Every ranking on MaccPicks is decided by real people voting on real places. No ads, no paid placements. Here is how it all comes together.
Swipe through venues in Macclesfield and mark the ones you have been to. You need to have visited at least two places in a category before you can start voting.
We show you two places from the same category and you pick your favourite. Simple as that. Each matchup is unique, so you will never see the same pairing twice.
Every vote shifts both venues' scores. A win against a higher-rated place earns more points than beating one rated below you. Upsets matter more than expected results.
After a venue has played 6 matchups it earns its place on the public leaderboard. The more votes cast, the more accurate the rankings become. No one person decides the order.
We use an ELO rating system, the same method used to rank chess players. Every venue starts at 1,500 points. When you pick a winner, the winner gains points and the loser drops by a similar amount. The size of the swing depends on the gap between them: beating a higher-rated place earns you more, while beating a much lower-rated place earns very little.
A venue needs at least 6 head-to-head matchups before it appears on the public leaderboard. Until then it is listed as "unranked" while it collects enough data.
Each person can only vote on a given pairing once, so you cannot spam the same matchup. The ELO system is also self-correcting: one unusual result barely moves the needle when a venue has dozens of other votes pulling it toward its true position.
You will only ever be asked to compare places you have marked as visited. We never ask you to judge somewhere you have not tried.
You can start voting straight away without signing in. Your votes are saved locally on your device for up to an hour. When you create an account, any votes you cast while browsing are automatically saved to your profile.
No. There is a minimum score floor of 100 points. No matter how many losses a venue racks up, it can never drop below that. And a single upset win can bounce it right back up.
We pick pairings that will be most useful for the rankings. Places with fewer matchups get priority so new venues are rated quickly. We also prefer pairing venues with similar scores, because close matchups tell us more than lopsided ones.
Ready to have your say?
