How biased are CD polls

[evanperryg]

Originally Posted by Bryce2471

A couple more things that this poll does not account for:

*snip*

Also, keep in mind that this is only recording a team's first event. We got knocked out in quarters at our first event because of some really bad luck, then made it to finals at our second event, won chairman's and went to Einstein. The first event alone is hardly a metric for a team's overall performance in a given season.

[MikLast]

Would you count a backup team going to a final (without being in any other match in that events playoffs) count as being eliminated in the final? If not then it would be just quarterfinals for us.

[Koko Ed]

The CD community is just a small very vocal sampling of the overall FIRST community. Many are either too intimidated or think CD is just a colossal waste of time to participate. CD should not be a representative of the pulse of the FIRST community in any way, shape or form.

[Taylor]

I believe Chief Delphi-posting teams are

1. Better than the average team
2. Not as good as they think they are*

*obvious exemptions apply

[Caleb Sykes]

Originally Posted by MikLast

Would you count a backup team going to a final (without being in any other match in that events playoffs) count as being eliminated in the final? If not then it would be just quarterfinals for us.

I personally would count this. If you look at my numbers that I ran in my second post, you will see that there were two more finalists last year than winners. Your team is probably one of those, so I think you have every right to say you were a finalist.

[mjc49]

Originally Posted by evanperryg

Also, keep in mind that this is only recording a team's first event. We got knocked out in quarters at our first event because of some really bad luck, then made it to finals at our second event, won chairman's and went to Einstein. The first event alone is hardly a metric for a team's overall performance in a given season.

I believe it is fair to ask for results in the first tournament since there are teams that only participate in one event a year. As others have mentioned, CD is just a subset of the overall FIRST community and the group tends to come from teams that do better than average. Probably better than average mentor and sponsor support as well.

[Caleb Sykes]

Does anyone have a good estimate for the number of 2016 rookies?

[Conor Ryan]

After 318 votes, I think the results are pretty accurate for what the CD user base is.

Average CD user probably is in the range of the 40th-80th percentile of performance.

Lots of hive mind here, and frequent repeated mistakes in design and strategy, as evidenced by the Karthik scared discussion. The highest performers buck the trend continuously.

[Citrus Dad]

Originally Posted by RoboChair

If we assume that a fixed percentage of all FRC students and mentors are active on CD, having a larger team will disproportionately give them more votes.

On top of that, successful teams often have a greater percentage of CD members that are active then teams that are more the norm.

Devin, ditto! I was just going to say the same thing. We have at least a half dozen from our team posting on CD...

[pntbll1313]

Originally Posted by Citrus Dad

Devin, ditto! I was just going to say the same thing. We have at least a half dozen from our team posting on CD...

That's exactly what we're trying to show with this poll. That poll's aren't a good representation of average teams because the biggest and elite teams have many members filling in the same poll skewing the results.

[alopex_rex]

When has any online poll been a good representation of anything?