadsheet that lists all the coasters I have ridden and I rate them on various things such as airtime and re-rideability. I then convert the scores to a percent and then sort them. I round the scores for the coaster fanatics site. Yeah. I'm hardcore.

Go with it. It does belong on ont the "DHCG" thread.

So, are you guys getting your, list of coasters you plan on bitching about, if they break into the top 10, of this list?

I have yet to ride "generic wooden coaster X", they're all special to me (even the ones that didn't require re-rides)... ;)

Coasterphan said:
So, are you guys getting your, list of coasters you plan on bitching about, if they break into the top 10, of this list?

I think it was Ethel Mertz who said "Some people's taste is all in their mouths."

^^ Generic Coaster X is at Charmland.

I thought "Generic Coaster X" was any junior woodie based on the Schmeck/PTC design, meaning Little Dipper (closed), Meteor, Sea Dragon, Beastie, Scooby Doo, Scooby Doo, Scooby Doo, Zach's Zoomer, and Teddy Bear. I think that's the closest thing to a "Boomerang" that we have among wood coasters.

That or the Cyclone variants, but those are all much more different from each other than the aforementioned juniors. After all, among Cyclone, T-clone (DEMO), G-clone, P-clone (DEMO) and Viper there are at least four different kinds of trains, the layouts are all a little different, and two have been demolished...

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

THREE... Aska

RideMan said:
I thought "Generic Coaster X" was any junior woodie based on the Schmeck/PTC design, meaning Little Dipper (closed), Meteor, Sea Dragon, Beastie, Scooby Doo, Scooby Doo, Scooby Doo, Zach's Zoomer, and Teddy Bear. I think that's the closest thing to a "Boomerang" that we have among wood coasters.

That or the Cyclone variants, but those are all much more different from each other than the aforementioned juniors. After all, among Cyclone, T-clone (DEMO), G-clone, P-clone (DEMO) and Viper there are at least four different kinds of trains, the layouts are all a little different, and two have been demolished...

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

In addition to Aska, you forgot the Stengel designed, RCCA built Mirror Cyclone running in Germany. To make it even "better", it runs the same trains as SOB used to have!

The Steel poll is now open!

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

http://www.coasterfanatics.com/sec_poll/poll_step1.asp?type=2009steel