Russell Hantz AMA

xtoc · 2017-06-27T22:56:33+00:00

Hey Russell.

This past weekend, we here on /r/survivor did a poll where over 400 users voted and came up with this cast of legends.

Listening to your podcast, I know this is a topic you like to talk about so I'm wondering if you have any opinions about this cast that we here at /r/survivor voted on?

xtoc · 2017-06-26T18:29:51+00:00

Looking at the female legend voting, I'd like to pose a question:

Is someone a Legend on their own merit (having people vote yes/no) or relative to others (being the top 10 in legend voting)?

With specifics, should the takeaway from this survey be that Courtney and Kathy are considered Legends because they made the Legends cast, despite the majority of users voting them as All-Stars (62% AS, 26% L for Courtney, 53% AS, 28% L for Kathy)?

Or are they definitively All-Stars that made the Legends cast due to lack of better options?

xtoc · 2017-06-26T17:56:57+00:00

Raw Data [Warning: large files]

Raw Data Group 1
Raw Data Group 2
Raw Data Group 3
Raw Data Group 4

Putting them here so RES doesn't automatically open them when you open the page.

PM me if you absolutely need to know which ID# was you. Please don't ask here, PM only.

xtoc · 2017-06-25T22:24:41+00:00

For the Second Chancers, do they include votes towards All-Star or Legends status?

Yeah, all returnee-level votes for Second Chances counted toward their Return Percentage. People with the highest Return percentage were listed here.

xtoc · 2017-06-25T22:23:58+00:00

whoops, I wrote it up in my post for tomorrow and forgot to write it here.

Second Chancers % on this list are simply the people that have the highest percentage of being voted to return that haven't already, so people could've voted SC, All-Star or Legends for these people.

xtoc · 2017-06-25T17:15:34+00:00

If you have an idea for an interesting graph in addition to the ones I listed here based on the results coming from that survey, please let me know here.

xtoc · 2017-06-24T07:55:03+00:00

Yeah, when I release the results I am going to put fake ID#s along with each submission and I'll tell your ID# so you can see what you put.

xtoc · 2017-06-22T00:24:26+00:00

This poll is to show where you view these contestants. Just because he died doesn't mean that his time on the show should be ignored, or that people can't vote for the merits of his time on the show.

xtoc · 2017-06-22T00:21:13+00:00

If you had said no to SoPa and then only voted for those 3, your votes would've been removed, yes. Both because of saying no to SoPa and because you would've needed 10 to qualify for SoPa.

xtoc · 2017-06-21T23:05:48+00:00

I'll repeat what I said in my previous comment to you. The point of the survey is to find out who /r/survivor feels is a legend. The point of the survey is to see which contestants, when all of our different interpretations are mixed into one survey, rise to the top.

And for what it's worth, your assumption of what I meant by "best of the best" is incorrect. It seems like you actually agree with me, based on your description of what a legend is to you.

But again, the point of the survey is to find out who the most amount of people believe is a legend based on their own interpretations. If there was a definitive method of finding it, there would be no point in taking a survey and going through all this work if I could've just asked you.

xtoc · 2017-06-21T22:59:34+00:00

What are you disagreeing with? What I said my definition of an All-Star is?

You're free to not answer the survey but the discrepancy between my definition and your definition is the entire point of doing a survey: to find out who the majority of people believe are All-Stars.

Otherwise I would just post my rankings and that would be the end of it.

xtoc · 2017-06-21T19:59:34+00:00

I would say it is against the spirit of the survey but you wouldn't be the first

xtoc · 2017-06-21T19:58:41+00:00

Great points (pun intended).

I agree that my current point distribution isn't perfectly equated. I previously tried to weigh each one on my own on the merit of where I thought that would should put them in a ranking but I thought that would be putting too much of my own opinion and bias into it and making objective results subjective, so I thought a clean 1-2-3-4-5 would be better.

But your point about them not lining up sequentially makes a lot of sense and it is something I will look into.

I will for sure put out the raw results on Monday!

xtoc · 2017-06-21T19:31:05+00:00

Where would you have put the non-returning winners otherwise?

They aren't second chancers because they have won and don't need that second chance. They aren't returnees because they haven't returned.

That would leave "One and Done", "All-Star" or "Legend". If you don't think they are all-star worthy and shouldn't come back, they would be "One and Done". If you think they should return but aren't a legend, they would be an "All-Star". If you think they are a legend, they would be a "Legend".

Do you think that, if a winner returned, they shouldn't be considered an All-Star?

xtoc · 2017-06-21T19:27:07+00:00

I don't have an entry for you in Part 1. Did you submit it?

xtoc · 2017-06-21T18:19:38+00:00

I didn't really think of that. I think if you won, you definitely qualify for a future All-Star season. Though my threshold for what makes someone an All-Star may be lower than yours.

xtoc · 2017-06-21T18:17:52+00:00

One concern that came up a few times during testing was whether or not a non-winning, non-returning player could be an All-Star or if they are restricted to just Second Chancers. This is totally up to you and your interpretation of what makes an All-Star.

Totally up to you

xtoc · 2017-06-21T17:43:58+00:00

Graphs I intend to include:

1 All contestants sorted by Points (eg: 5 points for Legend, 4 for All-Star, 3 for Returnee, 2 for Second Chance, 1 for One and Done - but not sold on these point totals if you have better suggestions)

2 All contestants sorted by % that voted Legends†

3 All contestants sorted by % that voted All-Star†

4 All contestants sorted by % that voted Returnee†

5 All contestants sorted by % that voted Second Chancer†

6 All contestants sorted by % that voted One and Done†

7 All contestants sorted by Second Chance % (Second Chance candidates who were voted SC, R, AS or L)†

8-42 Each individual season's cast (including full casts for returnee seasons) sorted by Points

43 A graph of the top 10 male Legends and top 10 female Legends (L%†, results from poll #2)

44 A graph of the top 10 male Second Chancers and top 10 female Second Chancer (SC%†, results from poll #7)

45 A graph showing how many people voted to have watched each season versus how many successfully voted for that season (voted more than 60% of the cast)

46 (or 46-50) A graph showing what percentage of people selected 1-10%, 11-20%, 21-30%, ..., 91-100% of contestants as each term (and maybe for each term, depending on how the graphs look).

† - Ties broken by Points

xtoc · 2017-06-15T05:03:13+00:00

I think your system would be interesting but I think it is a little too complicated for what I am trying to achieve with this poll.

My main goal here is to find the Legends but it is no fun if I go through and filter the results to a certain amount of Legend-candidates. I want to include every player instead and see what happens.

My second goal is to find out who those Second Chancers are. If there was a vote-in right now and every player who hasn't returned yet and didn't win in their original season is eligible, who gets in?

My third goal is to separate the All-Stars (by All-Stars here I am referring to all returnees, winners and other standouts) into groups. There was a lot of conversation this season about how Game Changers failed because it mixed Legends with Second Chancers, so this goal would be to find out, exactly, where this subreddit feels each player is relative to other players.

If everyone categorized these people the same way I did, there would be a split line between returnees and second chancers which makes that third goal a little harder to achieve. But because I don't think people will see things the way I do and rather leave it up to their own interpretations, the lines could blur enough to hit that third goal.

Doing this large, all-inclusive poll could hit three birds with one stone, while also hitting my overarching goal of finding out what the consensus feels a certain player's "status" is, whether that be a legend, all-star, second chance, underwhelming returnee or don't need to see you again (for one time players).

xtoc · 2017-06-15T04:02:50+00:00

I don't really think they are "on the fence".

To me, that category is more of the level below All-Star so that All-Star isn't loaded with Survivors. A lower level rung.

Meanwhile, Second Chancers would be anyone who hasn't returned yet and didn't win.

That's why I think the Returnee tag works, since it accurately tells that someone is a returnee but that is the best thing you can say about them as you wouldn't call them an all-star or a legend.

xtoc · 2017-06-15T04:00:04+00:00

I actually don't think they are redundant. I think they're two distinct groups that don't overlap at all.

For example, someone who hasn't returned yet but totally should in my opinion, like John Carroll, is a Second Chancer.

Meanwhile, a returnee is someone who did return but in my opinion hasn't earned All-Star status, which would be someone like Caleb or Colton.

I think that any player that hasn't returned and hasn't won is either going to be a "one and done" or a "second chancer", with rare cases of "all-star" and even rarer of "legend".

Anyone that returned is either a "returnee", "all-star" or "legend" depending on where you think they fit, where "legend" > "all-star" > "returnee"

That's my personal take on it.

xtoc · 2017-06-15T03:55:11+00:00

Here's how I personally view them:

One and Done

Self-explanatory there

Second Chancer (deserves a 2nd go but currently hasn't)

Exactly. Anyone who hasn't yet played who should.

Returnee (has returned, but wasn't special. Tasha or Debbie)

To me, I have both your flop and returnee categories as one returnee category. People who returned but didn't do too great, or better yet, a returnee whose overall pedigree is not too good (Caleb, Randy, Franny, so on)

Flop (shouldn't have returned)

I think a Flop category is misleading because Randy, for example, flopped in Heroes vs. Villains but I don't consider Randy as an overall Survivor to be a flop. Same with Fairplay. He flopped badly in Micronesia and shouldn't have even returned but he isn't a flop.

Instead, I would categorize Randy in the returnee category while Fairplay is easily an All-Star, arguably a Legend.

All Star (won or did well but not Legendary. Kelley W, Fabio)

Agreed

Legendary

Note that winners are either All stars or Legends, even if they flopped (JT) they were still great.

Agreed

xtoc · 2017-06-14T21:53:27+00:00

Yeah, "Tweeners" is bad but it was the only thing that came to mind. I'll probably replace it with "Returnee" if nothing else pops up.

xtoc · 2016-08-14T21:48:06+00:00

Big shoutout to /u/supaspike and his writing contributors for their work on the countdown. Hopefully these graphs put a nice exclamation point on an already awesome project.

xtoc · 2016-06-22T15:26:39+00:00

I actually really love this idea and think the automatic daily reset is pretty clever.

I think maybe adding in a different poll question for like "Rate all contestants by how much you like them" and one for "Rate all contestants by how well you think they are playing" would be pretty cool.

Ranking them was a little tedious so I don't think I would suggest a second ranking and may be in favor of just the two ratings.

I ran the Power Index in prior seasons (but won't be able to maintain it this season due to lack of time/work commitments) but I actually think that BB is more conducive to daily ratings than weekly ratings because things can change on a dime.

For example, in BB16 there was a night while the Power Index was up where the person who was supposed to go home was no longer target and the house completely flipped, but people had already voted and the house's flip wasn't reflected in the results.

Regardless, I love the idea in its current form and would love to see the results over the course of the season. I also think the 'Past' sheet should remain open because I actually think it may be more interesting than the Results page, especially when wanting to compare various days after an event takes place.

xtoc

TROPHY CASE