There can be a big difference between P2P and private
Privates get lots of inflation due to many reviewers not wanting to offend their host
Privates get lots of inflation due to many reviewers not wanting to offend their host
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Best/Favorite Courses
- Thread starter Mando
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I don't think anyone disagrees with that! Mando first pointed out the correlation here:
I think what I have shown is that for the Favorite clicks, there is definitely a positive correlation between Private and a higher occurrence of Favorite clicks (see below). I cannot think of any way to quantify in a similar way the favor shown via ratings to private courses and their owners.
Bottom line, the way Mando has combined Ratings and Favorite clicks compounds the favoritism shown to private courses and their owners. Personally, I would like to see something that cancels out this favoritism and rates courses purely on the merit of the course itself.
I don't disagree---but perhaps the stats do.
If equally-rated courses get a higher percentage of favorites if they're private, doesn't that mean that equally-favorited courses get lower average ratings if they're private?
If equally-rated courses get a higher percentage of favorites if they're private, doesn't that mean that equally-favorited courses get lower average ratings if they're private?
I've no doubt that both are factors. But I count among my all-time favorites, private courses where I never met the owner. There are a lot of factors in the high ratings of private courses, some of which include the fact that some of them are actually great courses.
OregonDG420
Birdie Member
Top 3 favorite course in order. #1- Milo McIver #2- Whistlers Bend #3- Dexter
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I am having a hard time wrapping my head around what you are asking and how to measure it. Doing a spot check on the top 50, I highlighted the Public courses that are higher than the surrounding Private courses (there are too many Privates to spot check exactly what yo are asking):c
Code:
[B]Rating [COLOR="blue"]Prcnt[/COLOR] $/Priv Course[/B]
4.63 71% Private Birds of Paradise
4.58 53% Private Coyote Trace
4.85 51% Priv$ Flip City Disc Golf Park
4.50 49% Priv$ Base Camp Adventure Lodge DGC
4.88 48% Priv$ Bucksnort DGC
4.46 48% Priv$ Branson Cedars Resort Treehouz DGC
4.54 46% Whistler's Bend
4.72 44% Priv$ Blue Ribbon Pines DGC
4.35 43% P2P Solitude Mountain Resort
4.64 43% P2P Beaver Ranch
4.73 43% Private Harmon Hills
4.63 42% Deer Lakes Park
4.82 41% Priv$ Rollin Ridge
4.54 40% Ashe County Park
4.67 40% Private Hawk Hollow
[B]4.77[/B] 40% Idlewild
4.63 39% Priv$ Holler In The Hills
4.61 39% Moraine State Park
4.53 39% Wildcat Bluff
4.72 38% Priv$ Maple Hill DGC
4.40 38% P2P DeLaveaga Park
[B]4.54 [/B]38% Water Works Park
4.38 37% Private Stoney Hill
4.36 37% Sipapu Ski & Summer Resort
4.93 37% Priv$ Selah Ranch - Lakeside
4.56 36% Brakewell Steel / Warwick Park
4.50 36% Priv$ Shawshank
4.50 36% Priv$ Bud Hill - Original
4.46 35% P2P Bailey DGC
4.57 35% P2P Milo McIver State Park (Riverbend DGC)
[B]4.69[/B] 35% Tyler State Park
4.47 35% Lincoln Ridge Park
4.54 35% Fairfield Park
4.44 35% P2P Coyote Point DGC @ Lake Casitas
4.78 34% Priv$ Selah Ranch - Creekside
4.35 34% Hickory Hills
4.27 34% Grindstone Park
4.44 34% P2P Bryant Lake Park
4.45 33% Shelton Springs DGC
4.65 33% Priv$ Phantom Falls
4.31 33% P2P Standing Rocks
4.52 33% Foundation Park DG Complex - Champ 18
4.50 33% Private The Lodge - Island Course
4.44 33% Zobel Park
4.36 33% P2P Mountain Lake DGC
4.50 33% Priv$ Sky High DGC
4.25 32% Private Lucky Mud DGC
4.32 32% Dexter Park DGC
4.30 32% Pier Park
[B]4.65[/B] 32% Giants Ridge
4.25 32% Priv$ Colorado Heights University DGCIt seems for every case that agrees with you, there are 2 that don't.
Does my analysis here make sense?
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My mileage varies. Out of my top 25, only 2 are private (but 12 are P2P). I have never played Gran Canyon (went there in the rain and the owner turned me away), and I liked Stillwater a ton but did not absolutely love it (tied with Flip & Highbridge Gold).
Out of the famous Private courses, this is how they fall on my list:
26T - Maple Hill
26T - Highbridge Blueberry Hill
36T - Flip City
36T - Highbridge Gold
62 - Flyboy
Take the top-10 "favorite percentage" private courses, and the top 10 "favorite percentage" public courses. The average "favorite percentage" of the private courses will be, what, 25% higher than the public courses?
Yet the average rating of those same courses won't be 25% higher, or anything comparably dramatic.
Or will it? I'm too lazy to do the math.
So even though people are "favorite" those courses more---which I suspect is really to be influenced by the private nature---they're not rating them so much higher.
You may be out of the mainstream.
As am I, having played none of the Top-10 courses.
My personal Top-6, which I place several tiers above #7-120, includes Flyboy, Still Waters Farm, and Gran Canyon. I know Kelly, never met the owners of Still Waters (who weren't disc golfers), and only met the owner of the Canyon the 2nd or 3rd year I was there, well after it had become my favorite. And, of course, Stoney Hill.
Very high among the rest of the courses I've played would include Stonehenge in Nashville (never met the owner), Sugaree (guided by the owner), as well as private/commercial courses like Trophy Lakes, Bohart Ski Ranch, and the Hippodrome (never met the owners). Perhaps the old Merriweather Disc Golf Course in Georgia, too, though I played it so long ago my memory is hazy.
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Flyboy, #62? The Faithful will no doubt want a word with you.
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Here are averages you asked for:
Top 10 Favorite % Private - 46.6%, 4.68 rating
Top 10 Favorite % Public - 40.3%, 4.56 rating
so.....
Private is 15.6% higher than Public based on Favorite%
Private is 2.7% higher than Public based on Rating
This agrees with what you said. But, is it valid? Namely, is a ratings gain from 4.56 to 4.68 really only 2.7%?
I would say since it is moving so close to the theoretical max of 5.0, it is much more significant than just a 2.7% boost. So, if you look at the percentage boost towards the theoretical max for each (100% for Percent, 5.0 for Rating), you see that:
Private boosts the Favorite clicks 10.6% towards the theoretical max of 5.0
Private boosts the Rating only 27.3% towards the theoretical max of 100%
This shows the opposite of what you are suggesting.
But, this is probably equally as flawed as your approach since you probably need to do something comparing standard deviations on the bell curves to get a real answer.....and I am too lazy/rusty to do so and I'm not going to spend the time pulling the data to do that anyhow.
I was guessing that the difference in favorite percentages would be greater. And yes, it's unfair to of me to just use the percentage difference for both statistics. And the big disclaimer, which is the favorite percentage is a shaky statistic in the first place. It's all for fun and amusement.
But if people "favorite" private courses more often, and ratings inflation for private courses were real, I think you'd expect a bigger discrepancy in ratings than 0.1. At least at the top.
But if people "favorite" private courses more often, and ratings inflation for private courses were real, I think you'd expect a bigger discrepancy in ratings than 0.1. At least at the top.
It's clear that good private courses are preferred over good public courses by some amount but to break that down to something as simple as saying the people just want to cowtail to the owner/designer of those privates is bad science no matter how many stats you throw at it.
privates are better than public courses for a lot of reasons in most cases; the problem is that Dave and some others don't want to admit the physical layout of the course isn't the only thing that matters about a course. perhaps it does to you but for most people that is not the case and never will be.
privates are better than public courses for a lot of reasons in most cases; the problem is that Dave and some others don't want to admit the physical layout of the course isn't the only thing that matters about a course. perhaps it does to you but for most people that is not the case and never will be.
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I assume I am the Dave you are referring to. That is kind of true of me (other than that beauty/seclusion are 20-25% of my grade), but the real overarching truth is that the biggest problem with DGCR ratings is that many/most of the reviewers rate ways too heavily on how good a course is for FIRST TIMERS.
While there is value to that since many/most use DGCR as a travel guide of sorts, courses are not designed, built or perfected to cater to first timers. Many who are first timers (one-time visitors) also include "fluid" items like maintenance and friendly locals. These are "fluid" since the very next visit both of those could be night and day different for you.
A "good" course is one that I want to play over and over and over....and many of the things many people list as important have absolutely nothing to do with enjoying the course when I am playing it over and over and over.
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I completely agree with this. It is much more complicated and scientificky than that as there is the whole dynamic of being able to partake unharassed thing mixed in there.
Reading a book right now that features La Mirada. Well, a thesis made into book form that is.
Welcome to the forums, btw!
Rodmon
Newbie
Dave242, I do hold a BS in Advertising, but I had to take 2 of the 3 prep classes before I passed one, just to squeak by the Advertising Stats 300 level class. I am a camera & writing guy. So, could I ask you to explain what these numbers mean for say, the Lake Lewisville Disc Golf Park? I am researching anything I can to find out how many Disc golfers have played and how much they love Lake Lewisville Park. (I'm sumo wrestling city hall and trying to get LLPDG opened before August or when they get around to it.)
AhhHAHAHAHA! Its "kowtow", but that's an awesome Freudian slip. It brings to mind cows following the farmer to the barn to get fed.
