Idol Analytics

Closing thoughts

Reuben — Fri, 17 May 2013 05:58:36 +0000

As I said at the beginning of the year, my sole aim this season was to build a predictive model worth a damn, just to see if it could be done. In the end, the model was 93% accurate in calling people safe (including winner Candice Glover tonight) and picked the person eliminated 78% of …

Top 2 prediction (updated)

Reuben — Thu, 16 May 2013 03:53:29 +0000

Name Song WNTS (avg.) DialIdol VoteFair Not-safe Probability Kree Harrison Angel / All Cried Out / Up To The Mountain 59.667 9.287 42 0.758 Candice Glover Chasing Pavements / I Am Beautiful / I (Who Have Nothing) 64 14.735 58 0.242 Updated 10:54 AM EST. Candice has expanded her lead on Dialidol, and is now …

Prediction coming soon, but Candice is already way ahead

Reuben — Thu, 16 May 2013 03:28:07 +0000

The official model call will be posted as soon as WNTS ratings are posted, but those don’t matter all that much at this stage. Candice is handily beating Kree on both Dialidol and Votefair, and that by itself is enough to put her at a 75% chance to win, versus only 25% for Kree. If …

Liveblog: Finale

Jessica — Wed, 15 May 2013 23:58:08 +0000

And, you know the drill.

How the model saw previous finales

Reuben — Wed, 15 May 2013 07:29:03 +0000

Just as before, here is some context for the prediction that will be published later tonight. Here’s how the model rated previous finales. Season 5 In season 5, the model rated Taylor Hicks as only a 23% chance of being eliminated, to 77% for Katharine McPhee. Hicks lead in all measures during a long season. …

A brief introduction to statistical modeling

Reuben — Tue, 14 May 2013 16:30:44 +0000

Here I talk a lot about “the model” as if it’s a living, breathing thing. But there isn’t anything mysterious about a model, it’s a totally understandable thing based on math, data, and a bunch of assumptions. When you think about a “model” used in regular life, it’s something like a scale model of a …

Programming note

Reuben — Mon, 13 May 2013 14:51:57 +0000

Just a quick note to people who follow the site—we had to make some big technical changes last week because the site was getting hammered (the site actually went down on Thursday for about an hour … sorry about that). This included removing the Liveblog feature and the Polls to allow for supercaching. My crack …

Season 12 model accuracy assessment roundup

Reuben — Mon, 13 May 2013 06:06:37 +0000

As we head into the finale, it’s time to look at how predictable the season has been, particularly with regard to the three prediction models on this site. The first is the semi-finals model, predicting who would be in the finals. The second is the finals model, a week-to-week guess as to who would be …

Top 3 prediction

Reuben — Thu, 09 May 2013 04:49:05 +0000

Name Song WNTS (avg.) DialIdol VoteFair Not-safe Probability Angie Miller Sorry Seems to be the Hardest Word/ Try/Maybe 57.333 3.799 45 0.382 Candice Glover One/Next To Me/ Somewhere 64.333 6.581 34 0.309 Kree Harrison Perfect/ Here Comes Goodbye/ Better Dig Two 49 8.664 20 0.309 Updated 11:35 AM EST. No change in ranking. Update: NB: …

Idol Analytics

Closing thoughts

Top 2 prediction (updated)

Prediction coming soon, but Candice is already way ahead

Liveblog: Finale

How the model saw previous finales

A brief introduction to statistical modeling

Programming note

Season 12 model accuracy assessment roundup

Top 3 post-game

Top 3 prediction