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The Official "TPR Coaster Poll" Thread!


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Going back to the cloned coaster discussion, my thoughts on this are to break it up by restraints. Obviously, some cloned coasters with different restraints are going to ride better than others.

That could be something added on as part of our "random stuff" info dump at the end, but regardless of which harnesses or trains are used, an SLC is an SLC and a boomerang is a boomerang. Breaking them up like that is splitting hairs, and really, is the difference between the 225th-ranked coaster and the 250th-ranked coaster that significant?

 

Breaking it up in that manner won't magically make Great Nor'Easter rise to the top 100.

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Going back to the cloned coaster discussion, my thoughts on this are to break it up by restraints. Obviously, some cloned coasters with different restraints are going to ride better than others.

 

For example, we should have individual rankings for

- SLCs with the old restraints

- SLCs with the KumbaK restraints

- SLCs with the new vest restraints

- Boomerangs with Vekoma trains

- Boomerangs with Arrow trains

- Boomerangs with vest restraints (Carolina Cobra, Speed of Sound, etc.)

- Boomerangs with lap bars

 

You know, like that. Thoughts?

This is even more confusing. Seriously is "SLCs with the KumbaK restraints" versus "SLCs with the old restraints" really going to upset the outcome of the poll that much? Like if one gets ranked at #286 versus #312 is anyone really going to care?

 

I want this poll to appeal to the masses, not JUST the "out of state roller coaster weirdos."

 

(bonus points if you know where that reference is from.)

 

And the reason why I want it to appeal to the masses is this:

 

We've seen loads of polls out there for the "masses" where they group "top ten" roller coasters and everyone goes WTF? Including, but not limited to, the Golden Tickets.

 

IMO, the Mitch Hawker poll was the absolute BEST example of a coaster poll out there were it put people's ACTUAL EXPERIENCES against each other, not just a popularity contest where "the park with the best social media team who can get the most votes, wins!"

 

The trouble with the Hawker poll is how complex it was and it took HOURS sometimes for people to fill out a ballot.

 

What I want with the TPR Coaster Poll is a poll that can appeal to the "casual theme park fan" without being too daunting to use and without being a "popularity content."

 

Yes, the die-hard roller coaster people are going to want to rank every single coaster, every single type of coaster, every single seat on a coaster, but quite frankly, that's not what the type of community TPR is, sorry.

 

We have, at least for the past few years, been stressing that people focus on the "fun" of theme parks and roller coasters and worry less about counting credits and ranking them to the nth degree.

 

But people still ask me everywhere "what is your top ten", "What is your favorite coaster," etc. So I feel it is important to be able to produce a list of the best in the world, and of course, the worst in the world.

 

Do I think that list needs to include "Boomerangs with Vekoma trains" against "Boomerangs with Arrow trains?" Absoultely NOT! In fact, if it was purely up to me, I'd remove Boomerangs entirely! But like I said, I want this poll to be a good mix of what appeals to the masses and what appeals to the die hard enthusiasts.

 

I'd love nothing more than THOUSANDS of people to contribute ballots to the poll this year. And just being completely honest, we aren't going to get there if we have stuff like "SLCs with the KumbaK restraints" on the ballot.

 

Just my two cents....

Edited by robbalvey
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I won't lie, even as a coaster person I would have to Google "Which Vekoma SLCs have Kumbak restraints" to fill that out.

And as someone who has ridden maybe 2,000 coasters in the world (I say maybe because I stopped counting and I don't even know) and have probably ridden an SLC with Kumbak trains, I would also have to look it up because I couldn't even tell you which ones had them and which ones didn't because I simply do not give-a-shit.

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A possible solution would be to give people the choice rank some examples of a large generic model (boomerange, SLC's etc) individually, and then lump the rest together into "Favorite other X" or something like that, and then when the results are tallied, all the "X"'s will be ranked in one spot, unless a lot of people chose to make a significant distinction between certain examples they've ridden vs the rest.

 

For example, if you've ridden 15 SLC's, and you think 14 of them are around the same level of crap, but one of them is really good comparatively, you could rank the one that's good individually, and put all the others under "fav other SLC" or some other generic SLC label. Then, when tallying the polls, if it seems that a lot of people made a distinction between that one SLC and the other ones, it may get a special spot in the poll. Does that make sense?

 

That may be more effort than it's worth, but it's an idea, even if it may not be a good one.

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A possible solution would be to give people the choice rank some examples of a large generic model (boomerange, SLC's etc) individually, and then lump the rest together into "Favorite other X" or something like that, and then when the results are tallied, all the "X"'s will be ranked in one spot, unless a lot of people chose to make a significant distinction between certain examples they've ridden vs the rest.

 

For example, if you've ridden 15 SLC's, and you think 14 of them are around the same level of crap, but one of them is really good comparatively, you could rank the one that's good individually, and put all the others under "fav other SLC" or some other generic SLC label. Then, when tallying the polls, if it seems that a lot of people made a distinction between that one SLC and the other ones, it may get a special spot in the poll. Does that make sense?

 

That may be more effort than it's worth, but it's an idea, even if it may not be a good one.

Giving people more choices doesn't make the poll less confusing or daunting. It does the opposite.

Edited by robbalvey
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KISS

 

Keep it simple stupid.

 

This poll is already light years ahead of any GP coaster/park poll out there, I think we just need to find that sweet spot between dumb and way too much effort and work that scares any casual person away.

 

Stick with favorite type and don't stress about every type of Boomerang/SLC/Zyklon/etc. cause none of them will be in the top 25 anyways!

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KISS

 

Keep it simple stupid.

 

This poll is already light years ahead of any GP coaster/park poll out there, I think we just need to find that sweet spot between dumb and way too much effort and work that scares any casual person away.

 

Stick with favorite type and don't stress about every type of Boomerang/SLC/Zyklon/etc. cause none of them will be in the top 25 anyways!

Yeah, I gotta be honest. I'm sort of at the point where if everyone wants to rank everything to the nth degree, that's not the TPR Coaster Poll and I'd rather just not do it at all.

 

So it either needs to be something that both the casual fan and die hard fan can both relate to, or we just table this idea, and let everyone vote in the golden tickets or USA Today polls.

 

I personally think we are already WAY WAAAAY better than that. Why do we need to stress over SLC's and Boomerangs by adding multiple options that a handful of people are going to care about? That just seems really silly to me.

Edited by robbalvey
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I still remember the SLCs I have ridden, around the world, that were good ones, to me.

But that's too much work to sort through an entire list of them.... ick.

 

Not to mention all the Boomerangs that abound, all around the world.

 

Too many of the same thing. So don't list them (at) all.

 

And make fanbois go berserk! Jingle.

 

 

p.s. For a nice one-two surprise, I actually enjoyed both the SLC and the Boomerang in Six Flags Mexico! ..... Ole!

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Okay, everyone, we believe that we've come up with a solution.

 

In the 2017 poll, we found that the existing four Intamin Mega-Lite coasters (Kawasemi, Piraten, Mega-Lite and Fly Over Mediterranean) were skewing the results and taking up valuable spots on the top 25 coasters. Since we wanted to have as wide a representation as possible for that top 25, we decided to group those coasters together into one entry when the time came to get the results. Together, those coasters placed 14th on the combined ranking. If we hadn't grouped them, Shambhala, iSpeed and Iron Rattler wouldn't have been in the top 25.

 

For 2018, we will be doing a similar thing for any "clone" or that has three installations or more.

 

For example, the Superman flying coasters and Crystal Wing will be "grouped" in this manner, since there are four examples of that layout, but Manta and Acrobat will not be. We will also be doing some curation as to which layouts aren't clones exactly but are similar enough that they should be grouped (such as S&S El Loco coasters).

 

How does this affect you as a voter? Short answer: it doesn't. All of this work is happening behind the scenes, and we are doing this in such a way that every individual coaster will still be available to search for and rank. So all of you completionists out there can rest easy. This method will also allow us to make sure we aren't using any hardcore coaster jargon as to not alienate our casual voters.

 

Look for more details coming soon! Only two more weeks!

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Grouping all the clones together makes the most sense by far. It's much easier for me to group the 3 batman clones together than trying to actually sit down and think "hmmm SFOT or SFGAdv well SFOT did have that one very minor shake in the 2nd corkscrew" (I've never actually had this thought or cared whether a B&M "rattles" just for clarification I just made that thought process up ).

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  • 3 weeks later...

Hey everyone, we're issuing a "last call" for any corrections or additions (such as Python at Efteling, which is now added) before the poll opens.

 

www.coasterpoll.com

 

Again, here's what we're mainly looking for:

 

  • coasterpoll.com website issues
  • Missing coasters and parks
  • Coasters and parks with misspelled names
  • Coasters and parks with inaccurate / out-of-date names (Ricochet > Apple Zapple)
  • Coasters that closed in 2018 or have been SBNO for an extended period of time

 

Let us know!

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  • 2 weeks later...

The cutoff is the size of a wild mouse coaster. Anything larger than and including the typical Mack / Maurer wild mouse is considered "rankable" in our poll.

 

We figured, if you're really ranking stuff like off-shelf Vekoma junior coasters, Pinfari Zyklons, and the like, then you need to find a new hobby.

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