BoxRec

These rankings are determined by median vote, not mean. The majority voted for Parker to remain at #15.

Whoops, just realized I typed Joshua instead of Parker in my previous post. Will edit when I get in front of a computer.

- Bogus rankings if minority up votes not included.

You never provide the math, but enough voted to move Parker up for an improvement. Parker and Joshua aren't dependent on silly putty polls, so we'll see soon enough this and next year.

- Bogus rankings if minority up votes not included.

I could hardly disagree more. The beautiful thing about using the median vote, not the mean, is that the majority rules with no exceptions. Also, median vote can't be manipulated by people with an agenda. Someone could want Parker to move up, so they vote him to #1 - even if they don't truly think he should be that high - because they know it will increase the likelihood of his moving up the rankings. If someone votes someone out, and we're using mean, what number should be assigned to an out vote? No, median makes far more sense in this case, as it means everyone's vote has equal value.

You never provide the math

Whenever asked, I've told people that these rankings are determined by median vote, which has been the case since 2007 when I started managing them. Perhaps I should add a footer to the original post each time, as I shouldn't expect newcomers to already know.

Here is the math for this topic below:

Votes for Parker - 15, 15, 15, 15,15, 15, 15, 15, 15, 12, 10, 10, 8.
Median = 15

Look at it this way - 9 people want Joshua ranked above Parker, 4 people want Parker ranked higher. It would be completely unfair to place Parker higher based on these votes.

enough voted to move Parker up for an improvement.

Nope, see above. 13 people voted, so we needed 7 to vote for an improvement for it to happen. Only 4 voted for Parker to move up.

Parker and Joshua aren't dependent on silly putty polls, so we'll see soon enough this and next year.

I dare say you're right - both guys have huge potential - if they start beating higher level competition we will no doubt see their rankings rise, here and elsewhere.

That's a really odd way of counting, doïng what the median number says.

That's like having 2 people who put him on rank 1, 2 on rank 2, 2 on rank 3, 2 on 4 and 2 on 5 and then keep him out of the top 15 because 3 people don't want him in the top 15.

But now at least I understand why guys like Stiverne and Scott are still in.

asdfjkl wrote:That's a really odd way of counting, doïng what the median number says.

That's like having 2 people who put him on rank 1, 2 on rank 2, 2 on rank 3, 2 on 4 and 2 on 5 and then keep him out of the top 15 because 3 people don't want him in the top 15.

But now at least I understand why guys like Stiverne and Scott are still in.

It's not odd, it's actually the fairest way of doing things, because as I said, the majority rule with no exceptions and it is less affected by biased outlying votes than using the mean.

However, the example you've given is using MODE (most common number), which is different to median and would be a very unfair way of counting votes. Using the set of numbers you've given:

1, 1, 2, 2, 3, 3, 4, 4, 5, 5, 15, 15, 15.

Mean: 5.76 (rounds to 6)
Median : 4
Mode: 15

Using the median (as I do in all these topics), the fighter voted on would take the #4 position - the middle number. Looking at it this way, 7 of the 13 voters placed him #4 or higer, so the majority has ruled.

Scott is actually a recent addition to the rankings - he was voted in by the majority after widely beating the then ranked heavyweight Tony Thompson.

Stiverne was in the top 10 after his two wins over then ranked heavyweight Chris Arreola - he has since been demoted after his loss to Wilder and his recent unimpressive win, but again, the majority voted to keep him in.

When I say majority, I mean more than 50% of voters, not the most commonly voted number. If I had used mean, I'm pretty sure both Scott and Stiverne would still be in the rankings.