Voting system

• US 20040078262A1
• Filed: 11/17/2003
• Published: 04/22/2004
• Est. Priority Date: 01/24/2001
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Fredrik Allard
• Original Assignee: Fredrik Allard
• Inventors: Allard, Fredrik
• Granted Patent: US 7,353,239 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 705/12
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99943 Generating database or data structure, e.g. via user interface
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99945 Object-oriented database structure processing
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99948 Application of database or data structure, e.g. distributed, multimedia, or image

Abstract

An online system (20) for conducting live interactive evaluation, comparison and selection of proposals includes a standardized database architecture that integrates proposal submission and proposal judgement procedures. The system can host multiple applications, each configured separately by the respective application administrator, each with a separate background process and each with a separate application database containing information about proposals, users, and proposals not yet judged by identified users. The separate background processes are registered in a hash table (32) and the different application databases (44) in a settings table in a separate system database (42). The proposal submission procedure allows users to submit proposals, and the judgement procedure allows users to judge submitted proposals. The respective background process rules the application by controlling the flow of proposals, and by facilitating and enhancing interaction by users.

Claims

1. An online system for facilitating live interactive evaluation, comparison and selection of proposals, comprising:

an application database comprising a proposal table containing proposals and judgements entered by users,

a proposal submission procedure allowing users to submit proposals,

a judgement submission procedure allowing users to enter judgements concerning proposals,

a server to transmit and receive proposals and to receive judgements concerning proposals, and

a background process comprising

a method to check that a proposal has been available for users to judge before the proposal is compared with other proposals

a method to calculate the mean of submitted judgements concerning a proposal

a method to compare proposals by calculated mean and to select a set number of proposals by the result of the comparison.

5. An online system according to any of claims 1-4, characterized in that the background process further comprises a method to delete old proposals.

6. An online system according to any of claims 1-4, characterized in that the background process further comprises a method to delete old judgements.

2. An online system for facilitating live interactive evaluation, comparison and selection of proposals, comprising:

an application database comprising a proposal table containing proposals and judgements entered by users,

a proposal submission procedure allowing users to submit proposals,

a judgement submission procedure allowing users to enter judgements concerning proposals,

a server to transmit and receive proposals and to receive judgements concerning proposals, and

a background process comprising;

a method to calculate the mean of submitted judgements concerning a proposal, the method being biased against proposals with a low number of registered judgements,

a method to compare proposals by calculated mean and to select a set number of proposals by the result of the comparison.

3. An online system for facilitating live interactive evaluation, comparison and selection of proposals, comprising:

an application database comprising a proposal table containing proposals and judgements entered by users,

a proposal submission procedure allowing users to submit proposals,

a judgement submission procedure allowing users to enter judgements concerning proposals,

a server to transmit and receive proposals and to receive judgements concerning proposals, and

a background process comprising;

a method to calculate the probability that comparison by mean of judgements entered by users will render a proposal a place in a group of selected proposals containing a specified number of proposals with the highest values of calculated means of judgements entered by users.

4. An online system for facilitating live interactive evaluation, comparison and selection of a specified number of proposals, comprising:

an application database comprising a proposal table containing proposals and judgements entered by users,

a proposal submission procedure allowing users to submit proposals,

a judgement submission procedure allowing users to enter judgements concerning proposals,

a server to transmit and receive proposals and to receive judgements concerning proposals, and

a background process comprising;

a method to calculate an index indicating the relative need for a proposal to receive more judgements from users if the proposal is to be correctly told to belong to a group of selected proposals containing a specified number of proposals with the highest values of calculated means of judgements entered by users or not.

7. An online system for facilitating live interactive evaluation, comparison and selection of a specified number of proposals by users, the system comprising:

a server comprising a processor and a memory for storing an application database including a proposal table into which incoming proposals are entered and which contains information on the proposals, the memory having an area for storing information for each proposal, the proposals being discarded or moved from a stage to a following stage, the stages arranged in a predetermined successive order and comprising at least three stage, one of which is judgement stage,

user means for the users, the user means connected to the server and comprising;

displaying means allowing a user to be informed of information in the application database and in particular of information stored in said memory area for the proposals, and

input means for entering information, the input means including means for entering, to fields in the memory area, information on grades given to proposals in the judgement stage,

characterized in that

the server is arranged so that the memory place for a proposal in the memory area includes a stage field, in which an indication is stored of the stage in which the proposal is, the stages including, in addition to the judgement stage;

an evaluation stage following directly after the judgement stage, and

a stage following directly after the evaluation stage,

the server is arranged to execute a background process to automatically eliminate information about proposals so that thereby proposals are discarded, and to automatically change the indications stored for proposals so that thereby proposals are displaced between the successive stages, said eliminating and changing of the indications executed depending on information entered by the users and according to predetermined rules, the rules being unique for proposals for which the indications stored at their memory places indicate that they are in the same stage and for each displacement of proposals from a stage to a following stage.

8. An online system according to claim 7, characterized in that the server is arranged to execute the background process so that for proposals for which the indications stored in their stage fields indicate that they are in the judgement stage, the information stored on the memory places for these proposals about the information on grades given by the users is evaluated so that for only a predetermined number of selected proposals their indications stored in the stage field are changed to indicated the next stage at the end of periodically repeated time periods, whereas for the other proposals the information stored on their memory places is eliminated, these proposals thereby being discarded.