The Voyage debuts at #1 in Internet Wood Coaster Poll

Thunderbird came in kinda low from what I hear. I have not personally been on it. I have just heard lots of great things about it.

#39 out of, what?...200 coaster ranked?...is "kinda low"?

^Also remember how many of the people who voted actually rode the ride.

Exactly thats what I was thinking Gomez.

This is NOT a popularity poll... the algorithm is such that the number of people who ride a coaster is irreverent in its ranking.

The OTHER polls (all the other ones?) fail to account for NUMBER of riders....Mitch's poll actually makes certain that "ridden more" doesn't necessarily make a coaster *favored* over other rides....didn't we COVER this extensively in Chapter 1?

Fewer riders DOES tend to make the ranking "less statistically significant" however...

Regardless, Voyage was clearly my favorite coaster...but I like 'em aggressive...and the number of people who voted AND rode Voyage means that it's a fairly SOLID numero uno...

You'll get a better, and more accurate vote on Thunderbird after next season, when over 140 people get back from the Scandi trip.

Yea these polls are all popularity polls. The more popular rides get more votes, the less popular rides get less votes. I wasn't complaining just seeing if anyone here may have ridden it and voted for it. I didn't vote personally because I have not ridden enough of those woodies to make a fair opinion.

Mitch's poll is better than most, but the sample is still statistically insignificant. It's still a popularity contest, it's just a better one than most.

Popularity contest or not I'll say it agian: placing #39 out of almost 200 wooden coasters is NOT a poor showing.

Yeah, some even have one of the lowest ranked in the poll as their number one. It's all subjective, However IMHO Mitches lets the cream rise to the top, not the most visited.

But that's somewhat flawed logic as well. If it's a great coaster, doesn't it stand to reason that more people would visit to ride it? If The Voyage didn't get glowing reviews, do you think anyone would have traveled there to ride it? And like I said, a coaster that is ranked by 16 people is not statistically significant to make it a top 10. If you want to say math makes the poll better, I strongly suggest you take statistics into consideration before you say it's more meaningful.

Something to consider...
Many coasters get ridden simply because they are a "credit" at a park that has another coaster that is worth traveling to visit. Just think how many people ride a boomerang or an SLC once, simply because "it's there."

I bet Mean Streak is one of the most ridden woodies in the world simply because it's at a park that attracts a LOT of people. Now while I don't think it sucks as much as most of us do, the consensus is that it is not a "great woodie."

Having ridden just over half of the global population of wood coasters, I'd estimate half of them to be GREAT coasters, a fourth of them are good rides, and the other fourth are nothing special. With that in mind, polling anywhere in the top 100 would be a great "score" if you will, so I agree that GCI did fine. And in case anyone misinterprets this, I'm not saying if a coaster didn't make the top 100, then it's "bad."

I think that Voyage is definitely Top 10 material.