System for creating and maintaining a database of information utilizing user opinions

• US 7,143,089 B2
• Filed: 02/10/2001
• Issued: 11/28/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 02/10/2000
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Quick Comments Incorporated
• Original Assignee: Involve Technology Incorporated
• Inventors: Thompson, Craig P., Parham, Flori N., Petras, Gregory J., Zywicki, Jeffrey T., Thomas, Rachael A., Osborn, Cory, Mason, Andrew F., Riffel, Connie, Hill, Richard W.
• Primary Examiner(s): Alam, Shahid Al
• Application Number:
  US09/782,873
• Publication Number:
  US 20010047290A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,117 Days
• Field of Search: 707/2, 707/3, 707/4, 707/5, 707/10, 707/1, 707/6, 707/7, 707/104.1, 704/9, 704/1, 704/7, 704/8, 715/529, 715/516, 715/531, 709/201
• US Class Current: 707/749
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/335 Filtering based on additional data, e.g. user or group profiles filtering in web context G06F16/9535, G06F16/9536
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/34 Browsing; Visualisation therefor
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/38 Retrieval characterised by using metadata, e.g. metadata not derived from the content or metadata generated manually
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99935 Query augmenting and refining, e.g. inexact access
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99945 Object-oriented database structure processing

Abstract

A system for automatically creating and maintaining a database of information utilizing user opinions about subjects, particularly exceptional experiences. Described is an Internet system assisting/motivating a population of users interested in information about certain categories of subjects to automatically maintain the database content and to improve the usefulness and quality of the database information without any substantial management by the website owner-manager. The user opinions are primarily in the form of both comments and ratings about which natural-language terms best describe a particular subject, enabling user searches of the subject database to be by way of preferred such descriptive natural-language terms, which terms are further preferred to be evaluative and approving.

Claims

1. A system for creating and maintaining information in a database of subjects, available to a population of users, comprising:

a) describing a database subject using a plurality of natural-language terms, each of such plurality of natural-language terms having relevance to the subject according to an involved subset of such population of users;

b) rating the degree of relevance of each of such plurality of natural-language terms to such database subject according to each of such involved subset of such population of users;

c) associating, in such database, such respective natural-language terms and respective degrees of relevance with each such database subject; and

d) computing, for such involved subset of such population of users, in such database, an overall degree of relevance of each of such plurality of natural-language terms to such database subject;

e) associating with a particular user a set of particular-user-preferred such natural-language terms from such plurality of natural-language terms;

f) using such particular user'"'"'s preferred such set of particular-user-preferred such natural-language terms, searching such database for database subjects associated with such set of particular-user-preferred such natural-language terms;

g) determining a set of relevant such database subjects as are correlated with a high aggregate degree of relevance among such respective overall degrees of relevance of such set of respective particular-user-preferred such natural-language terms; and

h) presenting to such particular user information about such relevant database subjects.

3. The system according to claim 1 further comprising:

a) presenting to a particular user information about a particular such database subject and such associated respective relevant natural-language terms with such respective overall degrees of relevance;

b) collecting, from such particular user, such particular user'"'"'s opinions about respective degrees of relevance to such particular database subject of such respective presented natural-language terms;

c) adding such particular user to such involved subset of such population of users and adding such particular user'"'"'s opinions to such database; and

d) updating, in association with such particular database subject, in such database, such overall degree of relevance of each of such plurality of natural-language terms associated with such particular database subject.

4. The system according to claim 3 further comprising:

a) providing a software management system to directly manage such database and such population of users essentially without outside management; and

b) providing for variables in such software management system to be configurable without affecting such direct management operations,

c) wherein such software management system comprises;

i) soliciting of sufficient information from such users for automatic role qualification enhancing software selection and maintenance of a management sub-community;

ii) measuring management efforts of each of such management sub-community;

iii) queing of qualified users for a next opening in such management sub-community;

iv) setting of goals for each of such management community; and

v) managing a reward system to reward management efforts of each of such management sub-community.

9. The system according to claim 1 wherein such determining a set of relevant such database subjects as are correlated with a high aggregate degree of relevance among such respective overall degrees of relevance of such set of respective particular-user-preferred such natural-language terms comprises determining an ordered set of relevant such database subjects as are correlated with a highest aggregate degree of relevance among such respective overall degrees of relevance of such set of respective particular-user-preferred such natural-language terms.

10. The system according to claim 9 wherein such presenting to such particular user information about such relevant database subjects includes presenting to such particular user an ordered set of relevant such database subjects as are correlated with a highest aggregate degree of relevance among such respective overall degrees of relevance of such set of respective particular-user-preferred such natural-language terms.

2. A system for creating and maintaining information in a database of subjects, available to a population of users, comprising:

a) describing a database subject using a plurality of natural-language terms, each of such plurality of natural-language terms having relevance to the subject according to an involved subset of such population of users;

b) rating the degree of relevance of each of such plurality of natural-language terms to such database subject according to each of such involved subset of such population of users;

c) associating, in such database, such respective natural-language terms and respective degrees of relevance with each such database subject;

d) computing, for such involved subset of such population of users, in such database, an overall degree of relevance of each of such plurality of natural-language terms to such database subject;

e) presenting to a particular user information, about a particular such database subject and such associated respective relevant natural-language terms with such respective overall degrees of relevance;

f) collecting, from such particular user, such particular user'"'"'s opinions about respective degrees of relevance to such particular database subject of such respective presented natural-language terms;

g) adding such particular user to such involved subset of such population of users and adding such particular user'"'"'s opinions to such database;

h) updating, in association with such particular database subject, in such database, such overall degree of relevance of each of such plurality of natural-language terms associated with such particular database subject; and

i) presenting to such particular user information about a particular such database subject and such associated relevant natural-language terms with such updated respective overall degrees of relevance.

8. The system according to claim 2 further comprising:

a) accumulating, storing, and analyzing all associations, including subject categorizations, of all such overall degrees of relevance of all of such plurality of natural-language terms associated with all such database subjects;

b) determining preferred such natural-language terms, according to such population of users, for selected categories of subjects.

5. A system for creating and maintaining information in a database of subjects, available to a population of users, comprising:

a) describing a database subject using a plurality of natural-language terms, each of such plurality of natural-language terms having relevance to the subject according to an involved subset of such population of users;

b) rating the degree of relevance of each of such plurality of natural-language terms to such database subject according to each of such involved subset of such population of users;

c) associating, in such database, such respective natural-language terms and respective degrees of relevance with each such database subject;

d) computing, for such involved subset of such population of users, in such database, an overall degree of relevance of each of such plurality of natural-language terms to such database subject;

e) collecting, from each user of such involved subset of such population of users, information about such user'"'"'s knowledge of and experience with such database subject;

f) assessing, based at least in part upon such information, a relative weight to be given to such user'"'"'s opinions about such database subject;

g) for the purposes of computing, for such involved subset of such population of users, in such database, an overall degree of relevance of each of such plurality of natural-language terms to such database subject, applying a respective such relative weight for each respective such user'"'"'s such rating of such degree of relevance in such manner that a more-knowledgeable such user'"'"'s such rating counts for more in such “

overall”

computing than does a less-knowledgeable such user'"'"'s such rating; and

h) presenting to a user information about such database subject and such associated relevant natural-language terms with such computed respective overall degrees of relevance.

6. The system according to claim 5 further comprising:

a) determining first such user'"'"'s role as member or contributor;

b) assigning a multiplier-value based on such first determining;

c) determining second whether such user has personally experienced the subject;

d) assigning a multiplier-value based on such second determining;

c) determining third such user'"'"'s self-reported qualification to judge such subject;

f) assigning a multiplier-value based on such third determining;

g) determining fourth other users'"'"' overall ratings of subjects added by such user;

h) assigning a multiplier-value based on such fourth determining;

i) determining fifth other users'"'"' degree of agreements with comments added by such user;

j) assigning a multiplier-value based on such fourth determining; and

k) multiplying together all such multiplier-values to determine such relative weight.

7. A system for creating and maintaining information in a database of subjects, available to a population of users, comprising:

a) describing a database subject using a plurality of natural-language terms, each of such plurality of natural-language terms having relevance to the subject according to an involved subset of such population of users;

b) rating the degree of relevance of each of such plurality of natural-language tams to such database subject according to each of such involved subset of such population of users;

c) associating, in such database, such respective natural-language terms and respective degrees of relevance with each such database subject;

d) computing, for such involved subset of such population of users, in such database, an overall degree of relevance of each of such plurality of natural-language terms to such database subject;

e) rating the relative overall value of each such database subject according to the opinion of each of such involved subset of such population of users;

f) collecting comments about each such database subject according to the opinion of each of such involved subset of such population of users;

g) associating, in such database, respective such ratings of relative overall value and respective such collected comments with respective such database subjects; and

h) presenting to a user information about such database subject and such associated rating of relative overall value and such associated collected comments.