2009 Mitch's Steel Coaster Poll

[Mike]

My Eurofighters:
Rage - 51
Speed - 36
Saw- 62

Out of 111, so there's not a great distance between all of them I suppose, especially when most of my "middle-coasters" are interchangable with eachother anyway.

 

[AmandaPanda]

Me being a Saw liker, I ranked it as my highest Eurofighter, I know what I like, I definatly believe this atleast deserves to be ranked within the top 100!
06 07 08 09?
Rage Adventure Island - 157 202 250ish
Saw - The Ride Thorpe Par - - - 100ish
Speed: No Limits Oakwood 33 55 69 80ish

Shows my predicitons for the UK eurofighters

 

[Gavin]

(I keep trying to get Mitch to increase this number, the number of respondants increases each year. I think last year the minimum was 6, wheras it used to be 3. I'm pushing for 9 or 10, or roughly 2% of the total number of respondants.)

The trouble with that is that some of the more obscure coasters get left out of the poll until there's an enthusiast trip to that particular place, thus pretty much allowing one group of people to decide where it places.

I don't want to get into all that again, and I'm not suggesting it's orchestrated because I'm sure it isn't, but "group" voting definitely does happen and can really skew the results of the poll.

For example, Balder WILL be the number one woodie this year.

 

[rollermonkey]

^What you've described is EXACTLY what I'm trying to keep from happening. Since the minimum for inclusion in the results is "only" 6 people, it's very easy for a small number of people to make massive swings in ranking for coasters that not many people get to ride.

In all seriousness, I was pushing for 10-12 riders as a minimum, or 4-5% of the total respondants.

IIRC, we ended up at 6 for inclusion, but anything with 7-9 voters got a '*' in place of a numerical ranking to distinguish the low ridership. This is how the #2 (or was it #3?) coaster got a '*' last year. I think 7 people had it on a ballot in total.

I prefer the percentage system instead of a fixed number, as if the poll is popular one year, it takes more riders in agreement to affect the results, but if less people fill out ballots, coasters won't necessarily disappear from the results, either.

I said as much last year that I don't think last year's results were a deliberate orchestration, but at the same time, I'm not 100% confident that ERT conditions are the most accurate way to assess a coaster. (I know I enjoy myself more, and thus may skew my own ballot, so I'm sure it may have the same effect on others.)

 

[Gazza]

Did it even get enough votes for serious inclusion?

(I keep trying to get Mitch to increase this number, the number of respondants increases each year. I think last year the minimum was 6, wheras it used to be 3. I'm pushing for 9 or 10, or roughly 2% of the total number of respondants.)

It only had 10 riders, not the minimum of 11 for that year, so it got a star.

 

[marc]

I try not to let ERT effect my vote.

Most people that went on the Eurolive will probably agree that Piraten was good in the ERT but so much better in the afternoon, and it's the afternoon ride that made me rank it where I did.

Now Collosus at Heide Park had no warm up we were on about the 3rd or 4th train? and it was so good cold which is why I rank it higher than Balder. Balder when I rode it took a whole day to get 2 good rides, that to me does not make it a great coaster.

As much as people say other sites can effect the poll there are a large number of new riders of Piraten this year as TPR and CF went to Denmark, there are also 30 new riders of Collosus from CF so if everyone does the poll that will get a huge number of votes.

I expect Collosus, Piraten, Lynet and Flanch to be quite high up tbh.