2018 Cool Wall: Your thoughts, comments, opinions, suggestions

[totalmotorcycle]

Great participation!

I forgot to ask, do you like:

A) A Weekly format
B) Every two weeks?

Mike

P.S. Stupid cold, runny nose hampering work output.

[markdcoco]

I look at the bikes every week and try to put myself (tired old guy) onto it. Obviously some are harder to picture myself riding than others, but they all deserve a fair look see. The previous voting scheme would reflect a general thought pattern about the ride: good, bad, or indifferent. However, if we made it a little more granular and considered the various parts and pieces of the bike, and even perhaps the performance and even the mileage ratings for the greenies, and use a 1-5 rating scale (I know it's hard to consider a 1-10 cause there ain't many Bo Dereks out there in the bike world) then every bike might have a chance (even those three wheeled monstrosities).

ps: hope your cold gets better. I know I hate it when my nose runs all over my keyboard

[sunshine229]

The wife's turn to chime in.

I watch the effort that Mike puts in week on week to pick the bike, get the information gathered, tally the votes (did you know... I created the spreadsheet for the math? ), move content from main site to forum back to main site... etc.

Votes are down but I believe that having a new bike each week helps draw people onto the site and read up on a bike that they never would have considered. It would be a shame to lose the cool wall. I honestly don't vote very often but I'm not really the target audience!

With the move to Wordpress we do have the ability to use polls in a different way. We can also look to FB but that locks some people out who don't have accounts or don't check it often. Personally I'd visit a favourite website more often than checking FB or Twitter but I'm not much of a surfer anyways.

The one good thing is that the forum does NOT require an account to vote!

I say don't fix what ain't broken so I'm not sure about making too many changes but I do like some of the comments being said here. My favourite is to categorize the votes differently. For example... a bike for my kid, a second bike just for fun, a bike when I'm old, etc... that could lead to some interesting responses! The trouble is we can't keep changing the categories unless we want to give up the comparison piece of knowing which bike outperformed another on the polls.

We definitely welcome the continued dialogue though and overall glad to hear that people do like it. I'm a believer that even if one doesn't vote they are still intrigued by seeing a bike that they may not have seen or considered before.

Andrea

[pchast]

I'm reading the statement that a meh vote is not a vote. But often I do not
feel I can make a unbiased judgment. That option allows me to make the
comment without writing a book. Its a statement I've looked even if:
"It is not for me."

I do like the weekly pol. I do appreciate the work that you put in Mike.

Thanks,
Pete

[JackoftheGreen]

I think it could be argued the board is already tracking "meh" votes in a way.

For instance, on the BMW 750FS most recently on the cool wall, there were 10 votes (one of which was mine just now) and 568 views for the thread itself. Given an arbitrary assumption like 50% original views (as opposed to the same individual visiting the thread multiple times) that means ~274 people viewed the thread and didn't feel compelled to vote one way or another. To me, that's 274 mehs right out the door. If we offer a "meh" vote, they'll so completely outstrip the rest of the votes they'd just have to be thrown out to extrapolate any meaningful score anyway.

I do personally think a wider scale would be compelling, say, 1-10 on a Cool Factor, and although that might generate more statistically relevant numbers it just doesn't seem as all-together FUN as the four-point scale we're using now. That is, it's more brains and less balls.

So, there's that.

[totalmotorcycle]

I really like how this discussion is going, so many good thoughts, opinions and comments! It will really help shape the 2018 Cool Wall, so keep posting your thoughts.

As this process is so constructive, I'm going to keep it open for another week (and also that I've come down with a cold).

Mike

[montanalifter]

I like a new bike every week. Once in a while a special vote that takes 2 weeks is ok.

[markdcoco]

Last shot at some granularity (deeper more detailed thoughts) on the wall bikes (just to make sure they are actually reading the words and not just looking at the pictures):
Engine 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5
Brakes 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5
Wheels 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5
Controls 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5
Ergonomics 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5
Performance 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5
Price 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5

math you have to perform for the overall rating shouldn't be much more difficult than previous, just a couple of 'add' functions

Anyhow, regardless of how it launches, looking forward to the next bike. Hope you are feeling better.

[JackoftheGreen]

Last shot at some granularity (deeper more detailed thoughts) on the wall bikes (just to make sure they are actually reading the words and not just looking at the pictures):
Engine 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5
Brakes 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5
Wheels 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5
Controls 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5
Ergonomics 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5
Performance 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5
Price 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5

math you have to perform for the overall rating shouldn't be much more difficult than previous, just a couple of 'add' functions

Anyhow, regardless of how it launches, looking forward to the next bike. Hope you are feeling better.

Uhhh, what happened to "Sexy"?

[jstark47]

I'm gonna argue in favor of a "meh" vote. "Uncool" to me means there's something pretty wrong with a bike- it's either mechanically incompetent, or really poorly (offensively?) styled, or something about the design just plain doesn't make sense. "Cool" means..... errrr, well it means "cool", as in I like that, I'd buy it if were in the market right now. There's a lot of ground between cool and uncool. These are the bikes that are mechanically competent, but whose styling and design is maybe derivative to the point of ennui (as in 6 other manufacturers have already done essentially the same thing), or maybe it works and looks OK, but they have the pricing thousands over what that type of bike is really worth. Those are the "meh" bikes. There are weeks I don't vote because none of the 4 current options captures how I feel about a bike.

Concerning other questions, I'd rather see us go to every two weeks than to have bikes presented that are years out of production. It just doesn't make sense to me to be voting on a bike whose production run ended years ago- those bikes are children of their times, they may have made better sense then than they do now compared to current bikes.

And if you keep throwing CanAm Spyders up there, Mike, I'm gonna keep voting "it ain't a motorcycle!!!!"