Any news on the 2014 Mitch Hawker poll?

[kweiss]

I haven't heard anything about 2014 results or voting. What's up?

[robbalvey]

No one has heard anything.

[sirspud]

How does one get to be a part of these polls?

[Superbatboy]

If I knew the formula he uses, we could do our own mini-TPR poll lol. I guess we're in for another year of Golden Tickets litered with B&M hypers

[robbalvey]

I'm pretty sure he explains at least the basics of how he does his formula on the website.

[boldikus]

Sorry to bump this but I have been curious if this poll has ever popped up this late in the season or should we assume its just not happening in 2015 since it hasn't been announced yet?

 

Personally I'm pretty bummed as my ballot last year was pathetic (just hovering around 40 creds) and I kind of felt like an ass voting at all. However, since that time I'm gotten twice as many credits and my top 20 is vastly different this year and finally filled with quality machines after visits to Hershey, Dorney, Cedar Point and Kennywood.

 

I was so hyped to vote this year... :/

[robbalvey]

I think the poll is pretty much dead, at least for this year. I kind of said it earlier, if we have any tech savvy people on this forum that want to try to re-create the poll and put something together, I'd be willing to host it. But it would need to be more like Mitch's poll where it compares people's ACTUAL experience against each other, not just a popularity contest. I'm not interested in polls like that.

[Teonanacatl]

I definitely think I can recreate the algorithm as described by him. Does anyone have a ballot from last year lying around or something? That would be a good start. Then I would only need to add all the new coasters since then, and then we would at least have a ballot. From there It should be smooth sailing (more or less).

[JohnD]

About 5 years ago I developed my own version of the algorithm, which produces largely the same results as the official poll (I *think* the small number of discrepancies are due to a couple of typos in the raw ballots displayed on the site, though I'm not 100% sure). I have used my implementation to run an unofficial poll on Alton Towers fansites (links to my own 2011-13 polls), so I have some experience of running the poll, albeit on a much smaller scale. Armed with this I was tempted to try to "go it alone" last year, but due to my lack of web knowledge I didn't attempt it.

 

After the steel poll skipped a year in 2011 I updated the ballots for 2012 and 13 (sorry for any errors & omissions ), and it was a major undertaking, one which I don't really have time to take on. To see the scale of the task, rcdb now lists over 3500 steel rides, compared to just 177 woodies worldwide. If the poll is to return, it may be necessary to seriously rethink the eligibility criteria for the steel ballot to ensure it is manageable yet representative. As a rough guide, I used "more substantial than a Vekoma Junior" as my main requirement for inclusion in 2013, which resulted in a 450 line ballot.

 

To anyone brave enough to take on the task, good luck creating the ballot! I'm sure there are loads of people out there hoping it'll come back in some form or another, as the methodology makes it arguably the most accurate coaster poll out there.