Community Tournament Proposal Selection System
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Solution Overview
Problem
Conventional systems for considering proposals in community settings often overwhelm individuals with information and introduce biases due to proposer identity, and may not accurately represent the community's opinion as not all members properly consider the proposals.
Innovation Solution
A method for generating and enabling community tournaments, where proposals are paired, voted on by registered voters, and winners are determined through a tiered system, ensuring that the identity of the proposer is hidden and only the best proposal advances, allowing for fair selection and representation of the community's preference.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Loss of information
If all proposals are presented simultaneously for consideration, then complete information is available for decision-making, but individuals become overwhelmed with the amount of information
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments the evaluation process into multiple rounds, where proposals are divided into different tiers or brackets. In each round, voters only consider a subset of proposals (e.g., 2-5 proposals) rather than all proposals simultaneously. This segmentation reduces cognitive load while maintaining information completeness across the entire evaluation process.
2Reliability
If proposal submitter names are disclosed, then transparency is provided, but bias occurs based on personal preference for or against the submitter
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts the potentially biasing element (submitter identity) from the proposal presentation. Proposals are evaluated without displaying submitter names or identifying information during the voting process. This extraction ensures objective evaluation based solely on proposal merit while maintaining process transparency through structured evaluation criteria and results.
3Measurement precision
If all community members are expected to consider all proposals, then comprehensive community opinion is captured, but not all members properly consider the proposals
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments both proposals and voters into different groups or tiers. Each voter is assigned to evaluate specific subsets of proposals based on criteria such as random assignment, expertise matching, or geographic distribution. This segmentation makes participation manageable for individual members while ensuring comprehensive community opinion is captured across all segments.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent implements partial action by having different voter subsets evaluate different proposal subsets in different rounds. Rather than requiring every voter to evaluate every proposal, the system uses multiple partial evaluations that collectively represent the full community opinion. This approach reduces individual burden while maintaining overall measurement precision.
Data Source
AI summary
In an example, generating and enabling a tournament includes a) selecting at least one pair of proposals from the accessed plurality of proposals for consideration, each selected pair of proposals being assigned to at most one match per tier; b) scheduling the at least one match; c) accessing a plurality of registered voters; d) assigning the plurality of registered voters to one match per tier; e) receiving information from the assigned registered voters; f) determining a winner and a loser of each match based on information provided by the registered voters of the respective matches; g) removing the loser of each match from consideration in generating matches in subsequent tiers of the tournament; h) determining if only one proposal remains for consideration; i) repeating a)-h) if more than one proposal remains; and j) identifying the one remaining proposal for consideration as the winner of the tournament.