Help Predict the Winner of the 2015 Tour de France!
To help discover how well a self-selecting crowd with no money at stake can predict the winner of sporting events like this year’s Tour de France, please cast some (or many) votes in the pairwise wiki survey I’ve created at this link:
2015 Tour de France Winner Wiki Survey
A pairwise wiki survey involves a single question with numerous possible responses—here, rider names—on which participants vote in pairs, one randomly-selected pair at a time, as many times as they like in as many sessions as they like. A Bayesian hierarchical model converts those pairwise votes into the aggregate ratings that can be treated, in this case, as a predicted finishing order.
So far, I have used these surveys to generate predictions of NFL games and seasons, mass-killing onsets, and coup attempts. With this year’s TdF fast approaching, I thought it would be fun to apply the method to my other favorite sport, cycling, where it’s arguably a more natural fit because rank ordering is what we care about.
So, if you think you know something about the likely outcome of this year’s Tour, please vote early and often. To see what the crowd says so far, click on the View Results tab at the top. If those results don’t include a rider that you think should be considered, go back to the Cast Votes tab and type that rider’s name in the text box that says “Add your own idea here...”