WO1997010551A1 - Systeme de collecte et de recuperation de reponses regi par un compteur de paiement - Google Patents

Systeme de collecte et de recuperation de reponses regi par un compteur de paiement Download PDF

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Publication number
WO1997010551A1
WO1997010551A1 PCT/US1996/014140 US9614140W WO9710551A1 WO 1997010551 A1 WO1997010551 A1 WO 1997010551A1 US 9614140 W US9614140 W US 9614140W WO 9710551 A1 WO9710551 A1 WO 9710551A1
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WIPO (PCT)
Prior art keywords
answer
question
questions
answers
data
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PCT/US1996/014140
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English (en)
Inventor
Michael T. Rossides
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Rossides Michael T
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Priority to AU72358/96A priority Critical patent/AU7235896A/en
Publication of WO1997010551A1 publication Critical patent/WO1997010551A1/fr

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    • G—PHYSICS
    • G07—CHECKING-DEVICES
    • G07F—COIN-FREED OR LIKE APPARATUS
    • G07F17/00—Coin-freed apparatus for hiring articles; Coin-freed facilities or services
    • G07F17/0014—Coin-freed apparatus for hiring articles; Coin-freed facilities or services for vending, access and use of specific services not covered anywhere else in G07F17/00
    • G—PHYSICS
    • G07—CHECKING-DEVICES
    • G07F—COIN-FREED OR LIKE APPARATUS
    • G07F17/00—Coin-freed apparatus for hiring articles; Coin-freed facilities or services
    • G07F17/16—Coin-freed apparatus for hiring articles; Coin-freed facilities or services for devices exhibiting advertisements, announcements, pictures or the like

Definitions

  • This invention relates to a fee supported data base system for community use.
  • US patent 5,359,508 which describes a new type of online data base system.
  • the system disclosed in this patent provides an economic solution to two critical problems of online data bases: what answers (data) to collect and how to collect them.
  • the solution of the invention is to estimate the reward for supplying a given answer, and then report this reward to users who might be in a position to supply the answer. Basically, the system tells users, "Enter this answer and I project you will make x amount of money.” Then, if the answer is supplied and used, those who used it are charged and the supplier is paid.
  • This sequence can be viewed as an economic feedback loop. The loop can be built upon.
  • the invention is an online system for collecting and selling answers.
  • the system charges users who receive answers and pays users who supply those answers.
  • the key to the system is a feedback mechanism, called the Pay-off Meter, that tells users what the estimated royalty value is for supplying a given answer.
  • the Pay-off Meter keeps track of the rate of requests for an answer and from this rate projects an estimate of future sales of the answer if the answer is supplied. From this estimate the Pay-off Meter calculates the projected royalties the answer will generate. Usually, the more requests in a period of time the greater the projected pay-off, provided the price is the same.
  • One key feature of the system is that the projected pay-off is shown to requestors of an answer.
  • Figure 1 shows a flow chart of the basic system.
  • Figures 2a shows the flow chart of the Request Mode of a lowest price locator.
  • Figure 2b shows the flow chart of the Supply Mode of a lowest price locator.
  • Figures 3 shows part of a question display menu.
  • Figure 5.10 shows a another view of a question display menu.
  • Figure 5.11 shows a question location.
  • Figure 5.12 shows a question location including question specifiers.
  • Figure 5.13 shows form linked question locations.
  • Figure 5.14 shows a Q+ leading to a question location.
  • Figure 5.15 shows three question locations with the same missing answer.
  • Figure 5.16 shows a question location with an actual answer.
  • Figure 5.17 shows multiple Q-A-locations as part of a question location.
  • Figure 5.18 shows a question location with a current and a past answer.
  • Figure 5.19 shows two links between Q-A-locations.
  • Figure 5.20 shows a link between Q-A-locations.
  • the invention was called a Self Organizing Data Base and abbreviated as SODB and sometimes SOD. While that name is still apt, from here on the invention will be named AC instead. Why? Because it's easier to say than "SODB" and because it pays tribute to I. Asimov, who told the tale of AC, a computer that answered every question (in the The .Last Question).
  • AC will often be referred to anthropomorphically, though it is understood that AC is a computer system that must include computer based means for executing its tasks.
  • AC includes functions for performing that something. These are functions that are readily implementable by persons skilled in the art.
  • AC asks the user to do something we mean that AC prompts the user in some way to enter information.
  • AC enables the user to do something we mean that AC includes means for enabling to the user to do that something. Again, these means are readily implementable by persons skilled in the art.
  • AC includes functions for enabling the user to do that something. And so on and so forth. The essential parts of these means will be described, unless those parts are obvious to persons skilled in the art.
  • Question A set of information corresponding to another set of information called the answer.
  • Answer A set of information corresponding to another set of information called the question.
  • the system may enable users to enter answers that can be called potential answers in the sense that they may or may not be outputted in response to given questions. For example, if the questions is, What are the highlights of George Washington's career, in under 100 words?, multiple users might supply an answer but the system might only choose one. The others then would be potential answers that might be outputted if the selected answer was found lacking for some reason.
  • Sub-Answer Depending on the correspondence rules of a particular AC, the system may enable users to enter answers that can be called sub-answers in the sense that they are used in combination with other answers to form another answer. For example, if the question is, Who are the major steel producers in the US. ?, different users may supply the names of different steelmakers and these sub-answers can be combined into a list of steelmakers.
  • Request A question entered by a requestor who wants to buy the corresponding answer.
  • Answer-Use When AC uses an answer, especially when AC charges for the use.
  • Classifying Questions and Answers There are potentially infinite types of answers and answer uses. Presuming AC collects different types of answers and enables different types of answer-uses, it must distinguish between them for the purpose of registering demand information and charges and royalties. For example the use of ⁇ may be given a different royalty value than the use of the date of Lincoln's birth or the use of a passage from Shakespeare. Moreover, the use of a sequence of ⁇ in a formula may be classified differently than the answer to the question, What is the value of ⁇ to ten decimal places?. The classification possibilities are infinite.
  • Request Mode The procedure AC executes to register demand information for answers, and to provide answers and/or Pay-off estimates to users.
  • a user selects Request Mode in order to find an answer or express interest in an answer.
  • the user enters a question. If the question is new, AC stores it. If the question is already in the system, entering it causes AC to search for the corresponding answer. If the answer is not found, a Pay-off Estimate is outputted. If the answer is found, the answer is outputted along with the Pay-off estimate and a Charge is registered to the user. (Depending on the implementation of the system, the user may have to confirm that he wants an answer before AC outputs it.) Whether the answer is in AC or not, AC registers demand information about the answer.
  • Supply Mode The procedure AC executes to allow users to enter answers. User identification data is registered along with an answer so that the user can be credited with royalties each time the answer is used. In supply mode a user enters a question and AC then enables the user to enter a corresponding answer. If the question is new to the system, AC first stores the question. (Note: the term mode is used as a convenient way to describe separate paths of steps. It is not meant to have any special, technical connotations beyond that. The system can enable users to switch easily between modes, with a single command.)
  • Requestor User who accesses request mode seeking an answer. The requestor normally owes a charge if the answer is found and outputted.
  • Supplier User who accesses supply mode to enter an answer. The supplier gets paid a royalty each time the answer is used as determined by the royalty rules of AC.
  • the user record is where AC stores various information about a user, including at minimum, payment information. AC can store a wide variety of information about a user's use of the system.
  • Charge The amount owed by a requestor who receives an answer from AC.
  • Charge Rules The rules, embodied in functions, that determine the amount an answer will cost a requestor.
  • Royalty The amount owed to a supplier of an answer for the use of the answer.
  • Royalty Rules The rules, embodied in functions, that determine the amount due to a supplier of an answer each time that answer is used (either outputted to a requestor or processed to yield another answer).
  • Payments Register The function AC executes to register payments owed by requestors and payments due suppliers. When an answer is outputted, AC registers who is owed a royalty and who owes a charge. The payments due depend on the charge and royalty rules of AC. The point of the register is not that it is a distinct storage entity necessarily but that the system must have steps for registering charges and royalties. Payment records can be kept in user account files and in the Demand Record for an answer, as well as in a credit record for an answer. AC also has it own account where the system's books are kept.
  • the POM is the function that is the heart of AC.
  • the POM has three aspects: Demand Records, the Pay-off Formula and the Input Signal.
  • D-record Demand Records
  • a D-record is kept for each answer in AC.
  • the D- Record is where AC stores demand information about the answer.
  • the information in the D-Record can be quite varied. At the least, a D-record will store the number of requests for an answer, the times of those requests, and the actual sales, if any, of the answer. Because an answer often will not be in AC, the D-record for an answer actually corresponds to a question. The question then corresponds to the given answer. So demand information about an answer is actually stored under the question that corresponds to the answer.
  • the D-record can thus be looked at as the D-record for a question.
  • the process of collecting demand information under a question may seem straightforward. What is not necessarily straightforward, is what answer corresponds to the question.
  • the Pay-off Formula (POF).
  • the information in the D-record for an answer is plugged into the POF for that answer.
  • the POF calculates a Pay-off Estimate (POE) of the income a user will get for entering the answer.
  • POF can be highly varied.
  • I-Signal Input Signal
  • the POM works most simply when AC s answers are stored under questions and AC can find the answers by simple lookup. For example, a requestor may enter the question, What is Lincoln's date of birth?. AC will do a lookup. If the question is not in AC, AC will store it and create a D-record for it. Initially, the answer will not be in AC. Each time the question is entered, AC will register the request in the D-record for that question. AC will also register the time of each request so that the rate of requests over time can be calculated. This demand information will be fed into the POF to yield the POE. The I-Signal can output this POE to every requestor. Since answers are listed under questions, the I-Signal need not tell what answer needs inputting nor how to input it.
  • the POF is the function that calculates a Pay-off Estimate (POE) for a given answer.
  • POE Pay-off Estimate
  • the POF projects future sales for an answer based on the demand it has had in the past. Thus two variables are critical: the number of times the answer has been requested and, the times those requests took place. Based on the rate of requests for an answer the POF estimates how many future requests the answer will have. The POF factors in the price of the answer and the royalty rate to arrive at the POE.
  • the Pay-off formula can be infinitely diverse based on historical data and other factors. For example, the formula could include a historically based assumption of when demand for an answer would end.
  • the POF may contain estimates based on answers that are similar to a given answer.
  • the POF must have an arbitrary value for the POE when an answer has been requested zero times or one time. This value could be an amount or simply a message like, "You are the first to ask this question.” There will be multiple POF's applied to different types of answers. There may even be multiple POF's for a single answer. These could give different types of POE's, for example a conservative POE or an optimistic POE. Not only can the POF be infinitely variable but the information it yields can be of different types. Ideally the POF would yield a reliable cash POE. But that is not always practical for given answers. And so the POF might only process information in the D-record to come up with information that can help users arrive at their own 8
  • the POF may allow users to manipulate different factors, such as the price of an answer, in order to arrive at a POE.
  • the I-signal is the function that is the output part of the POM, the signal that tells requestors what answer is needed, what the value is of supplying it and how to supply it.
  • AC When a requestor requests an answer not in AC, AC outputs the POE.
  • AC When a requestor requests an answer that is in AC, AC outputs the answer and the POE for correcting, updating or improving it. (The POE may be outputted only upon request rather than automatically). Usually, the answer needed is implicit from the question asked, though special input rules or restrictions may apply that the user is not aware of.
  • the I-Signal can include many other features for giving users POE information.
  • the I-Signal may include an alert function whereby a user can enter ask to be told if the POE for an answer rises above a threshold amount. The I-Signal can then send an alert to the user's E-mailbox if the threshold is exceeded.
  • AC is an online network of computers with terminals that feed into a central computing unit that stores and processes questions, answers and other information of the kind described above.
  • central computing unit we mean that users communicate with the same body of data, though that data may be physically located in different places.
  • the terminals can be a variety of types from telephones to supercomputers.
  • the network includes E-mailboxes.
  • Figures 1 and la show the procedure that a basic AC follows, as explained below.
  • AC stores 5 the question, creates 6 a demand record for the question, sets 7 the request tally in the demand record to one and, registers 7 the time of the request in the demand record, calculates 8 the POE using the POF, outputs 9 the POE.
  • AC outputs 12 the answer, registers 13 a payment due by the requestor, registers 13 a royalty due to the supplier, calculates the POE using the POF, outputs the POE.
  • AC outputs 14 a message saying the answer is not in the system calculates the POE using the POF, outputs the POE.
  • AC stores 17 the question, creates 18 a demand record for the question, inputs 19 the answer, stores 20 the answer to correspond to the question, stores 21 the supplier's ID data with the answer, in order to credit royalties.
  • AC inputs 19 the answer stores 20 the answer to correspond to the question, stores 21 the supplier's ID data with the answer, in order to credit royalties.
  • the SFTD includes a list of names and corresponding telephone numbers, a computer for storing the list and functions for inputting information into the list, outputting information from the list and looking up information in the list.
  • the SFTD also has a sign-on function that allows users to identify themselves for billing and payment purposes.
  • the SFTD stores this ID data.
  • the SFTD enables users to choose Request mode or Supply Mode.
  • a requestor accesses the SFTD list by entering a name (a question).
  • the SFTD inputs the question and the does a lookup to see if it has a telephone number corresponding to the name.
  • the SFTD has a number corresponding to the name, it outputs the number and registers the charge due by the requestor and the royalty due to the supplier.
  • One is added to the POM tally of requests, the time of the request is registered, and a new POE is calculated and outputted along with the number.
  • the SFTD does not have a number corresponding to the name, it: a) it registers the time of the request, b) it checks if the request has already been stored in the POM register, bl)if not, it sets the request tally to 1, stores the request and defaults the POE to the message "Insufficient Data to Estimate Pay-off," b2) if the request is already stored, the POM advances the request tally by one and then calculates the POE using the POF, c) outputs the POE.
  • a supplier accesses the SFTD list by entering a name (a question).
  • the SFTD does a lookup to see if the name is in the list.
  • the SFTD stores it in the list and then allows the supplier to enter the number and stores the supplier's ID data along with the number in order to credit royalties.
  • the SFTD does a lookup to see if there is a corresponding telephone number. If there is no corresponding number, the SFTD stores it in the list and then allows the supplier to enter the number and stores the Supplier's ID data along with the number in order to credit royalties.
  • the SFTD outputs a message, "Number is already in directory.” If the number needs correcting, the supplier then enters the command, CORRECT. The SFTD then allows the supplier to enter the number.
  • the SFTD stores the number to correspond to the question, to the name that is, and also stores the supplier's ID data with the number, in order to credit royalties.
  • the SFTD also stores the previous number and previous supplier ID data in a record of past numbers.
  • a lowest price locator is an AC that includes a central computer for storing a list of product names (questions) and merchants and prices (answers).
  • An LPL includes a network of terminals from which users can enter questions and answers.
  • the central computer includes functions for creating price lists, looking up answers in the list and processing answers in the list and, outputting answers from the list.
  • the LPL has a sign-on function 30 and a Request and Supply mode. Request Mode
  • a requestor uses the Request mode to enter a product name.
  • the LPL inputs 31 the question and checks 32 to see if the question is already stored.
  • LPL stores 33 it, creates 34 a demand record for it, sets 35 the number of requests to one, registers 35 the time of the request, calculates 36 the POE (which in this case would normally result in a message such as
  • LPL adds 38 one to the number of request, registers 38 the time of the request and checks 39 to see if the corresponding price is in memory.
  • LPL If there is no price in memory, LPL outputs 40 "No Prices Found", and calculates and outputs the POE.
  • LPL checks 41 for the lowest price.
  • LPL outputs 43 the name of the single lowest priced merchant and the price.
  • LPL then registers 44 the charge owed by the requestor and the royalty owed the supplier. It then calculates and outputs the POE.
  • a supplier uses Supply Mode to enter a product name into the LPL.
  • the LPL inputs 50 the question and checks 51 to see if the question is already stored.
  • LPL stores 52 it, creates 53 a demand record for it, creates 54 a price list for the product, enables the supplier to enter a merchant and price (answer) into the list, inputs 55 the answer, stores 56 the answer in the list, stores 57 the time the answer is entered and stores 58 the supplier's ID data in order to credit royalties.
  • LPL enables the supplier to enter a merchant and price (answer) into the list, inputs the answer, checks 59 to see if the merchant entered matches any merchant in the list,
  • LPL stores 56 the merchant and price in the list, stores 57 the time the price is entered, and stores 58 the supplier's ID data along with the answer in order to credit royalties.
  • LPL checks 60 to see if the price entered is the same as the existing price
  • AC can enable the user to "place an order" in the sense that if an answer is not in the system, it can be delivered when it arrives.
  • a simple way is sending the answer to the user's E-mailbox, though there are other places the message can be posted.
  • the requestor since the requestor is paying for an answer, it is usually better to send a message alerting the user that the answer is in and asking the him if he still wants it. If the requestor responds "yes" then the answer is sent and a charge and royalty are registered.
  • a user can place various types of orders, involving various commitments.
  • AC can be a big system with various ways of handling questions and answers.
  • the system can have numerous sub-AC's where different rules and functions apply. We call these sub-AC's lands. For example, one land might be a lowest price locator where questions and answers are entered in a strictly defined form. Another land might be an encyclopedia where all answers are under 100 words long and cost five cents. Another land might be a photo album where all the answers are photos. The point is, AC does not necessarily have one set of rules that applies to all questions and answers in the system.
  • AC requires royalty rules
  • ACs rules determine what kind of functions and formulas AC has, so these in turn can vary.
  • formulas for calculating royalties and functions for registering royalties can vary depending on the royalty rules.
  • AC is a marketplace for Answers and Potential Answers
  • AC is a medium that enables people to ask for and offer to pay for answers. It is a medium that enables people to supply those answers. It is a medium that enables people to find and pay for answers that have been supplied. It is a medium that pays suppliers of answers a percentage of the sales of those answers.
  • it is a marketplace for answers. It is more than a conventional marketplace though because it enables people to offer to pay for answers that do not yet exist in the marketplace. And it enables people to evaluate whether providing these answers will pay enough to be profitable. Thus it is also a marketplace for potential answers.
  • a question is a statement in human language that describes an answer.
  • a question is a question string, a set of search parameters, an index field, and instructions for finding an answer.
  • AC creates a question record (Q-record).
  • AC registers various information in this record that it gathers from users who enter the question. This information is about the answer that the question corresponds to.
  • the question record can contain many sub-records, the most important of these being the demand record.
  • the question identifies not only an answer but also information that describes the answer.
  • AC uses a question string to create a location in memory or information about the answer.
  • a question represents an answer because this term gets the plan across. If no answer has been supplied, the question represents what we call a potential answer or a missing answer. (That does not mean that there is only one possible answer. We can use the plurals, potential answers and missing answers. Singular or plural in this case is really a matter of taste, for there is no good existing term for the idea of a potential answer.) If an answer has been supplied, we call the answer an actual answer. If there is an actual answer, the question represents that answer and any potential improvements or changes in the answer. So even if there is an actual answer, the question still represents potential answers. (Now, if more than one answer in AC is identified directly by a question, the answers need to be distinguished.
  • each actual answer can have a separate record that includes information unique to that answer.
  • a Q-A record because it is identified by the question and by information about an actual answer.
  • a question string represents and describes an answer. It is what a requestor enters to describe the answer he wants, and what a supplier enters to describe the answer she provides.
  • An example is: What's the treatment for first degree burns? While questions are, on average, shorter than answers, they can vary considerably in length.
  • a Q-string can be anywhere from as short as a name to as long as a book. Naturally, few questions will be that long but common questions often do involve paragraphs of description when people describe situations in detail.
  • a requestor who has just been burned might ask, What's the treatment for a first degree burn when you've been burned with water coming out of an espresso machine and the burn is on the back of your hand and you don't have any bandages around and you're not sure how hot the water was and you see a blister starting to form and the blister is about a quarter the size of a dime and it hurts like hell and it's been five minutes since you were burned...
  • AC can divide question string information into two kinds called the main question string (main string) and the question specifiers (Q-specs).
  • Q-specs are not mandatory and in certain lands of AC there may be no such thing as Q-specs, only main strings.
  • question string or question we will mean the combination of these two kinds of information.
  • a question simply refers to the main string.
  • AC can enable both requestors and suppliers to enter question specifiers.
  • Specifiers can be thought of as standard adjectives that modify the main string and thereby further describe an answer. They are part of the overall question string but are distinguished from the main string. They are distinct entities in memory in the sense that they are part of the question string but have their own fields, as does the main string. There are a few reasons for separating Q-specs. First, it is helpful to have a set of standard specifiers that can be used separately from the main string. For example, a user may enter the main string, A Biography of Hans Bethe?. The user may then specify, under 500 words. Thus the user can fiddle with the main question by adding and subtracting specifiers.
  • specifiers contain standard information that can apply to wide ranges of main questions. For example, the length of an answer is a standard specifier. By contrast, the information in the main strings can vary tremendously.
  • specifiers really are like adjectives. Without the subject, the main string, they are practically meaningless. A person can ask to see a sleek plane but a person cannot ask to see a sleek. Likewise, a person can ask for A Biography of Hans Bethe?, but cannot ask for under 500 words.
  • AC can enable users to create their own standard specifiers. Below is a partial list of the key Q-specs AC can enable users to enter:
  • AC Type of Question.
  • AC can include certain basic types of questions. These direct AC to do different things. They are described in chapter 5.
  • Land of the Question. As noted, AC can have numerous sub-parts which we call lands. Each land has different characteristics in that the questions and answers conform to certain rules.
  • Subject. An answer might be about a certain subject area and this can be specified in advance. For example, the employees of a company might ask various questions having to do with the company. All these questions can be specified by the name of the company. Place. An answer might be about a certain "local" situation, and so a location specifier can be useful. For example, a question might be about a particular traffic jam, which can be specified by a given location. However, the idea of location is broader than just geography; it is the general idea of place. Time.
  • a user may specify various time aspects of an answer. For example, the time that a question is asked might matter. For instance, the time that a question about a traffic jam is entered can be key. Likewise, the time of the answer is found can be key. Obviously, time, like place, is a fundamental specifier. Format of the Answer. A user may specify the format of an answer: text, audio, video or multi-media. Length of the Answer. A user may specify the length of an answer by word count or by time. Price of the Answer. A user may specify the price category of an answer. Language of the Answer. A user may specify the original language of an answer. The Supplier of the Answer. A user may specify the supplier of an answer. The Source(s) of the Answer. A user may specify the source(s) of an answer. Quality. A user may specify certain quality aspects of an answer. The main string might specify all these things. Standard specifiers are not mandatory.
  • AC can register the primary source of the answer, probability estimates of the answer being true, reviews of the answer, and more. What and how much information is registered, processed and displayed depends on the answer and can vary.
  • Q-info question information
  • A-stats answer statistics
  • the Q-info is normally stored in the Q-record.
  • question information when it is supposed to be about an answer. However, this term is reasonable for several reasons.
  • the information is registered under a question. Some of it is registered automatically when a user enters a question string. The rest is registered “at” the question.
  • the Q-display shows the question and includes a menu of options that the user can select from to enter and see various kinds of information about the answer that the question represents.
  • An illustration of a Q-display is given in figure 3 (though it should be noted that this figure is incomplete, and is intended only to show some of the key kinds of options that the Q- display includes).
  • AC shows about an answer by the name A-stats to get across the idea of AC processing and keeping track of a variety of useful information about an answer, the answer's "vital statistics.” Not all the stats are numerical; many are qualitative. For example, AC can store and show an abstract of an answer and a sample of an answer. As another example, AC can store and show who has rights to supply an answer and for how long. Much of the rest of this patent specification will be spent describing functions and options that AC can include for gathering, processing and displaying various kinds of Q-info and A-stats.
  • Q-specs and A-stats are categories that include some of the same kinds of information.
  • the length, price, and format of an answer, to name a few, can all be Q-spec information and A-stat information. But that does not mean that Q-strings and A-stats are the same things. While they both describe an answer, the difference is how the information is used by AC.
  • AC uses the Q-string to create a memory location, a question record, where answer statistics belong.
  • the Q-string represents the answer and that is why the A-stats are stored in the Q-record.
  • a main string is like a baseball player's name, while a Q-spec is like the player's team, and a set of A-stats are like the player's stats.
  • A-stats can be used to differentiate question records and answers in memory. But they are not used to create a question that then has a question record.
  • AC may show Q-specs and A-stats that have the same kind of information. For example, say a question string is: What's treatment for a first degree burn?. And say a Q-spec is under 500 words. Now, say an answer is supplied, and say it is 408 words. AC can register the length and then show the A-stat of 408 words. If the answer is later changed, this A-stat might change.
  • A-stats are created by the collective actions of users entering information and are compiled by AC. Most A-stats can change whereas Q-string information basically cannot. Whether an answer is in the system or not, the A-stats tell the current story of the answer. This story changes as new information about the answer is registered. For example, the POE is an A-stat that can change with each request. Sometimes the dividing line between Q-string information and A-stat information is not clear. That's because both kinds of information describe an answer and can be used to differentiate an answer in memory. Whether a user choose to enter the information as Q- spec or A-stat or both depends on the user and the choices AC gives with the particular question.
  • the key litmus test is this: Users enter Q-string information in the expectation that other users can supply an answer that will match the Q-string conditions, that will fit the question. Users enter A-stat information to describe an answer but they do not expect other users to supply an answer that will fit the A-stat conditions. Operationally this means that AC enables users to enter Q-string information through different input forms than A-stat information. Users are expected to know the difference. AC then uses the Q-string information to create questions and uses the A-stat information in the Q-records.
  • a question identifies an answer but is it more than that in AC. It is a location in ACs memory that users (with ACs help, of course) create. The first time a given question string is entered into AC, it is stored. Once that happens, all kinds of other information can be attached to the string, as described above. And so, AC creates a location made up of a Q-string and Q-record. And once the question is stored, other users can "go to" that question, go to the location created by the question string and Q-record that is. In other words, a question string is a location. And it is directions to the location. And it is a place where users and AC interact, where users can see and find and enter information that corresponds to the string. Thus the actions of users and of AC revolve around questions. And that's because questions represent answers, which is what people are looking to buy and looking to supply.
  • FIG. 3 gives an illustration of the Q-display with a menu of options for: entering questions 70, selecting questions 74, entering A-stats 72, seeing A-stats 73, buying answers 75, and supplying answers 76. The figure is abbreviated for it does not show all the options the Q- display can have.
  • the Q-display As a generic storefront with nothing in the window until a Q-string is put there. Once the Q-string is there, the Q-display becomes a display for a particular store — for a Q-location — that is made for selling the answer that corresponds to the Q-string.
  • the Q-string is like a sign advertising the answer. But the metaphor of a store falls very short because a Q-display has many more functions than any ordinary store.
  • a Q-display with a Q-string is more a multi-purpose sign than a store. And yet it is more than that.
  • the parent application used the goofy, made up term signomat to name the multiple functions that AC builds around a question. Why that? Well, first it is supposed to get across the idea that AC turns each question into a multi-purpose sign for an answer. Second it is supposed to get across the idea of a vending machine (it comes from the term Automat, which was the name of vending machine system for food). We can think of AC as creating a virtual vending machine around each question that is stored in the system. Unfortunately, the term signomat comes up short in getting across the third main idea, which is the idea of gathering and storing information. AC has many functions for gathering information that few, if any, machines in the real world seem to have.
  • the signomat's question string and A-stats describe an answer.
  • AC presents certain A-stats automatically, and the user can ask to see more.
  • the signomat includes option buttons for getting A-stats.
  • the A- stats can be quite detailed, depending on the type of stat. For example, AC may gather extensive POE information for a given answer.
  • the signomat is an interactive sign. It is also a commercial sign, in several senses: a. It's a buyer ad. When a requestor enters a question, AC stores it and the question advertises that the requestor wants the corresponding answer.
  • AC collects information and processes it and then displays it for users to see.
  • the subject In the case of a tote board, of course, the subject is usually a horse race. In the case of AC, the subject is an answer. While a signomat can display a lot more information than a tote board can, the general idea is the same.
  • a signomat is a vending machine in the sense that when people arrive there AC enables them to buy the answer that is stored there. Like a vending machine, it must be stocked with an answer. Thus a supplier must provide a product to the signomat. The answer may be outputted automatically once a user arrives. Or AC can include a variety of possibilities for having the user make a price offer. The signomat may even negotiate with the user. If a user buys, AC registers charges, just as a vending machine would. It also registers royalties (which few vending machines do). Now people may or may not buy when they arrive at a signomat; they may see information there that gets them to decide one way or another.
  • AC is a communication system that is built around people's ability to understand each other. The whole system depends on people having a good chance of knowing what answer will satisfy someone who asks a question. But there is a big problem with this plan because people often do not know what answer will satisfy a person asking a question.
  • the correspondence between questions and answers is not 1-1.
  • the problem is that many answers can correspond to a question, and there are no clear rules as to what a satisfactory answer even is. We might call this the multiple answer reality or the endless answers problem.
  • the foundation task of AC is to count how many people want a given answer. Since questions represent answers, AC bases its request count for an answer on the number of times people enter the corresponding question string. Of course, if we are not sure what answer corresponds to a string then we are going to have a problem counting based on question strings.
  • a question is a kind of description. It describes the answer a person is looking for. Language allows multiple ways to describe things including, of course, answers. Different words can refer to the same idea and word order can be changed without changing meaning. For example: What was the precipitation last night?, What was the rainfall last night? and, The rainfall last night was what? can all be considered the same question. There are practically infinite ways to pose the same question in the sense that the different question strings ask for the same answer.
  • Words are something we use to refer to things. As mentioned above, we cannot refer to anything with perfect precision, meaning we cannot refer to anything that is completely unique. There may be exceptions in the ideal world of math, but excepting these, the things that we refer to actually have so many details that our language can only get us to a point where we generally agree on what is being referred to. There is no exact description, only good enough. Words express (refer to) ideas. Ideas refer to similar patterns. But we don't know what similar means, how it works. All we know is that any idea refers to innumerable things that we call similar. For example, the word house refers to an innumerable slew of similar configurations and we can't say what that slew is.
  • a question is the statement of conditions that an answer must match. Often we think of a question as stating a goal and of the answer as instructions on how to achieve that goal. In other words, a question states a problem and an answer is a solution. As we know there are usually innumerable ways to solve a problem, to get to a goal. How may ways are there to get from the East Coast to California, for instance? Well, there are a hell of a lot.
  • AC requires rules and procedures so that users can have a good chance of agreeing on what answers to expect and what answers to supply to given questions. Basically there are two approaches that AC can use. One it can include rules that define what a satisfactory answer is in such a way that the possible answers are tightly constrained. The other is to include rules that allow people to enter multiple answers but to do so in a way that the answers are differentiated and labeled. We will describe such rules and procedures the next chapter, and then further in book H Before doing that we note an important consequence of the multiple answer reality.
  • the flip side of having multiple possible answers to a question is that a question does not represent one answer.
  • a person posting a question has a chance of getting an answer that satisfies him.
  • the person supplying the answer has a chance of supplying an answer that satisfies the requestor.
  • a single answer has a chance of satisfying a percentage of the requestors. We may guess at these chances and but we know that there is no certainty when a question does not represent a unique answer. This also means that the information that is collected in a question record might or might not apply to the answer that is provided.
  • Demand information to take the most important example, then has to be discounted in some way, in the sense that it applies to only probabilistically to any answer that a supplier has in mind.
  • Demand information is only one kind of information that is collected about an answer. The same principle applies to all Q-info. What answer does the Q-info correspond to? There is no solid, single answer.
  • section 5.2 we discuss answer input paths, how answers are gotten into AC to correspond to questions.
  • section 5.3 we discuss answer output paths, how answers are gotten out of AC in response to questions.
  • the discussion in sections 5.2 and 5.3 applies to plain old questions, combo questions and auto questions. We wait until section 5.4 to discuss function based questions.
  • section 5.5 we briefly discuss how to combine question information, particularly demand information, when an answer is requested from multiple questions.
  • the example questions in this chapter are colloquial and are suited for a system that can handle natural language. We use colloquial questions because they are easier to think about and because they prepare for book II, where methods for handling natural language are described. Still, the discussion in this chapter also applies to questions and answers whose grammar is constrained.
  • AC presents options for doing these things at the Q-display.
  • the options are presented to users in all modes. There are some differences in what happens depending on the mode the user is in.
  • request and supply modes primarily.
  • the options are grouped in three areas: Q-info, Show and Go. They are grouped this way for illustration's sake, not because this way is best. In illustrating these options we ignore the many other options that AC presents at the Q-display, for they are not the concern of this section.
  • a question we usually mean it in the sense of a Q-string that a user enters.
  • the Q-string may be made up of a main string and question specifiers. Or, it may be just a main string. (See chapter 3.)
  • the record AC creates to store information about a question and about the answer(s) that the question represents.
  • the interface AC presents to users. It shows a question and numerous options and sub-options.
  • these Q-display options include options for: entering questions 70, 71, finding questions 70, 71, 72, 74, entering information into Q-records 72, 75, 76, getting information from Q-records 73, finding answers 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, buying answers 75, and entering (supplying) answers 76.
  • the Current Question The main subject of the Q-display is called the current question (current-Q).
  • current-Q the current question
  • main subject we mean that the question is normally shown on screen and that the Q-display options apply to it and its Q-record.
  • AC can show more than one question at a time, and several of the Q-display options can apply to these other questions as well.
  • the current-Q we mean the question that most of the options apply to.
  • the current-Q is not necessarily shown on screen. This is because AC may instead display other questions, or an answer, or a sub-menu for a given option. If the current-Q is hidden, it can be called up by a Show Current-Q command.
  • the null question means the absence of a current-Q or of any question.
  • the user can enter a command, which we might call Null Q, in order to clear the screen of questions.
  • the user is then at the null-Q.
  • null Q When there is no current-Q, fewer options apply. Those that do apply allow the user to enter a new question. They may also enable the user to call up past questions.
  • Traveling to a question means that a user enters a question, or selects a question on screen, to be the next current-Q, and that AC then makes that entry or selection the current-Q.
  • makes we mean the process by which AC finds the question and presents it to the user as the main subject of the Q-display, or, if the question does not exist in AC, the process by which AC creates the question in memory and presents it to the user as the main subject of the Q-display.
  • AC enables a user to enter a question string. Because the user can enter various types of information besides a Q-string, AC can have the user first press a Q-string button 100 to identify the information. Or AC can simply let the user designate a Q-string area on screen and type the question in there. Or AC can default to assuming that the user is entering a Q-string. After the user is satisfied with the question he presses an Enter 101 button to complete the entry. (In certain lands, AC might not have the user hit Enter, but we leave this possibility aside, for it only applies in special cases.) AC enables the user to edit the question, if he so desires, in order to make a new question. After editing, he hits Enter again. He can clear the screen by pressing Null Q 102. Note: For illustration purposes, as we continue this discussion, we will use certain questions, such as, What's holding up traffic?. These have no special significance.
  • AC When a user enters a question AC does a look-up to see if the question is already stored. If the question is not already stored, AC stores it and creates a question record to go along with the question in memory. That is the main rule of creation.
  • a question string and its question record a question location (Q-location).
  • Q-location question location
  • FIG 5.1 1 we picture a Q-location 130 as a circle with its Q-string 131 written inside and with its Q-record 132 as a rectangle within the circle as well. The missing (potential) answer is pictured as a blank square 133 connected to the circle. As we go along, we will add to this scheme. AC stores the new question such that it can become a current-Q.
  • any information the user enters can be stored and called up.
  • a location is created that users find when they enter a matching question — that AC finds for them, that is, when they enter a matching question.
  • the main rule of creation is that a Q-location is made for each new question entered.
  • this rule is not applied in all cases. Whether it applies depends on what mode the user is in and what the user's purpose is in entering the question.
  • the idea behind the rule is that questions are created to enable people to express interest in and to find answers.
  • the rule holds because the user's purpose is to ask for an answer. That is what request mode means.
  • the rule holds when the supplier also enters an answer to go along with the question. (Note: What is registered in the Q-record at the time of creation differs depending on the user's mode.
  • AC does not register demand information.
  • the rule does not usually hold because users are not asking for or supplying answers.
  • a user can enter a new question for other reasons that require AC to create a Q-location.
  • a user in supply (or browse or check) mode may enter a question to test demand.
  • a potential supplier may post a question not because she plans to supply the answer but to see if others will express interest in the answer.
  • a potential supplier may also post a question because she intends to supply the answer in the future and wants to collect demand in the meantime, or because she wants to post a reservation message (see chapter 8). So AC can create Q-locations under more circumstances than a user being in request mode and entering a question, or a user being in supply mode and entering a question and an answer.
  • AC can also include an option enabling a user to designate the purpose of a question.
  • AC can have various default rules. For example, if a user is in supply mode, AC may create a question only temporarily. If the user does not then enter an answer, or does not designate some special purpose for the question, AC may erase the question.
  • the default rules can vary. Another important case where the main rule holds is when a user, in whatever mode, wants to enter a question in order to link it to another. Here, again, the purpose is to help people find an answer or express interest in an answer.
  • AC may only store a question upon confirmation from the user that he wants the question to be stored. Having said all this, it is possible, as a design decision, for the main rule of creation to always hold. AC can store all new questions and create locations for them. But it seems that better default rules can be created to fulfill the underlying idea of creating questions to enable people to express interest in and find answers. In section 5.2 we elaborate on Q-locations.
  • AC looks for a match.
  • AC may also rely on A-stat information in the Q-records of potential matches. In other words, AC does not so much match questions as it matches Q-locations.
  • the match seen by the user may only be a Q-string but still, AC may be using A-stat information as well to arrive at that match.
  • AC may find no match. It may find an exact match. And it may find "best" matches which we will also call tentative matches. Even if an exact match is found, AC still looks for tentative matches. These can be important because the user may want to see what similar questions have been asked by others. The similar questions might have answers the user is interested in.
  • AC can also enable a user to enter multiple versions of a question in search of a good match. Let's say the user enters, What's holding up traffic?, and AC finds no match. Therefore, he continues to rephrase the question: What's the cause of all this traffic? Why is the traffic all jammed up? Traffic jam, basic info?
  • Best match algorithms are essential to the operation of AC because, unless the grammar of the questions is highly constrained, people searching for the same answer will rarely enter the same question string. People will usually enter similar strings. Even if the grammar is highly constrained, people will still often enter similar questions, while looking for the same answer. For example, two people looking for the same phone number may enter different questions, such as: Daneel Olivaw's phone number? and R. Daneel Olivaw's phone number?.
  • a question that is entered into AC needs to be tentatively matched up against existing questions so that the user who entered the question has the option of finding and selecting a match.
  • a user might not select any match. But, if there was no option of selecting matching questions, then users would not be able to see what similar questions other users have asked, and so there would be little accumulation of demand on questions — little accumulation of demand for answers, that is.
  • AC must do the tentative matching, of course, because users do not know what potential matches exist in AC. Let's consider one more example. Assume that What's holding up traffic? has been asked in several languages and is translated into a common language. Yet this is a false assumption, for there is no single question in different languages that means What's holding up traffic?. There are similar questions.
  • Rex can ask that the T-shirt have a certain price, that it be made in a certain country, that it be a certain percentage of cotton, that it be a certain color, that it be a certain size, that it be a certain thickness, and on and on.
  • the possibilities are endless. And say that 10,000,000 other people in the past have asked where they can buy a certain T-shirt and that each person has described a different shirt, though we might recognize many of the shirts as similar.
  • the reality is a profusion of similar questions. How then to match them up?
  • a solution to this problem is described in Book II and is previewed at the end of this section.
  • ACs matching rules of course include defaults for limiting and selecting the matches shown to the current-Q.
  • AC finds an exact match then it tells the user. If AC cannot find an exact match it may find one or more tentative matches. These can be shown in an area on the Q-display for matching questions. If AC cannot find an exact or tentative match, it shows a "no matches" message. If AC finds an exact match, it still may show tentative matches. That is because, as noted, a user may want to see similar questions that other users have asked.
  • AC enables users to press a scroll command 106 for scrolling through the matching questions. How much of a matching question is shown is a design decision and depends on the situation. AC can hide matching questions and enable the user to call them up by entering a command such as, Show Matches 107. While tentatively matching questions are not current-Q's, AC can append certain key A-stats to them, such as whether they have answers. These statistics come from the Q-records of the questions involved.
  • AC can show match statistics (match stats) for the question entered. By these we mean statistics about how many tentative matches AC can find for a question. There may be a large number of such matches. For example, What's holding up traffic? might have one exact match and billions of tentative matches. (In this situation the user would usually further specify the question.) (Note: AC can show match stats for a current-Q regardless of how a user got there.)
  • AC can show conventional hit statistics so that if a user enters, say, What's holding up traffic?, AC can show how many questions What's holding up traffic? is an exact subset of. Ideally, AC shows how many very similar questions there are and this is not definable in terms of subsets.
  • AC can enable the user to see other questions.
  • AC can enable the user to press a command 108 for seeing the previous question. By previous question we mean the previous current-Q. This option is a useful skip back command.
  • AC can keep a list of questions that the user has asked during a certain period of time.
  • AC can include a command 109 enabling the user to call up questions from this list, such as the last ten questions the user has entered.
  • AC can also enable the user to maintain a list of open questions, questions that have not been answered but that the user still wants answered. The list can be kept in the user record.
  • AC can include a command 110 enabling the user to call up this list.
  • AC can also include a command 111 enabling a user to see linked questions of various kinds. We say various kinds because there are different kinds of links, which we will discuss later, especially in Book II.
  • a question on screen may be a matching question, a question from a list of previous questions, a question from the user record, or a linked question. It may also be a comparison question, which we describe a little bit later.
  • select here we mean that the user designates that he wants the question to be the current-Q, that he wants to go to the question. He might designate this by selecting it and then hitting a Go 114 command, for instance. The reason we distinguish the type of selection is that the user can select a question in order to have other options apply.
  • some Q-display options apply not only to the current-Q.
  • the user might select a question in order to see A-stats about it. In this case he might select it and hit a See A-stats 115 command.
  • AC may not show all of a question on screen. Partial information can be shown and the user can select that.
  • AC might have buttons for designating certain kinds of questions, such as the previous current-Q and the null-Q. The user can select one of these and hit Go as well.
  • AC can enable the user to choose an option whereby the user enters a question and AC only shows matching questions.
  • AC shows the user tentative matching questions and options that apply to these.
  • the reason for this travel option is that a user looking for an answer might not want to mess around with a new question that he might create. He might want to get an existing answer, or he might want to get to a question that others have asked.
  • AC can enable the user to choose an option whereby he does not see the usual options if his question is new. (Of course the user might want to see the current-Q and can enter a Show Current-Q command, in which case AC shows the usual Q-display options that apply to the current-Q.)
  • the user can ask AC to show the single best match AC can find, and the user can confirm whether this match is adequate.
  • the difference here from showing multiple matching questions on an equal basis is that AC may show more A-stats about the "single best" match than it would ordinarily show about other match questions.
  • AC may show A-stats as if the best match was the current-Q. It may, for example, show matches of the best match.
  • AC can find matches for the current-Q regardless of whether the user got there by entering the question or selecting an existing question on screen.
  • AC can include a Show Matches command. This command, when pressed, can signify that the user wants to see best matches to the current-Q. Enabling the user to see matches to the current-Q is critical because it allows the user to see and travel to questions that are similar to a question. This applies not only to a new question that a user enters but to any question a user is at.
  • a user can land in AC in various ways, and can continue on his travels once he lands. He can land at an entirely new question that he entered and that AC has created for him. He can land at a question that has already been created. He can land at no question, merely surveying what questions are similar to the one he entered. And he can choose to go to one of these similar questions. When at a question he can see questions similar to that question. And he can go to one of these as well. Or from where he is he can enter a new question and be taken there. Or he can ask to see some of the previous questions he has been at. And he can select one of these as well. Or he can ask to be taken back to the null question.
  • AC can give Rex another way to express interest in a missing answer without having Rex actually travel to the corresponding question.
  • Rex when Rex is at a question he may see one or more matching questions. He may be interested in the answer to one or more of these.
  • AC shows these matches it can also show Rex that the questions do not have actual answers. Rather than have Rex go to these questions to express interest in their answers, AC can enable him to express interest by marking the questions with a want-it mark.
  • AC may, for instance, have a check box next to each matching question whose answer is missing.
  • AC may also enable Rex to make a price offer but that is beside the point here.
  • the main thing is that AC can enable Rex to express interest in the answers to matching questions without traveling to those other questions. This option can be an important convenience. Not only can it save Rex time but can show AC what are good matches to a question and can help Rex pool demand on given questions. (In discussions about registering demand information, a want-it mark will be considered a kind of request, even though Rex does not go to the question that is marked.)
  • AC enables a user to enter standard question specifiers (Q-specs) that are a kind of Q-string information.
  • Q-specs standard question specifiers
  • As Q-string information AC uses Q-specs to create Q- locations. It also uses them to find existing questions.
  • a user can enter Q-specs along with a main string.
  • AC can include a Q-spec button 116 that a user selects to call up a Q-spec form, enabling him to enter the Q-specs. He can also enter the Q-specs after he has entered the main string. For example, a user might enter What's holding up traffic?. There might be one exact match and 5,000, 000,000 tentative matches for this main string. And so the user might then enter certain Q-specs to further specify his question. He might enter for example: Time: 6:30 a.m. Date: 6/6/96 Place: Ten Freeway, LA. Source: California Highway Patrol
  • AC can include a command 117 for calling up the current Q-specs as well as one for entering them.
  • AC can enable a user to designate Q-specs as optional or mandatory. This means that the mandatory conditions are preferably matched over the optional ones. (This also tells potential suppliers that an answer must fit the mandatory conditions.) For example, a user might designate the time and date as mandatory and the source of the answer as optional.
  • AC can also enable a user to rank Q-specs in order of preference, to give AC guidance in selecting matches. Now when we say "match” we mean it in the sense discussed previously of most similar matches that AC can find according to ACs intemal match rules. Thus a Q-spec or any string information might not be matched exactly.
  • a Q-spec for instance, of 10 cents or under, might be matched by a Q-spec of 75 cents.
  • AC can also enable a user to designate a Q-spec to be a screen.
  • the Q-spec must be matched in the sense of a true match. For example, if the Q- spec is 10 cents or under, then the matching question must also include a Q-spec that specifies a price of 10 cents or under. 7 cents will do. 11 cents will not do.
  • AC can enable the user to have the last set of Q-specs entered kept in the background to be used for a future question entry.
  • these background Q-specs By this we mean that the last Q-specs entered are kept temporarily in memory and hidden from view.
  • AC can enable the user to call them up (and edit them possibly) and designate that they be used when he enters another main string. To let a user do this, AC might have, as options of the Q-specs menu, a command called Use Previous Q-specs and a command called Edit Previous Q-specs.
  • AC can assume that the Q-specs remain the same from the previous entry, until the user changes them. The point of these options is to save the user the time of re-entering Q-specs.
  • AC can enable a user to set Q-spec defaults such that a given set of Q-specs goes along with every main string the user enters, until the user cancels the default command.
  • a Q-specs default can be quite useful. For example, Rex might have lots of questions about the traffic jam he is in. He might want to automatically preface them all with the same time and place Q-specs.
  • Q-specs and A-stats can be about the same kinds of information. While AC treats the information differently with respect to memory locations, it can in certain cases match Q-spec information against A-stat information. Price information is an example. A Q-spec might be 10 cents or under, and an A-stat might be 7 cents. These could be a matched.
  • a useful procedure AC can include is to automatically create two questions when a user enters a set of Q-specs. In this procedure, one question is made up of just the main string, and one question is made up of the main string plus the Q-specs.
  • FIG 5.12 we assume a user has entered, What's holding up traffic?, and has also entered a Q-spec, 6:00 a.m.. And so AC creates two locations, one for the main string 140 and one for the main string plus Q-spec 141. We also assume another user has entered the same main string but with a different Q-spec of 7:00 a.m.. And so AC creates a third Q-location 142.
  • a potential supplier is in a better position to decide whether it is worthwhile to provide an answer that may satisfy some fraction of all the users who have entered that main string.
  • a supplier may find other similar questions worth answering. For example, as seen in figure 5.13, a user might enter, Movie review of Casablanca? 150. Now we face the multiple answers problem discussed in the previous chapter. What answer is the user looking for? What answer should a user supply?
  • One partial solution is a form linked question in which the main string is built upon with Q-specs to create a new question that differentiates the answer. Say the user wants to enter only one Q-spec, the name of the author of the answer (the review). A requestor would enter a desired author, say P.
  • AC collects, compiles and displays statistics (A-stats) about an answer. These are stored in the answer's Q-record and are accessed from the Q-display. A-stats can also be entered by a user along with a Q-string as additional search parameters to find a question (and perhaps an answer). When used for this purpose, we will call them search stats.
  • AC can include a command 118 that, when pressed, calls up a form for entering search stats.
  • AC matches a Q+ against existing Q-string + A-stat information in AC. In other words, it matches them against existing Q-locations.
  • a user might enter the Q-string: Movie review of Casablanca? . There might be one exact match and 5,000,000 tentative matches. And so the user might then enter search stats to further specify his question. For example: Popularity: Most popular answer by sales. Length: Less than 200 words. Price: Under 50 cents
  • AC shows the user the Q-locations that best match this information.
  • AC may show just the matching Q-strings.
  • AC may show the A-stats that correspond to the search stats as well. Now the A-stats that are shown may differ depending on whether a question has missing answer or an actual answer. But we do not pursue this point right now.
  • a user can also find an answer with a Q+.
  • AC can enable a user to designate given search stats as optional or mandatory.
  • the mandatory conditions are preferably matched over the optional ones.
  • AC can also enable a user to rank search stats in order of preference, to give AC guidance in selecting matches.
  • match we mean it in the sense discussed previously of the most similar matches that AC can find according to ACs internal match rules.
  • AC can also enable a user to designate given search stats as screens.
  • the search stats must be matched in the sense of a true match. For example, if the search stat is 10 cents or under, then the matching A-stat must also be equal to or less than 10 cents. 11 cents will not do.
  • AC can enable the user to have the last set of search stats entered kept in the background to be used for a future question entry. We will call these background search stats. By this we mean that the last search stats entered are kept temporarily in memory and hidden from view. AC can enable the user to call them up (and edit them possibly) and designate that they be used when he enters another Q-string. To let a user do this, AC can have, as options of the search stats menu, a command called Use Previous Search Stats and a command called Edit Previous Search Stats.
  • AC can assume that the search stats remain the same from the previous entry, until the user changes them. The point of these options is to save the user time.
  • AC can enable a user to set search stat defaults such that a given set of search stats goes along with every Q-string the user enters, until the user cancels the default command. This default option can be quite useful. For example, returning to our traffic jam, Rex might have lots of questions about the jam. He might want to automatically preface them all with, say, the same price and quality information.
  • search stats can be matched against Q-specs.
  • the A-stats that come from the Q-record of a given Q-string are part of the representation of an answer, whether the answer is missing or present.
  • the A-stats show us how imperfect any representation is, especially a representation that changes in time. For example, if an answer has no complaints registered against it one day and ten the next, is it a different answer? Yes, in the minds of potential buyers it is. Yet we collect demand for an answer based on who arrives at the corresponding question. Why do we collect demand information based on what questions people arrive at rather than on what questions people arrive at and on what A-stats are showing at the times of arrival? Why not? Because the A-stats change. Therefore, we cannot say what answer is represented. We cannot collect enough demand.
  • Rex can ask for the answer to the question: Biography of Hans Bethe?
  • Rex can specify an A-stat of: Good reviews. Sue cannot supply an answer with good reviews.
  • Rex can specify an A-stat of: Most popular by sales. Sue cannot supply an answer with high sales.
  • Rex can specify an A-stat of: No verified complaints. Sue cannot supply an answer with no verified complaints.
  • Rex can specify an A-stat of: POE above $10. Sue cannot supply an answer with a given POE level.
  • Rex can specify an A-stat of: Price under $1. Sue may be able to supply an answer at a given price. But she may not be setting prices. Price is an example of information that can be Q-string and or A-stat information. If the price is set by AC, then Sue, obviously, cannot supply an answer with a given price.
  • A-stats can be phrased in terms of Q-string information.
  • Rex can specify in a Q-string that an answer is to be under a certain length. This information can also be specified as an A-stat. That does not affect the idea of A-stats.
  • the user decides how to enter the information, as Q-string or A-stat or both. If the user decides to enter the information as an A- stat then it is understood that AC will not create a Q-location with the information.
  • the bottom line is that Rex can enter A-stats to find a question (and corresponding answer), by matching the A-stats in the question's Q-record. If the Q-string that Rex is entering is new then AC creates a location for it.
  • AC does not create a new location for the Q-string + A-stats in the sense that has been previously explained: a place that AC takes users to when they enter a question, a place people select to find an answer, and a place people go to to supply an answer.
  • a Q-string plus search stats is called a Q+.
  • AC can store a Q+ in memory.
  • a Q+ can have a record that contains key facts about the Q+, such as who entered it and when and how many people entered it.
  • a pseudo location is created in addition to normal Q-location, not in place of it.
  • We use the term "pseudo" because AC does not take users to this location when it matches questions to Q- locations and when it matches Q+'s to Q-locations. Why create a pseudo location then? The main reason is that it can be used as demand information.
  • a Q+ can be stored as a come-from-Q, a come-from-Q+ that is. In other words, it shows what search stats a user entered in order to arrive at a given question. And it can show what search stats a user entered in order to get a given answer. For example, it can be valuable to know that 25% of people who bought the answer to Biography of Hans Bethe? included a search stat of Good reviews.
  • AC can keep statistics about what search stats were entered by people who arrived at a question in the Q-record of that question. And AC can enable users to call these statistics up from a given Q-record. Seeing what A-stats were entered in the search of an answer can be valuable demand information for suppliers. Let's pretend an answer is a certain kind of blender and that each buyer has to fill out a questionnaire about why he bought. Now if 43% of buyers listed as a reason for buying that the blender had gotten a good review in Consumer Reports, and 71 % listed price as a reason, then that is valuable information. The same principle applies to answers. Now no one buys anything for one reason. There are multiple factors and it can be useful to see which ones a given buyer lists.
  • a user may want to enter more than one question to correspond to the same answer. For example, a user who enters Who is Spiderman's alter ego? might want to enter other similar questions, such as, In Marvel Comics, who is Spiderman's alter ego? or, Who's the man behind Spiderman's mask?. (If Rex enters the additional question(s), his purpose can be to find a good matching question. He may also want to let other Rex's find his question in order to pool demand for the same answer. If Sue enters the additional question(s), her purpose can be to enable Rex's to find the answer that she puts in.) Hence, AC can enable a user to designate that the next question to be entered corresponds to the same answer that the current-Q corresponds to.
  • AC can include a command that might be labeled Synonym Question which the user selects to designate that the next question entered is a synonym of the current-Q. As explained in Book II, AC can create a link between these questions called a synonym link. As seen in figure 5.15, it is also possible for AC to link the questions 170, 171, 172 indirectly through the actual answer or missing answer 173.
  • Comparison Questions AC can enable users to enter what we will call a comparison question (comp-Q).
  • a comp-Q is shown along with the current-Q. It can become the current-Q, if the user selects it to be.
  • AC can also enable the user to select a question on screen and designate it a comp-Q.
  • the purpose of the comp-Q is to be compared with the current-Q. For example, the current-Q might be: What's causing this traffic jam? and the comp-Q might be: What's going on, goddamnit, on the Ten?.
  • AC can include a comp-Q button 119 that the user selects before entering a Q-string. After pressing this button he enters a question just as he enters a question to be the new current-Q.
  • the comp-Q is shown on screen and, as with a new current-Q, AC searches for a match. AC can then show certain key match stats and A-stats about the comp-Q, or the user can ask to see these stats. Upon seeing these, the user can then decide if he wants to make the comp-Q the current-Q. If so, he can select it and enter Go. Now if he is dissatisfied with the comp-Q, he can erase it and enter another. As with the current Q, he can edit it and hit Enter after the editing.
  • AC can also enable him to copy the current-Q into the comp-Q area on screen and then edit the question to create the comp-Q.
  • the comp-Q option can be quite useful for it enables a user to easily compare the key stats of two questions.
  • AC can also enable the user to link the current-Q and the comp-Q in various ways, but we save this possibility for Book II.
  • AC can include a type of question that when entered causes AC to create more questions based on the information in the original question.
  • auto-Q _ auto- questions
  • a question that causes AC to create an auto-set is a seed question. For example, say a user enters, Jim's phone number?. From this AC can create numerous questions about Jim: Jim's address?, Jim's age?, Jim's job?, and so on.
  • AC creates a Q-record for each of the auto-questions and for the auto-set altogether. Now we assume that the user has designated a land where this first question is a seed question. To enter a seed question, a user has to enter subject information into a given named field. The subject information is used to create the auto-set. This is illustrated in tables. Tables
  • Tables of answers can be very useful to have in AC.
  • a table can be made up of answers entered to correspond to auto-sets.
  • the key feature of tables in AC is a potential auto-set of questions, more conveniently thought of as a blank row.
  • a blank row is made up of a set of blank named fields. For example:
  • a row will have at least one subject field.
  • the subject field is the product field. Once the subject field is filled in, it implies — and AC creates — an auto-set of actual questions. For example, if product field is filled in:
  • Walkman X Store Price we have a set of questions: Where is Walkman X sold? and What is the price of Walkman X?. Of course, more than one field can be filled in, which can make for different questions. For example:
  • Walkman X Luskins Price are different questions: What is the price of Walkman X at Circuit City? and, What is the price of Walkman X at Luskins?. As more fields are added to a row, more individual questions are created. For example, if we add a phone number field above, we have the questions: What is the phone number ofthe Circuit City that sells Walkman X? What is the phone number ofthe Luskins that sells Walkman X?
  • Questions are defined by the information in a row that is missing from blank fields and by the information that is present in filled fields.
  • Sue can name the table or enter a seed question.
  • AC presents her with a blank row that she can enter her answers into.
  • questions can look like answers — because they both can have the same information —
  • AC does not use the same table for questions and answers.
  • AC stores questions and answers distinctly from each other.
  • AC can enable questions to be entered and linked to one another.
  • a question can be linked to others by form link and by named link.
  • Linking questions is a big topic because linking questions in certain ways can provide solutions to the problems raised in the previous chapter.
  • Book II is devoted to the linking of questions and so we do not dwell on the topic here. The main point to make now are that questions can correspond to each other and not only to answers.
  • the second type of link is what we call a named link.
  • a user can enter a question and link it to an existing one with a link that is named to reflect the semantic relationship between the two different question strings.
  • a synonym link means that the user considers two linked questions to be synonyms of each other.
  • Named links are a broader category than form links.
  • form links can be considered special cases of named links.
  • the links are a kind of match.
  • Direct answer in a sense is defined by the inverse operations of finding the answer and getting the answer for output.
  • a definition can be found directly under a word; it corresponds directly to the word. It is in this sense that we mean a direct linkage or direct correspondence between a question and answer.
  • definitions are ordered.
  • AC can have multiple answers for a question.
  • ACs rules for presenting answers can vary widely and are not usually a visual ordering, as in a conventional dictionary.
  • Q-info A-stat information
  • AC creates a new record, which we call a Q-A-record.
  • This record is a sub-record of the Q-record.
  • Q-A-info the information in the Q-A-record by the name Q-A-info. But this name can be misleading because the Q-A-record is a subset of the Q-record.
  • Q-A-info is also Q-info.
  • Q-A- info because it is simpler than saying "Q-info about an actual answer.”
  • Most all the A-stats that apply to a missing answer also apply to an actual answer. Thus much of the information registered for missing answers is registered for actual answers.
  • the Q-A-record will have a demand record pertaining to Sue's actual answer.
  • numerous additional A- stats are registered about an actual answer that cannot be registered about a missing answer, such the length of the answer, the price of the answer, sales of the answer, complaints about the answer, and so on.
  • actual-answer statistics A-A-stats
  • the Q-A-record is used to provide information about potential answers that the Q-A- record is a sub-record of the Q-record.
  • the Q-A-record includes a credit record where royalties are registered.
  • the credit record may include citation information pertaining to answers that get a share of the royalties from Sue's answer. We discuss this point later as well. How is information registered in the Q-A-record? Most information is registered when users, especially Rex's, react to Sue's answer. How users react to her answer depends on how it is presented. And there are various way AC can present an answer. We will discuss this topic later as well. Some information is registered automatically when Sue enters her answer. Examples are Sue's ID data, the time of entry, and the length of the answer. Other information can be entered by Sue. We discuss this kind of information next.
  • Certain A-stats can be entered by Sue along with her answer to describe the answer.
  • A- stats are used this way, we call them supply stats.
  • supply stats are the source of her answer, quality assertions about her answer, the price of her answer, and so on. For example, she may supply the answer to the question, Short Biography of Hans Bethe?.
  • As supply stat information she might enter certain keywords, such as physics great, Los Alamos, Cornell, Longest active career, etc. Keywords are a small example of supply stats, but they illustrate well that supply stats can describe various aspects particular to Sue's answer.
  • Sue selects a command 120 that AC includes for supply stats, and AC then presents her with a form for entering them. Or, AC automatically provides her with a supply stat form when she enters an answer.
  • the supply stat form may be broken into many sub-forms: a form for price, a form for quality assertions, a form for keywords, and so on.
  • AC stores the supply stats she enters in the Q-A-record for her answer and displays them when necessary. They are seen by others as A-A-stats for her answer.
  • she may be required to enter certain supply stats. For example, she may be required to set a price for her answer.
  • Price can be considered a special kind of supply stat because it can change and vary in many ways, more so than other supply stats in general. Another thing that separates price from other supply stats is that it involves transaction procedures, sales that is. Still, while price does have a special role, we put it in the category of supply stats because it does describe an actual answer, and because Sue can enter it. We explain the role of price more in chapters 6 and 7.)
  • Supply stats are different from other A-stats in that they can, in theory, have been asked for in a Q-string. Unlike many kinds of A-stats, they describe aspects of answers that can be supplied by a user. Sue can change supply stats. Price is the most obvious case, but other stats are changeable as well. For example, Sue may change quality assertions that she makes about her answer. In order to change the supply stats, she must identify her answer, and press the supply stat command. AC then presents her with the supply stat form which she can use to change given supply stats. 5.2d A Q-A-record Is a Subset of a Q-record
  • one purpose for collecting Q-info about an actual answer is to create A-stats that describe that answer. These can enable Rex to decide whether he wants to buy the answer. They are product information.
  • the A-stats also enable Sue to monitor her answer. Through A-stats, she sees reaction to her answer. She may then decide to change it in some way, or to change the price.
  • this purpose for gathering Q-A-info is obviously essential, there is another essential purpose: to provide information for helping users decide whether to enter another answer to the question (for example, an improved answer).
  • the demand information in the Q-A-record does not just apply to the actual answer. It also applies to potential answers. It applies to answers that might replace the actual answer. It applies to answers that might improve on the actual answer.
  • AC can provide a POE for telling her what she might get, but AC cannot tell her what answer to supply. This she needs to figure out from common sense. Seeing various A-stats about an actual answer and seeing the actual answer itself can obviously help her make guesses about these two questions. We see this principle with most any physical product, of course. The sales of a product give us the best clues about what the sales of similar products will be. And the product itself gives clues as to what an improved product should be like. Information gathered about a single actual answer is not the only information that is relevant to deciding whether to enter an another answer to the direct question. First of all, there is information that was gathered before any actual answer was supplied. Second of all, there may be multiple direct answers supplied.
  • the combined tally may help make a more accurate POE for a potential updated answer than one of the tallies alone.
  • Demand for today's actual weather report might apply to demand for tomorrow's potential weather report.
  • demand for the past 100 actual weather reports might apply to the demand for tomorrow's weather report.
  • Each past report is a distinct answer to the direct question, while tomorrow's potential report can have a POE based on the sales of these past reports.
  • the demand records of all the past reports are combined in the Q-record. As shown in figure 5.16, when we picture an actual answer 180 being supplied to a question 181, we show a Q-A-record 182 along with the actual answer. We also show the Q-record 183, for it is the master record.
  • the key questions that Sue wants to answer for herself are: 1) What answer should I supply? and 2) How much will I get for supplying it? (There are many other things Sue may want to find out about, such as what price she should set for her answer, but the two key questions are the ones above.)
  • AC can store multiple direct answers to a question.
  • the variety comes from the various kinds of rules there can be for presenting the answers and for crediting the answers with royalties. While we cannot give any specific rules, we can say that AC requires four kinds of rules and functions. (Note: When we say rules, we mean both meta rules that users understand and internal system rules that are required for implementing the meta rules. Often we call internal rules functions because they involve sets of steps for carrying out the meta rules.)
  • This rule was discussed above. We may call it the second rule of creation, in contrast with the main rule of creation, which is to create a Q-record for any new question. Thus, different actual answers to the same direct question are all stored under that question and are differentiated by their A-A-stats. (Another way of looking at the situation is that AC creates a Q-A-location for each answer. We discuss this idea later.) (Now, in certain cases, where changes are made to an answer, AC may not create an entirely new record, but that is not really to the point. We will assume that AC creates a new Q- A-record whenever Sue changes the content of an answer.)
  • ACs meta rules are rules that users need to follow in order for the system to work. For example, Sue may be expected to properly cite a given answer as deserving a share of the royalties that her answer gets. The meta rules tell her when to do this. Where meta rules are concerned, there must be ways for determining whether users have violated the rules. There can obviously be disputes, for money is involved. And so, AC needs means for enabling users to alert system judges to problems. And AC needs means to allow system judges to rule on matters. AC has its traffic rules; it's right of way rules, so to speak. Instead of police roaming the streets, users themselves spot infractions. They can complain to system judges. Unlike traffic situations on the streets, evidence is available and can be evaluated.
  • AC needs rules and functions that enable users to challenge the actions of other users. This is especially evident where users supply competing answers.
  • AC must have rules for how the answers are shown when a user arrives at a question, and rules for which answer is sold when the user requests one for output. (When we say that an answer is shown, we mean that A-A-stats for the answer are shown. When we say that an answer is sold, we mean that it is outputted.) To repeat a previous point, these rules are part of storage rules, because how an answer is shown and sold is part of how it is stored. While the name does not seem to have anything to do with storage, we will call these rules show and sell rules. The importance of show and sell rules in AC can be seen by analogy when we think of a printed product catalogue. In a catalogue for, say, office supplies we see headings for various kinds of products.
  • AC also needs selection rules for which answer to output. (AC can output more than one answer at a time, but for simplicity, we will assume that only one answer is outputted per output request.) The user may choose the answer, or AC may choose the answer. When AC chooses the actual answer, then AC obviously needs rules for selecting the answer out of a set of possible answers. While show and sell rules mean selection rules that apply to direct answers already in AC, they can also mean rules for restricting what answers are allowed to be stored for a given question. In other words, show and sell rules can include meta rules that define a satisfactory answer to a given question. Let us discuss this point briefly because it is a basic way of handling the endless answer problem. One way to handle the endless answer problem is to narrowly restrict the meaning of questions.
  • a rule in certain lands can be that an answer has to be true.
  • AC can judge whether a condition has been met.
  • a rule can be that an answer has to be under 100 words long. AC can judge whether this condition is met.
  • AC can include numerous lands where different meta rules apply and where the same questions mean different things.
  • questions are names.
  • One land might then be a phone directory where each name corresponds to a phone number.
  • Another might be an encyclopedia where each name corresponds to a subject.
  • Another might be a geographical locator where each name corresponds to a GPS number.
  • Now rules for defining the boundaries of answers to a given question need not be highly restrictive. But highly restrictive conditions are necessary when questions are not linked to one another. If definitions are not restricted — so that users can have a good idea of what answer to expect — then the endless answers reality will swamp the system because no one will have a good guess as to what answer to expect, or what answer to supply, to a question.
  • AC creates a Q-A-record is to say that AC creates a Q-A-location.
  • AC creates a record and enables users to access this record (just as a Q- location means both a Q-record and that AC enables the user to access the Q-record).
  • location can be confusing though because the Q-A-location is not separate from the Q- location.
  • a Q-A-record, as noted, is part of the Q-record.
  • a Q-A-location is part of the Q- location.
  • a Q-location is made up of a question and a Q-record.
  • the Q-display shows options pertaining to that Q-location.
  • the Q-display also includes options for accessing a given Q-A-record, and for getting the actual answer that the Q-A-record corresponds to.
  • the Q-display options apply to a particular Q-A-record, we say that the user is at a Q-A-location.
  • the Q-A-location is both a distinct location in memory and part of the Q-location. If we think of the Q-location as a signomat, a picture on screen, we can think of the Q-A-location as a picture within a picture. We can think of the Q-A-location as an area on the signomat. When we say that AC finds or matches a Q-A-location, we mean that AC matches a Q-A-record. When we say that a user arrives at a Q-A-location, we mean that AC presents him with options for accessing the Q-A-record, and for getting the corresponding actual answer.
  • a user does not so much go to a Q-A-location as a given Q-A-location is presented to him as part of the larger Q- location.
  • a user arrives at a Q-A-location he sees A-A-stats for an actual answer. He can "react" to the answer, for example by making an offer for the answer, or entering a complaint about the answer.
  • AC registers information in that actual answer's Q-A-record.
  • a user is at a Q-A-location, he is still at the Q-location, and so information is still registered in the Q-record.
  • AC still shows options that pertain to the current-Q, and to potential answers, and to finding other Q-A-records, if any, that are at that Q- location.
  • location is a bit confusing for the process by which AC creates a record for an actual answer and allows users to access that record, while the users are at a larger record, the Q-record.
  • location because it is convenient to think of a user going to a record.
  • AC can enable the user to arrive at a question and AC can show no Q-A-location initially. In other words, AC does not show any A-stats from any Q-A-record. AC instead enables the user to enter a command for scrolling through the Q-A-records at that question. Altematively, AC can enable the user to enter further search stats to specify a Q-A-location that AC can then match and present. For example, say that the question Rex arrives at is Short Bio of Bethe?. And say that there are 100 direct answers to this question. Say also that Rex enters a search stat of 5 cents. AC will then take Rex to a Q-A-location for a bio that costs 5 cents.
  • AC may need other search stats in order to narrow down the selection to one Q-A-location.
  • AC may will also have defaults for taking users to given Q-A-locations. For example, one default may be that AC takes the user to the more popular of two given Q-A-locations (of course, popularity can be defined in various ways, and we are just giving an example). It all depends on ACs matching rules.
  • the second way that a user can arrive at a Q-A-location is for AC to take him to the Q-A- location that best matches question or Q+ that the user has entered.
  • AC matches questions and Q+'s against Q-A-locations and picks the best one it can find at that question.
  • AC can present more than one match at a time.
  • AC enables the user to use the options for finding another Q-A-location.
  • AC does present a Q-A- location initially. (There must be a Q-A-location at the question in order for this to happen.)
  • the idea behind the current answer approach is simple: when a user arrives at a question, AC defaults to showing him A-stats about one answer out of a set of possible direct answers. We call this favored answer the current answer.
  • the current answer is defined by meta rules which we call displacement rules.
  • meta rules define what answers can displace the current answer. If there is no existing current answer, Sue's answer becomes the current answer.
  • Displacement rules can vary widely. The idea is that they are designed so that a displacing answer is deemed "better" than the answer it displaces. Though better is very vague, it gets the idea across.
  • a simple example of a displacement rule is that the current answer should be correct. If it is not correct, it can be displaced. For example, if a price is out of date, a new, correct price can become the current answer. Now AC cannot know about conditions in the real world and so Sue must say whether her answer deserves to be the current answer according to the meta rules. AC assumes she is right, while allowing others to challenge her judgement.
  • the current answer approach is an important way of restricting the answers that can be stored for a question. The approach can be used to enable a given Sue to "reserve" an inte ⁇ retation of the question for her answer, blocking out various other inte ⁇ retations.
  • the previous current answer becomes a past answer 193, whose Q-A-record 194 remains and differentiates it from other past answers and the current answer.
  • Past answers have their own Q-A-locations, differentiated by the A-A-stats that are particular to their Q-A-records.
  • AC can enable him to enter a See Past Answer command for seeing Q-A-locations of past answers.
  • AC can then enable him to scroll through A-A-stats for particular past answers.
  • AC may enable him to enter search stats for finding a given past answer Q-A-location. Therefore, even though a question has a current answer, users can still find past answer Q-A-locations, and can transact business there as well. How many past answers should be kept is a design decision. To limit the number kept, AC can charge Sue a storage fee for keeping her past answer or can keep only those that generate enough revenue to justify their storage.
  • AC includes to enable Sue to express the difference between her answer and an existing answer to the same direct question. While there can be great variety in the details of this method, it is just a small variation of the basic input path. The difference is that, rather than arriving at just a Q-location, Sue arrives at a Q-A-location for the answer that she wants to compare her answer to. AC then enables her to describe the relationship between that answer and her new, different answer.
  • AC enables her to enter her answer. She enters her answer. AC stores it under the question she is at and creates a new Q-A-location for it.
  • AC takes her to the new Q-A-location. AC presents her with a form for entering a description of the difference between the answer she has entered and the answer at the previous Q-A-location she was at.
  • AC stores her comparison as an A-stat for both answers.
  • Q-A-record AC tells which answer the comparison refers to. For example AC might store, "an update of the answer with so and so A-stats.”
  • AC also stores the comparison and tells which the new answer is. For example, "updated by the answer with so and so A-stats.”
  • AC can create links between two Q-A-records, as shown in figures 5.19 and 5.20.
  • links we mean that when a user is at one of the Q-A-locations 195, 197 he can travel on the link to the other 196, 198.
  • AC can keep a history of "changes" that have been made to an actual answer.
  • the history is a chain of differences recorded in the Q-A-records of each answer in that chain. This is especially appropriate where the current answer approach is employed. Thus if the current answer has displaced another answer, the current answer can have an A-stat indicating what change was made. Each answer then, except the first, has a record of how it differs from the answer it has displaced.
  • AC can also include a command that enables Sue to edit an existing answer. She presses this Edit Answer command, and AC enables her to edit the answer of the Q-A-location she is at. As above, AC still creates a new Q-A-record for her edited answer. In this case, AC also saves the insertions and deletions she has made, so that there is a record of the change. The record can be kept as an A-stat in the Q-A-record of her revised answer.
  • AC can automatically alert the supplier of that existing answer.
  • the supplier may object to the comparison.
  • the two suppliers may communicate about whether the comparison is appropriate.
  • Sue may want to contact the original supplier in order to get permission to make a comparison or to consult about a comparison.
  • Sue is the original supplier, if she is making a comparison to her own existing answer, and one to contact.
  • AC can enable users to enter more than one direct question to correspond to the same answer.
  • AC can store the answer to correspond to the other questions as well.
  • AC may have the user press a command for this to happen, or AC may do it automatically. We leave aside this matter until section 5.5.
  • AC 5.21 Questions That Correspond to Answers with Multiple Parts
  • AC can include a type of question that allows multiple users to contribute sub-answers (sub- A's) to make up a "larger" answer.
  • sub-A's sub-answers
  • combo-Q the Q-A input path again remains essentially the same.
  • AC requires procedures for putting together the sub-A's for output.
  • AC needs to store each sub-A as a discrete entity that is tagged by Sue's ID data, so that she can be credited when her sub-answer is outputted.
  • a sub-A corresponds directly to the combo-Q in memory and is entered in the same way as a single answer: Sue enters the combo-Q and then enters the sub-A. For example, say Rex enters, What are the major steel companies in the US. ?, and designates this as a combo-Q. Then various Sues can arrive at the question and enter the names of different steel companies. Each entry is a sub-A and the full list can be outputted. The list can continue to grow and be updated. As another example, say a certain Sue enters, What's the news in Angola?, and designates it as a combo-Q. Subsequent Sues can then contribute their accounts, which can be differentiated in various ways, such as by time of entry and by author.
  • a combo-Q can be seen as a question where the unlimited answers approach applies and where the multiple direct answers under that question are outputted together.
  • AC can enable particular rules to apply that would not normally apply with plain old questions.
  • the particular rules concern making it easy for people to enter answers to be combined with other answers.
  • Such rule include copy/credit rules and presentation rules. We cannot give any particular rules but just say that when answers are to meant to be combined that different rules will apply than those for plain old questions.
  • the sub-A's to a combo-Q can be differentiated by their own sub- questions.
  • the combo-Q might be: What's the news in Angola?
  • a sub-Q might then be: What's the situation with unexploded mines as of 6/6/96?
  • another sub-Q might be: Dispatches by Flynn?
  • a combo-Q is really a kind of name linked question where the sub-Q's are linked to the combo Q.
  • a sub-A is then a "full" answer to its sub-Q, while it is also a sub-A to the combo-Q.
  • the basic Q-A input path applies: Sue arrives at a question, and then enters an answer, and AC stores the answer to correspond directly to the question. She may have gotten to the question by traveling through other questions, but that is beside the point.
  • Sue arrives at a question, and then enters an answer, and AC stores the answer to correspond directly to the question. She may have gotten to the question by traveling through other questions, but that is beside the point.
  • a first question is linked to a second question and the second question has a direct answer
  • we call the first question an indirect question to the answer.
  • AC can include for enabling users to test demand for actual answers, rather than just answers represented by questions.
  • AC can enable Sue to create a fake Q-A-location for testing demand.
  • Sue enters an answer she creates a Q-A-location.
  • the response of Rex's is then tested as demand information is collected at this Q- A-location.
  • the problem is that it is only tested with one set of A-A-stats, the set a that applies to her real, actual answer. If Sue sets a price for her answer, for example, then she only sees what the demand for her answer is at that price.
  • AC can include a Test Answer command for enabling her to enter fake, hypothetical A-A-stats along with her answer to create an extra, invisible Q-A-location.
  • invisible we mean that Rex's do not arrive at the Q-A-location, but that AC still collects certain kinds of demand information.
  • Sue can enter an answer and set a price of $5. She might also want to test demand at $2.
  • A-stats can be supply stats and also A-stats that normally she cannot supply. In this example case she would enter a supply stat of $2 rather than the real, visible $5. Sue need not even have entered an actual answer.
  • AC can enable her to enter just hypothetical A- A-stats. She can thus do market research based on a completely hypothetical actual answer that is described by the invisible, fake A-A-stats.
  • Request information encompasses many actions by users that do not involve a user actually asking to get a given answer. For example, when Rex arrives at a question the arrival alone is considered request information. Yet upon arriving, he may not ask to get the direct answer. He may just look at A-stats at that location.
  • the human matched answer (HMA) output path is an awkward name.
  • the path is so named because the user is the one who decides what answer is chosen for output.
  • This output path is the inverse of the basic input path.
  • Rex arrives at a question (Q-location).
  • the Q-display presents him with options for seeing A-stats about the direct answer and with options for making and accepting price offers for the answer. He then decides whether he wants the direct answer. If he wants it he selects Get Direct Answer, the command AC includes for designating the HMA path. If no answer is there, AC registers a o-miss in the Q-record of the current-Q. If an answer is there, AC registers a o-hit. If Rex has offered to pay enough for the answer, AC outputs it.
  • an A-stat may tell Rex whether the answer is in or not before he presses Get Direct Answer. Even if he knows the answer is missing he may still press the command to express his interest in buying the answer. Expressions of interest are elaborated upon in chapter 6.)
  • Rex decides that the information at a Q-location indicates that the direct answer will satisfy him.
  • Rex has decided on the matching answer.
  • a question may have multiple direct answers. In this case, AC potentially then can output multiple answers. But the simplest way is to output one.
  • the HMA output path is in contrast to the machine matched answer (MMA) output path.
  • MMA path determines the question and any search stats, but then leaves it up to AC to decide what answer best matches the question or Q+.
  • the MMA path involves more output attempt possibilities than the HMA path because the direct answer to the current-Q is not the only candidate for output.
  • the best matching answer may be at another Q-location.
  • One of the key things that makes the MMA path different from the HMA path is that if AC finds that the best matching answer is missing, AC will look for the next best matching answer, and so on, until it finds an actual answer, or until it decides that there is no adequately matching actual answer.
  • Rex makes one choice at a Q-location (or Q-A-location).
  • AC may find numerous o-misses before it finds an o-hit. All the misses are best matching answers; they are matches of missing answers. Now there can be variations on this plan. AC can include defaults whereby, if the number of misses is greater than a threshold, AC will ask Rex to specify his question or Q+ better. Defaults may be helpful because missing answers will probably vastly outnumber actual answers in AC. In other words, questions will probably vastly outnumber actual answers.
  • the source of an o-request means the question Rex is at, the current-Q, when Rex enters an o- request. Sometimes, we will also call it the primary source.
  • a direct o-request means that the source of the o-request is a direct question to the answer that is o-requested. (In the HMA path every o-request is a direct o-request. In the MMA path, o-requests can be direct and indirect.)
  • An indirect o-request means that the source of the o-request is a question other than a direct question to the answer that is o-requested. (Note: in section 5.2 we defined an indirect question and an indirect answer in terms of how questions are linked together.
  • linked questions can be the sources of indirect o-requests
  • non- linked questions and FB-Q's can also be the sources of indirect o-requests.
  • the secondary source of an o-request is the question that is matched by an indirect o-request. In other words, when an answer is o-requested, and the direct question to that answer is not the source of the o- request, then the direct question is called a secondary source.
  • AC includes a command, which we call Get Best Answer, that designates the MMA path. (In certain lands, AC might default to the MMA path.) For simplicity, we assume that Rex presses Get Best Answer after he has arrived at a question. (AC may enable him to press it before he enters a question.) Search stats can be used along with the current-Q to search for an answer. Before hitting Get Best Answer, Rex can enter search stats or designate that background ones are to be used. As noted, we call the current-Q plus search stats a Q+.
  • AC then registers an o-miss in the Q-record of that question and then looks for another match (if the matched question is not the current-Q, AC registers an indirect o-miss). AC keeps going until it finds an actual answer, or until it determines that there is no adequately matching actual answer. If AC finds an actual answer, it registers an o- hit in the Q-record and Q-A-record of the matching question and answer. Thus, if the matching answer is not a direct answer to the current-Q, AC registers an indirect o-hit.
  • Rex is at a current-Q when he hits Get Best Answer
  • AC will not necessarily find that the current-Q has a best matching actual or missing answer. Even if an actual answer is there, AC may not choose it as the best available answer. Any matching answer depends on what search stats, if any, Rex has entered, and on theretemative answers that exist, and on ACs matching rules. (Off the point somewhat, we note that one important reason Rex may use the Get Best Answer command is because there is no direct answer to the current-Q.)
  • the current-Q may have multiple direct answers and no current answer. If so, Get Best Answer can be a way that Rex lets AC pick from among the direct answers to the current- Q.
  • AC may also have a separate command, Get Best Direct Answer. This command applies in cases where there are multiple direct answers and Rex has decided that he wants one of these and not an answer at another Q-location. While Rex has picked a direct answer, we still consider this a machine matched answer.
  • a convenient variation on the sequence of entry above is for AC to enable Rex to enter a question or Q+ and then hit Get Best Answer without seeing the Q-location AC normally would take him to. That's because Rex may not be interested in seeing anything at a Q-location. He may just want to see an answer. In this case, unseen by Rex, AC makes the new question the current-Q as if Rex had entered the question without also hitting Get Best Answer. AC registers the necessary information, as discussed in section 5.1. For example, if the question is new to the system, AC creates a Q-location for it. AC still searches for the answer that best matches the question entered. Rex will only see the answer, if any, that is found. If no answer is found, AC tells Rex and Rex can keep entering questions and Q+'s, until an answer is found. In order to designate this option, Rex might enter two commands such as Get Best Answer and See Answer Only.
  • Registering the sources of o-requests can be useful information that enables users to see what questions people have asked in order to buy, or try to buy, a given answer. For example, say the source of the o-request is: Movie Review of Casablanca?. And say the answer that is o-requested is the direct answer to the question: Movie Review of Casablanca by Kael?. Then the primary source of the o-request (Movie Review of Casablanca?) is registered in the Q-record of the second question. AC can also register Q+'s as sources of o-requests.
  • AC In addition to registering an indirect o-request in the secondary source's Q-record, AC also registers the o-request, and it's result, in the Q-record of the primary source. For example, if Rex is at the question, Movie Review of Casablanca? , and presses Get Best Answer, then AC registers the o-request in the Q-record of that question and registers that the o-request is indirect, and registers that that question is the source.
  • the MMA path can potentially lead to a great number of o-misses per o-request, as AC tries to find the actual answer that best matches Rex's question or Q+. Before AC finds a question that has an actual answer, it may find hundreds, thousands, millions of questions that are better matches, but whose answers are missing. That can be a problem because the value of each o- request can depend on how many other o-requests have gone along with it. For example, if someone expresses interest in 200 different hypothetical shirts, that does not mean that the person wants 200 shirts. He may only have interest in one shirt. The value of each expression of interest thus can depend on how many other shirts he has expressed interest in.
  • AC may have default rules such that if there are too many o-misses for a given o-request, AC will ask Rex to further specify his question or Q+. That is beside the point though. 1. As discussed, AC registers each indirect o- request, including o-misses, in the Q-record of the matched questions, the secondary sources, that is. 2. Where the MMA path is concemed, for a given o-request, AC can also register with each o-miss the number of other o-misses associated with that o-request. 3. And, for a given o- hit or o-miss, AC can also register what questions AC considered better matches.
  • AC can enable users to link questions.
  • the question may possibly have a direct answer and/or an indirect answer.
  • a net of linked questions can potentially be vast; thus a question may have a multitude of indirect answers.
  • Rex can travel from the current question to a linked question and keep going in this manner looking for an answer. Or, he may be tired of traveling and may just want to get an answer.
  • Rex can choose the HMA option or the MMA option. The HMA and MMA methods remain the same, though there can be minor modifications.
  • AC can enable Rex, for instance, to specify that an indirect answer is to be outputted.
  • AC can enable Rex to specify what kind of indirect answer he wants.
  • Link specifications are search stats actually, and so the essentials of output paths with linked questions are no different than with non-linked questions.
  • Linked questions mainly offer critical improvements in the ability to find answers and collect demand for answers. These topisc are taken up in Book II.
  • AC can include function based questions (FB-Q's) that call special functions for finding answers.
  • FB-Q's function based questions
  • "Function based question” is a term that refers to a wide category of questions that find answers by processing existing questions and answers in AC. This definition is inadequate. Actually, it is hard to define FB-Q's well because they cover a very broad spectrum of possible functions for finding answers. Examples will demonstrate, but a good definition is elusive.
  • An FB-Q has two parts: 1. a designated function and 2. subject information.
  • FB-Q To enter an FB-Q, a user designates the function and enters the subject information (though not necessarily in that order).
  • the function uses the subject information to find an answer in AC. Certain search stats can be entered as well to screen answers but we will ignore these for they are not essential to the discussion.)
  • FB-Q's we reverse the previous order of presentation. First we discuss output paths and then input paths and then the creation of Q- locations. It is easier this way because what distinguishes FB-Q's from plain old questions is how answers are gotten out of the system or used to yield other answers.
  • FB-Q's find answers by processing questions and answers that already exist in AC.
  • FB-Q's find we mean, of course, that AC finds.
  • An FB-Q can find an answer not only by working on the information in a Q-string and in a Q-record, but also in an answer itself, (e.g., a keyword search might find a keyword in the content of an answer.)
  • FB-Q's We can roughly divide FB-Q's into three types of functions: those that search through questions and answers, those that sort answers, and those that plug answers into formulas. Actually there is no clear dividing line, and all three kinds of functions can be combined in an FB-Q. Often there is no difference between searching and sorting. Still, the general ideas of searching, sorting and plugging into formulas can help explain how AC can use FB-Q's to find and output answers. (Note: We use colloquial questions below as examples, though in actual implementation the syntax of FB-Q's may be quite constrained.)
  • AC can include a large range of search functions for locating an answer. The most important are keyword search functions. For example, an FB-Q might be: Find: "Deep Throat” within 10 words of "Alexander Haig "?. As noted, an FB-Q can search the content of both questions and answers. AC can also enable Rex to specify whether just questions or just answers or both are to be searched.
  • AC can include a large range of functions for sorting answers to yield a resulting answer. For example, an FB-Q might be Find: Ten lowest prices of Walkman X?. If AC has a list of sellers of Walkman X and a list of their prices. AC sorts the list and outputs the resulting answer.
  • FB-Q's that Find Answers by Plugging Answers Into Formulas AC can include a large range of functions for plugging answers into formulas to yield resulting answers.
  • an FB-Q might be, Find: Average Temperature of Florida Cities?.
  • the FB-Q can find the individual temperatures through their corresponding direct questions, which might be: Temperature Miami?, Temperature Daytona?, Temperature Boca Raton?, and so on. (AC might find the answers by some other indexing means, but that is beside the point here.)
  • the FB-Q plugs the individual answers into a formula, and outputs the resulting answer.
  • AC is, of course, a feed-in system.
  • AC registers the demand for "cell" answers based on the various questions, especially FB-Q's, that can be applied to those answers. Because it can collect this demand, AC is well suited to collecting and processing answers in tables.
  • FB-Q's require the MMA output path unless they take the user to a question.
  • Certain FB-Q's can take users to questions. In these cases the user can designate the HMA output path. For example, say a direct question is, What is the movie Singing in the Rain about?. The direct answer to this question might be a description of the movie. Now, let' say that our FB-Q is Find: "movie musical" within ten words of "most popular"?. This FB-Q might find these words in the direct answer. Rather than output the answer, the FB-Q can take Rex to the direct question, What is the movie Singing in the Rain about?. , and from there Rex can decide whether or not to buy the answer.
  • the FB-Q When an FB-Q takes a user to a question, the FB-Q is registered as a come-from-Q.
  • the FB-Q When an FB-Q o-requests an answer, the FB-Q is an indirect source of the o-request. That's because an FB-Q is not a direct question to the answer that it causes AC to find. For example, if the FB-Q is Find: Average temperature Florida cities?, AC o-requests the answers of various direct questions, such as Temperature Miami?, Temperature Daytona?, etc. to arrive at a resulting answer.
  • an FB-Q is a question that users usually cannot supply an answer to. That is because an FB-Q works on existing questions and answers in AC. Users cannot know the answer to an FB-Q because users do not know all the questions and answers in AC.
  • an important kind of FB-Q is a keyword search. Now, a user can have no way of supplying an answer to such an FB-Q because she has no way of knowing all the questions and answers in AC that will match the keywords.
  • FB-Q Another important kind of FB-Q is one that plugs existing answers into a formula, say a formula for finding the average temperature from a list of temperatures. Again, a user cannot supply the answer because the user does not know all the relevant answers (temperatures) in ACs list.
  • AC can show a user the direct questions that correspond to the answers that an FB-Q causes AC to find.
  • the FB-Q is a primary source of an o-request and AC can show the secondary sources of those o-requests.
  • AC can enable a user to ask to see these direct questions. Even without AC showing the direct questions, a user may be able to recognize which direct questions and answers are involved when an FB-Q searches for an answer. A user can choose whether or not to enter direct answers to those questions.
  • AC can still create a Q-record (including a demand record) for an FB-Q.
  • Demand information (and other information) gathered in the FB-Q's Q- record is fed into the Q-records of direct questions that correspond to the answers that AC outputs or tries to output as a result of the FB-Q.
  • AC can show certain A-stats that apply to FB-Q's. The A-stats shown depend on the particular FB-Q. The cost of an answer, for example, is useful to see.
  • POE information can be useful in rare, but important, cases. That's because, as mentioned, users can in certain cases know what answers will be used by the FB-Q.
  • FB-Q's Q-record How much information is kept in an FB-Q's Q-record depends on the FB-Q. Demand information is normally most important, but with FB-Q's it may not be necessary to keep. It depends on the situation. For example, AC may not keep demand records of keyword search FB-Q's, but may instead simply register demand information in the Q-records of the direct questions that the keyword FB-Q's find. Let us take an FB-Q that does the following keyword search: Find: "orange" within ten words of'karpousi"? Let us assume that this question is only entered into AC once during a year. In a case such as this there may be no point in maintaining a demand record.
  • an answer can be indirectly o-requested.
  • AC registers an indirect o-request in the Q-record of the direct-Q of the answer that has been o-requested.
  • AC also registers the source of the o-request. And so, AC registers and classifies all the indirect o-requests for an answer in the Q-record of the secondary source, the direct-Q to that answer. In this way AC combines the request information from direct-Q's and the sources of indirect o-requests.
  • AC can use information from their records to create a common Q-record.
  • the principle applies for actual answers and missing answers that have multiple direct-Q's in common.
  • This common-Q-record can be created by feeding in information from the individual Q-records into the common record.
  • the common record contains information from each Q-record that applies to the answer that all the questions have in common (though the individual Q-records might contain demand information about answers not in common as well).
  • a common Q-A- record is created in addition to the common Q-record.
  • the common Q-A record may be considered a sub-record of the common Q-record.
  • a general, and generally unsolvable, problem is how to apply the demand information that is combined from different Q-records.
  • This problem is an extension of the problem of how to apply the demand information of a single Q-record. That's because, as discussed several times now, there is no single answer that the information should apply to. This problem is the same, and perhaps worse, when different questions are involved in identifying "an" answer.
  • Chapter 6 Registering Demand Information
  • AC collected two kinds of demand information about an answer. One was the number of requests for the answer and the other was the times of those requests. AC can collect other useful demand information. For example, AC can ask the user how much he is willing to pay for the answer.
  • demand information is in stored a demand record (D-record) which is part of a Q-record. AC feeds the information in the D- record into the POF to yield sales forecast and POE information about an answer.
  • Demand can refer to the idea of how many units of something are sold at a certain price over a certain period of time. For example, one can say that the demand for gasoline this year was 80 billion gallons at a price of $1 a gallon (never mind for the moment that prices fluctuate).
  • demand as we normally think of it means something more general. It usually refers to how much a group of people want a product or service or piece of information. Here we get into trouble, for how much one person wants something is a psychological state and we cannot measure that. Then if we consider multiple people, we have to add up their individual desires. Of course, if we can't measure one person's desire, we certainly can't add the desires of many people.
  • a “measure” we have of a person's demand (desire) for something is how much that person is willing to pay for the thing. But even here we are in trouble and we can see how sloppy the idea of demand is, for how do we measure how much an individual is "willing to pay” for something, say, a carton of milk, a lawnmower, a necklace, a house, a telephone number, a book? Well we cannot measure "willingness to pay” because we cannot read a person's mind.
  • the amount a person does pay, the price at the time of purchase does not measure how much that person is willing to pay. A person might buy a shirt at $40 but that doesn't mean that $40 is exactly what the person is willing to pay. He might have been willing to pay more.
  • the information is collected at questions (Q-locations), for questions represent answers. Some of the information is collected automatically when the requestor enters a question and other information is registered by prompting him or enabling him to enter the information of his own accord. The correspondence between questions and answers is strange. Therefore, how demand information applies to a given answer is not clear.
  • demand information does not necessarily apply to a single answer. But we also recall that the best we can do is gather information under a question and then make assumptions about how that information applies to an answer or answers.
  • D-info demand information
  • Section 6.2 is divided into two parts. Part 6.2a describes the registering of what we might call request information, information that is registered along with a request. Part 6.2b describes the registering of price information. Both kinds of information are essential for characterizing a request but it is convenient to split the discussion into two parts because the registering of price information involves numerous sub-issues.
  • D-info can only be registered in the D-record of the current-Q. For example, when Rex makes a commitment to buy an answer, this commitment applies to a direct answer to the current-Q. In other cases, AC can register D-info in the D- records of questions that are not necessarily the current-Q. This can happen because of the MMA path, in which indirect o-requests can be registered in the D-records of questions other than the current-Q. This was discussed in section 5.3. MMA o-requests can have many of the same things registered about them as HMA o-requests. However, it is hoped that it will clear from the context of the discussion that certain kinds of information do not apply to MMA o-requests.
  • Section 6.3 discusses the registering of buying situations. Instead of thinking of just a request plus additional information, it is better to think in terms of situations. These can be characterized by numerous factors, and we can only touch on some of the important ones.
  • Section 6.4 briefly discusses how AC can compile demand statistics and how it can use these in characterizing a request.
  • Section 6.5 touches on the central issue of evaluating a request in light of altemative requests.
  • Section 6.6 touches on how time can render D-info obsolete and how AC can adjust for this problem.
  • Section 6.7 discusses a few other considerations that might be thought of as miscellaneous points. Sections 6.8 just mentions the important possibility of investment offers.
  • Requests. Request is a term that covers a range of actions that Rex can take and that AC can register information about. We can distinguish between innumerable different requests based on numerous situations that Rex can be in and numerous actions that AC can allow Rex to take. We will try to classify requests in a limited number of ways, while realizing that there are other ways, and that we can never be exhaustive. Most broadly, we can divide requests into two generic kinds: arrival requests and output requests. We add information to these generic requests. The more basic of the two is the first.
  • Arrival requests By arrival request we mean that Rex enters or selects a question. He thus arrives at a question, a Q-location (or a Q-A-location), that is. We call such a request an es- request for the terms Enter and Select. (We would use A-request. for Arrival, but that might be confused with Answer.)
  • the arrival at a question is the base request that all other D-info is built on. Even output requests are built on es-requests because in order for Rex to make an output request he has to be at a question (though he may not see the information at the Q-location).
  • O-requests o-hits and o-misses, and whether they resulted from the HMA or MMA path, and what their primary and secondary sources were.
  • Rex Recalling the foundation task of the system — to count how many people want an answer — the most important distinction between requests is whether or not Rex has any interest in buying the direct answer to the question he is at.
  • AC needs means and rules that attempt to characterize Rex's intentions. We discuss some of these means and rules after we discuss price tests. That's because guessing whether someone wants to buy something is tied up with whether the person offers to pay for something.
  • AC can register along with a request. As noted, some of the information described only applies to es-requests and to HMA path o-requests. It does not apply to o-requests from the MMA path. Other information applies to all requests. (The main reason some of the information described below cannot apply to MMA o-requests is that it requires a decision by Rex about a specific answer, as represented by the Q-location Rex is at. But with the MMA path AC may automatically search numerous locations without showing them to Rex. It is thus impractical for him to make a decision at each of these locations.)
  • An answer can be o-requested for various types of uses, in addition to straight output. For example, an answer can be used in a formula that leads to the output of a different answer. AC registers the type of use that is requested, because different prices and royalty rates can apply to different uses. This kind of information is an exception to most D-info in that it applies mainly to indirect MMA o-requests.
  • Time Information AC registers the time of each request. This information is usually critical for calculating a POE and it is essential for numerous other pu ⁇ oses. Another kind of time information AC can register is how long users will be interested in the answers they have requested. Answers are only valuable for certain periods of time. For example, AC might register dozens of requests for the score of a football game. From these requests, AC might project a large POE. However, AC does not know that few people will be interested in the score shortly after the game is over. Users must tell it in order for AC to reflect this fact in the POE. (Of course, declining demand will show up in the POE, but there will be a lag.) So AC can ask Rex to input the time period for which he is interested in an answer.
  • AC can ask Rex to guess how long he thinks others will be interested in an answer. This guess can may be useful for calculating a projection of future demand. Taking our football score example, Rex can input that he is interested in the score of the game up until, say, four o'clock. And he can input that he thinks demand for the score will taper off at eight o'clock.
  • Prospect List AC can maintain a list of all the people who have entered or selected a question. We might call this the prospect list for the answer that corresponds to the question. If an answer is not in the system, all the people who have requested it are potential prospects. If an answer is in system, all those people who did not buy it because the price was too high are also prospects. If an answer is in system, all those people who bought it are also potential prospects, for the answer may change and these people might be interested in the new version. AC can differentiate between these three types of prospects (there are many other ways to classify prospects as well). AC can also store the price each prospect was willing to buy at or did buy at (see price tests below). AC can enable potential Sues to contact the prospects to see if they are still interested in an answer.
  • a potential Sue can also ask the prospects if they are willing to pay more for it than they have offered.
  • AC can also contact prospects. Before the relevant answer is in the system, AC can check to see if they are still interested in the answer. Further, AC can recontact the prospects when the answer arrives in the system or when the price declines. Rather than contact every prospect, AC might sample the prospects to check reaction.
  • AC enables Rex to commit to buying the answer for a certain period of time at a certain price.
  • the price may be set by AC at the time of the commitment, or Rex may make an offer (see price tests below).
  • Making a commitment is different than placing an order. In that case there is not a commitment to buy, just an expression of interest.
  • Rex makes a binding commitment good for a certain period of time.
  • AC registers the commitment and also registers when the time period expires. If the answer arrives before the time period expires, AC alerts Rex. And if the price of the answer is equal to or below what Rex has committed to, then AC can automatically charge Rex.
  • AC may enable Rex to retract a commitment (the retraction rules can vary widely and may, for example, involve the forfeiture of a deposit).
  • the option to make a commitment can be quite an important feature of AC because a commitment tells a potential Sue that she can be more sure of getting a given amount of money for supplying an answer. She can say to herself, "Well, at least I know that I'll get that much money.”
  • the original commitment can be useful D-info. Recall, the idea is to forecast the sales of an answer and that depends on the situations of individual requestors and whether their situations represent (correlate with) other peoples' situations in the future. That is a highly variable, dicey proposition. We can make no general rules. Sometimes canceled orders and commitments will give us helpful hints about future sales, other times not.
  • AC can ask him the following questions and register his responses: Did you change your mind because: a. the requested answer is out of date ? b. your needs changed? c. you found a better answer elsewhere? if yes, was the answer in AC? if yes, which answer was it (identify the answer by the question you found it through, please). (Although it is not the point here, let's mention that AC enables a user to keep track of the questions he has asked. AC keeps the list in the user record, which the user can access.
  • AC also maintains a sub-list of questions the user has asked and that have not yet been answered. A user can "clean up” this list by going through the questions and marking certain ones that he has no more interest in with a cancel mark. AC registers each mark and cancels the corresponding orders.
  • AC requires rules for determining whether a repeat request is a false request. There are many factors that can come into play because the answer situations and requestor situations vary widely. Whether a repeat is a false request can depend on whether an answer has changed. For example, Rex may ask, What's the weather gonna be like?, ten different times, and each time can be a tme, new request where a new answer is sought or a new answer is provided. Moreover, AC can register in the D-record whether Rex bought and received an answer and can check whether the answer has changed since Rex bought it. Whether a repeat request is a false request can depend on whether Rex expects the answer to have changed. The answer might not be changed in AC, but Rex may know that the answer should change or might be changed.
  • AC can ask Rex whether the repeat request is for a new answer or not. Asking Rex can be important because he may know better than a machine rule whether a request constitutes double counting or not. For example, Rex might ask for a second time, What is the temperature ofthe ocean at Ocean City?. He will know whether his request is a false request or if he expects a new answer. In other words, if AC has an answer for the temperature, it may be out of date. AC will not know that it is out of date. If Rex then enters a request for the temperature, AC might treat it as a false request. But Rex can tell AC that his request is for a new answer.
  • the price of an answer is critical demand information. Yet, as discussed above, it is not so clear what a price means, at least in the philosophical sense of what it means in the minds of buyers. In the practical sense of how prices are implemented in AC, the definition of price is fairly clear: the price of an answer is the amount of money the answer sells for at a given time to a given user. On the other hand, there is often no such thing as a fixed price, or even a single price for an answer. And in that sense, the meaning of price is different than what we normally think of. As explained in the next chapter on price setting, there can be a wide variety of pricing schemes. The price amount can differ from one point in time to another and from one user to another.
  • AC makes Rex an offer which he can accept or reject.
  • AC or Sue using AC
  • AC presents a price to Rex.
  • Rex can accept or reject or even ignore the offer.
  • AC requires means and rules for classifying Rex's behavior. The problem is that if Rex ignores the offer, AC cannot register whether Rex rejected the price or rejected the answer for some other reason. This issue is taken up after price tests.
  • AC include means for enabling Rex to explicitly reject the offer, such as a reject button. Further, AC may include defaults for assuming that Rex has rejected the price.
  • ACs price or price threshold may be set by a price setting formula, by a system manager, or by a Sue. If Sue is setting the price, she is using AC as a medium. If AC is setting the price, it is acting as an agent for Sue. Whatever the method, we will, for convenience, say that AC has set the price. From the point of view of price testing sequences it is the same. AC registers the total number of requests along with the acceptance/rejection rate at given prices, and of course actual sales, if there are any, at given prices. AC can present different prices for an answer to different requestors, to experiment with the effect of those prices on the POE. Experimentation can be critical to doing a good job of setting the price of an answer and of estimating the income of an answer.
  • AC can present more than one price to a single Rex.
  • AC can present more than one price because AC may include price plans that allow for this.
  • prices for airline flights the price for the same flight can vary, for example, depending on when one flies.
  • the price of an answer can vary for many reasons. We do not go into this because it is beside the main point, yet we note that AC can present more than a single price to the same person.
  • a Rex-offer price test means that Rex makes an offer that AC can accept or not. (In this case AC will have set a price threshold.)
  • the basic idea behind a Rex-offer test is simply that AC can register what each Rex says he will pay. Rex's offer is not just talk. If the answer is in the system, and if the offer is accepted by AC, Rex is charged the amount offered and gets the answer. If the answer is not in the system, he can place an order at a certain price (see Placing an Order above). Further, he can commit to buying at a certain price for a certain period of time (see Future Commitments above).
  • AC may also enable Rex to state his opinion of what is a reasonable price. This opinion is simply Rex's judgment and not an offer. It can be important D-info in certain cases.
  • AC can enable Rex to both make an offer and state an opinion.
  • AC can enable Rex to do all of the above at the same time: a. make a binding offer at a certain price in the present, b. place an order at a certain price, c. commit to paying a certain price, for a certain time period, and d. state an opinion as to a reasonable price.
  • AC can have an offer buttons that Rex selects to enter a price offer. When he selects this, AC presents him with a price offer form.
  • Rex makes offer
  • Price Setting Assumed But Not Shown.
  • the price offers and price thresholds can be set in various ways: by the system manager, by Sue, by a price setting formula, or by some combination of these. We omit the setting of a price or threshold but assume that that step is taken at appropriate times (see Price Setting in the next chapter). Feedback is inherent in the process. Price offers and price thresholds are set and then tests are done. The test results can then lead to the setting of new prices and new thresholds. Then new tests are done. And so on.
  • Figure 6a shows a sequence in which only AC makes an offer and in which AC does not tell Rex whether or not the answer is in the system.
  • AC presents 210 a price to Rex.
  • Rex accepts 211 or rejects 211 the offer.
  • If Rex rejects the price AC registers 212 the rejection at that price, calculates 218 and outputs 219 the POE.
  • If Rex accepts the price AC registers 213 the acceptance at that price, and then checks 214 to see if the answer is in the system. If the answer is not found, AC tells 215 Rex and then calculates and outputs the POE.
  • FIG. 6b shows a sequence where Rex makes an offer before the answer is in the system and AC makes an offer after the answer is in. Further, before the price test, AC tells Rex whether or not the answer is in the system. 1) AC checks 220 if the answer is in the system. 2) If the answer is in, AC tells 221 Rex and presents 222 a price. 3) Rex accepts 223 or rejects 223 the price. If Rex rejects it, the system registers 224 the rejection at that price and calculates and outputs the POE.
  • AC includes steps for enabling Rex to make various offers: a.
  • AC can register 228 a non-binding offer.
  • Rex expresses what he says he is willing to pay (places an order and states a price), b.
  • AC can register 229 a binding offer to pay an amount up until a certain time.
  • AC can register 230 binding offers that include a commitment of earnest money, d.
  • AC can register 231 Rex's opinion as to a reasonable price for the answer. As usual, once AC registers Rex's offer, AC calculates and outputs the POE.
  • Figure 6c shows a sequence in which AC makes an offer before the answer is in, and in which Rex makes an offer after the answer is in.
  • Rex is not told before the price test whether the answer is in the system.
  • the main new feature here concerns Rex's offer.
  • AC includes steps for limiting the number of offers Rex can make. If Rex can make unlimited offers when an answer is in the system, Rex will start low and keep going up. Rex will try to discover ACs price threshold ("bottom line"). Thus, the system needs to limit the number of offers Rex can make. This concern does not apply usually when the answer is not in the system because then the answer may have no threshold attached to it.
  • the sequence in figure 6c limits Rex to one offer.
  • FIG. 6d shows a sequence limiting Rex to one offer per a period of time.
  • AC tells 246 Rex that he is ineligible to make an offer and then, as usual, the system calculates and outputs a POE. In this case AC also tells whether the answer is in or not since Rex may want to supply it. 6) If Rex has not made an offer, AC asks 247 Rex to make an offer. AC then registers 248 the offer. 7) AC then accepts or rejects the offer. If the offer is rejected, AC tells 249 Rex that the offer is rejected and registers 250 that Rex has made an offer for this answer. Then, as usual, AC calculates and outputs a POE. If the offer is accepted, AC outputs 251 the answer, registers the charges and royalties due, and calculates and outputs the POE.
  • Figure 6d shows a sequence in which only Rex makes an offer.
  • Rex is not told before the price test if the answer is in the system.
  • steps are shown that limit Rex to making one offer per period of time.
  • the point is to limit the number of offers that Rex can make in order to get Rex to make a higher offer.
  • Rex is free to make a different offer once the answer is in. 1) AC checks 260 whether Rex has made an offer that has been rejected. 2) If Rex has never made an offer before that has been rejected, the system asks for an offer, registers the offer and checks to see if the answer is the system.
  • the system rejects the offer it tells 268 Rex that the offer is rejected and sets 269 a time period for when Rex can make another offer for the answer, and, as usual, calculates and outputs a POE. If the system accepts the offer, it outputs the answer and registers charges and royalties and calculates and outputs a POE.
  • AC may have a reject button that Rex can select. By pushing this button, Rex simply indicates that the price is too high, but he does not make a counter-offer. In this case, AC can make a counter-offer (a second offer) by immediately lowering its price. If AC has this procedure, it must also have rules for making Rex take a risk (or assume some cost) for rejecting ACs initial offer. Otherwise, Rex will always reject ACs initial offer. For example, AC can have a rule whereby Rex has a chance of not being entitled to buy the answer for a period of time if he rejects the initial price.
  • AC can be looked at as an agent for Sue but it can also be looked at as a medium. As such, it enables Rex and Sue to engage in real time negotiations. In other words, Rex and Sue can make offers and counter-offers without significant delay. This just means that the process of offer and counter-offer is in real time. It does not change the sequence. AC may enable users to see each other or talk to each other directly. (It also means that it is Sue, and not AC, who is setting the prices and price thresholds.)
  • Rex doesn't look inside the book but he reads the back cover (A-stat) information which, let's say, includes a price. Rex then leaves the bookstore without the book. Now did he leave without the book because the price was too high? Or because of something he read in the back cover? Or because he was just browsing with no real intention of buying? What if the back cover has references to other similar books. And what if Rex doesn't leave but asks the clerk about one of those books? Again, why does he reject the first book?
  • Rex arrives at a question and: He makes any kind of binding offer, whether it is for buying the answer immediately or whether it is a future commitment, Then it seems clear that he wants to buy (at least for the period of the commitment).
  • Rex arrives at a question and: He knows the answer is in, and He accepts ACs price, Then it seems clear that he wants to buy (after all, he does buy).
  • Rex arrives at a question and: He does not know if the answer is in (he thinks it may be in), and He accepts ACs price, Then it seems clear that he wants to buy.
  • Rex It Is Unclear Whether Rex Wants to Buy or Not.
  • Rex arrives at a question and: He knows the answer is not in, and He does not make an offer or does not respond to ACs price, Then we cannot be sure whether he is interested in buying the answer.
  • the problem here is that if Rex knows that an answer is not in the system, he may feel no incentive to make an offer or to reject or accept a price. He may feel it is a waste of his time to even bother. Like any shopper or bidder, he might want to know that a piece of merchandise is available before he bothers with the price.
  • Rex arrives at a question and: He does not know whether the answer is in, and He does not make an offer or does not respond to ACs price, Then we cannot be sure whether he is interested in buying the answer. He might not want to bother making an offer or rejecting or accepting a price if he isn't sure the answer is available.
  • Rex arrives at a question and: He knows the answer is not in, and He makes a non-binding offer (places an order), Then we cannot be sure whether he is interested in buying the answer. In this situation, he may be lying intentionally or unintentionally, like any buyer who expresses interest in a product that may arrive at some time in the future. His only cost is the time it takes to place the order.
  • Rex arrives at a question and: AC presents a price for Rex to accept, and He does not respond to ACs price, Then we cannot be sure if he is rejecting the answer or the price.
  • the problem here is that Rex may feel no incentive to explicitly reject the price and no incentive to make a counter-offer. He may just not bother expressing any interest explicitly. Like any shopper who sees an item that he wants but that he thinks is priced too high, he may just go on to the next item without saying a word. This reasoning applies whether or not the answer is in and whether or not Rex knows whether the answer is in.
  • AC can include a button that Rex can press to signify that he is rejecting the price of an answer. (AC can include other reject buttons so Rex can express other reasons for rejecting an answer.)
  • Browse Mode As noted, AC can include a separate mode where users browse questions. (AC might also register when Rex is browsing a question. Though browsing is not considered a request for an answer, the number of people who browse a question and their rate of browsing can be significant D-info.)
  • Offer Palette AC can include a palette for making price offers. The palette can include set price levels. This allows Rex to "click on" an offer, rather than entering one manually. It is a small difference but it may be enough to overcome his laziness. Get Price Button.
  • AC can include a button for getting the price of an answer. If Rex bothers to get the price of an answer it may mean he has some interest in buying.
  • Minimum Bid AC can show Rex an amount that is the minimum offer Rex can make. Otherwise Rex may intentionally make an extremely low offer that tells little about his interest in buying the answer.
  • Price Shown Only After a Binding Offer AC can show Rex the price only after Rex makes a binding offer. Otherwise Rex can see the price and does not have to react to it. This way, by making an offer, he must show some interest. As noted, AC can stipulate a minimum bid. Survey. AC can a conduct survey asking Rex why he rejected an answer and providing a form for Rex to check-off the appropriate reason. AC can conduct such a survey randomly and use the data to create statistics for classifying requests.
  • AC can compile what we might call population statistics. These are based on the requests of large numbers of people in a great variety of situations. AC can examine similar pattems of request information that occur in a large number of D-records, and then check to see what the sales were in these similar situations. In other words, AC can see how actual sales correlate with certain pattems of request information — e.g., AC can examine all cases where a question has a single MMA o-miss request and see what that "predicts" for sales of the corresponding answer. An MMA o-miss will likely have different predictive value than an HMA o-miss.
  • an MMA o-miss will also depend on how many other o-misses were registered due to the o-request that was involved (see section 5.3). Likewise, an MMA o- miss that was registered along with two other MMA o-misses will have different value than an MMA o-miss that registered along with a thousand other MMA o-misses. These are tiny examples. The point is that request information can vary widely. The only way for AC to develop discount statistics to evaluate different requests is to compile sales information on large numbers of cases. The factors that can be examined will explode, but pattems should emerge.
  • AC can develop statistics based on the individual's behavior.
  • Rex arrives at a question and: AC shows him that the answer is not in the system, and he did not know before arriving whether the answer was in, and he makes no offer.
  • AC can then see what percentage of the time he made an offer in these situations.
  • AC can then discount the request where AC shows that the answer is missing by the same percentage. Now this is not an ideal discount factor, for many other factors can come into play.
  • Rex's buyer stats may be stored in a record about him and then pulled, as relevant, to discount his requests for different answers. The relevant statistic depends of course on the given buying situation Rex is in.
  • AC can keep statistics that answer the following questions about Rex. What percentage of the time does he buy an answer that he has placed an order for? (To give an idea of the importance of these kinds of statistics, consider: If one user buys an answer 1 % of the time when he places an order, then we see that, price being equal, the value of his request is less than that of someone who buys 10% of the time he places an order.) What percentage of the time does he buys when he has made a commitment to buy? When rejects a price, what percentage of the time does he buy later for less? What percentage of the time does he buy when he knows an answer is in?
  • AC The alternatives to answers in AC can be harder to identify than the alternatives to physical products in the real world. That's not to say that product situations are simple, for who is to say what all the alternatives are to a given product. However, there are usually far more alternatives to a given answer than to a given physical product because answers are often easier to supply than physical products. Moreover, AC does something that is not usually done in the world of physical products; it allows individuals to request their own versions of the products they want and to state the requests for similar products in a great variety of ways — ways that may or may not even seem similar. And so there can be a sea of altemative answers, the vast majority of which are missing. In other words, we have a sea of potential alternatives.
  • Discounted rates will be more accurate in general if they take into account the buying behavior of individual buyers and apply a "user discount rate" based on an individual user's buying habits. Additionally, the rate can be based on the type of answer as well. In the world or physical products we know that some products, like jewelry, are more prone to attracting window shoppers than other, like hamburgers. As noted, the relevance of discount statistics and individual buyer statistics depends on numerous factors because buying situations can depend on numerous factors, for more numerous than we can identify. Still such statistics can be helpful. 6.6 TIME EFFECTS, RE-RUNNING QUESTIONS
  • AC can "re-run” questions, particularly MMA o-requests, from the past to see which different answers AC would have o-requested in the present.
  • re-run we mean that AC identifies the sources of o-requests and simulates that the o-requests have been entered again from those sources. AC then sees which answers are o- requested. The answers that are o-requested will change over time. Thus AC can somewhat adjust the o-request tallies for answers, at least with respect to MMA o-requests. For example, if Movie Review Casablanca ?
  • AC can periodically re-run those requests to see which reviews, missing and actual, AC would o-request given the present store of missing and actual reviews in the system.
  • AC can periodically re-run those requests to see which reviews, missing and actual, AC would o-request given the present store of missing and actual reviews in the system.
  • an FB-Q might be, What are the top ten companies in the US by sales?. Now these companies change over time. And so when this question is entered for the first time, AC sorts the existing companies (say they are in a table) and comes up with the top ten. Now if AC re-enters the FB-Q at a different time, AC might come up with a different top ten.
  • AC can enable Sue to ask that AC re-run o-requests in order to test what the effect will be on an answer Sue might supply.
  • AC can enable Sue to enter a test question, as discussed in section 5.2, and then see what the effect is of past o-requests.
  • Sue can identify these o-requests by their primary sources, but, more likely, she can choose questions that she considers to be close alternatives to the question she plans to answer.
  • AC can then check the D-records of these questions for MMA o-misses and o-hits.
  • AC can then check for the primary sources of those o- misses and o-hits. And then AC can re-run those MMA o-requests to see whether Sue's new answer would be o-requested by those sources.
  • AC may nullify old offers both by itself and by Rex. AC can then allow fresh negotiations and may alert Rex to the possibility.
  • the rules are variable. Brief Note About Price Tests With Price Ranges. Normally a price offer is at a single price. However, AC may enable Rex to present an offer as a range, especially when an the answer requested is not yet in the system. Like a poll taker who asks people what they are willing to pay for an item, AC can ask in terms of price ranges. Moreover, AC can include a form by which Rex can check off ranges rather than enter a single figure. A more novel idea is that AC can present an offer of a price range. That is because the nature of AC is such that a user may indeed end up paying a price that is in a range. Here we have the idea of projected price (see chapter 7).
  • AC can employ security methods to stop Rex from cheating.
  • these are authentication techniques, because the key way people would cheat is to use confederates (or use the ID information of confederates).
  • Rex can have a confederate make a lowball offer in order to learn about a price threshold.
  • AC may seek suspicious correlations the behavior of users because a cheater will likely have the same person(s) cheating on a repetitive basis.
  • AC can include means and rules for enabling Rex to invest in the supplying of an answer. There are difficulties here as to the rules for determining which Sue would get to use the investment funds. We are not going to delve into this issue. Suffice to say that AC can include rules for the making and accepting of investment offers. These can be of major importance. (See also Projected Price in chapter 7.)
  • a seller just tries to recoup his effort plus a profit, adjusted perhaps for the risk he has taken.
  • deciding what a person's effort is worth is a subjective exercise, as is judging the risk taken.
  • Another complication is that to arrive at a "fair" price we may have to judge what will be paid in total in the future. What will be paid depends on the vagaries of the future and on the price itself.
  • Another complication is that one has to price with the competition in mind. Who the competition is may not be clear and, further, the competition may price in reaction to one's own price. Let us add yet another complication. The effect of price on units sold is highly variable.
  • Price Plans Normally when we think of setting the price of something we think of setting one price at a given point in time. However, we can also think in terms of price plans where prices over time are set according to some formula. AC can have standard plans and can enable a supplier to pick a given plan for an answer.
  • Price Per Answer or Per Period of Search Time Normally when we think of setting the price of an answer, we think of setting a price for that individual answer.
  • pricing per period of search time is a popular and convenient method. In this method, the answers outputted during a period of time to a given user are credited according to the user's charges for that period. For example, if a user gets 10 answers in ten minutes and is charged $1 for those ten minutes, then each answer might get 10 cents royalty credit. How royalty credit is split among answers can vary.
  • the price of search time can vary in some of the same ways that the price of an individual answer can vary. Pricing by search time is a price category method of setting prices (see below).
  • AC can have system operators set prices.
  • AC itself can set prices using price setting formulas.
  • AC can have suppliers set prices.
  • Rex makes an offer. In a sense then, Rex partially determines the price that an answer is sold for. If his offer is above the threshold and the answer is in the system, he gets the answer. By determining how far above the threshold price he is, he is also partially setting his own price, the actual price the answer is sold for.
  • the general information flow can be a feedback loop as follows: Price setter sets price — >Price test done — >Price test data sent to D-record — >D-info in D-record sent to POF — >POE calculated by POF — >POE sent to price setter for evaluation — >Price setter sets price....
  • This particular loop is not always mandatory, but what is mandatory is that the relevant D-info registered by AC is made available to the price setter.
  • the price of an answer can be set before or after the answer is in the system. If the price is set after, then there is no price before. A problem seems to exist as far as the POE is concemed. If there is no price then how can there be a POE? Well, the POF can include assumptions for guessing what the price will be. These can use price test and historical information. The POF can also give multiple POE's based on different prices and users can judge which price they think is most likely. Further, AC can enable users to plug their own price guesses into the POF to see different POE's.
  • System operators cannot feasibly set individual prices for answers, but they can define standard price categories, such as a one cent each category, a five cent each category, a two dollar category, and so on. As noted above, a variation is charging a standard amount per period of search time. System operators can define price categories and then suppliers can choose which categories to put their answers in. (An answer may be put in more than one category at a time.) In that way, the system operators and suppliers are setting prices together. Categories may be defined not only by price but according to the content of answers. In certain cases, suppliers may be forced to put certain kinds of answers in certain categories. For example, certain phone numbers might have to cost a certain standard amount.
  • Price categories can vary in many ways.
  • a price category is defined by known rules that determine the prices of the answers in the category. By these rules, a user knows ahead of time how much a given answer in a given category will cost for that given user. Rates can vary in standard ways based on different factors, as discussed above.
  • AC can enable Rex to file a price complaint if he thinks an answer costs too much, in other words if the answer does not fit the conditions of a given price category. (Note: Rex can specify a price category when he asks a question. If the answer is missing, a supplier of the answer knows that to fit in that category, the answer must carry the specified price. Rex suggests the price of the answer, but it is Sue who decides whether to put her answer in that category.)
  • Price Setting Formulas AC can include price setting formulas that take D-info for an answer and calculate a price from that.
  • the information in the D-record for an answer can be fed not only into the POF but also to the Price Setting Formula (PSF).
  • the POF can have price assumptions in it and these can be changed by the PSF.
  • the PSF is the price setter.
  • the loop shows how D-info can be crucial for setting prices and for estimating pay-offs, and further, how the results of setting prices can affect POE's, and how POE's can affect the setting of prices.
  • Pricing is a helluva feedback situation. Because so many real world factors can affect price, PSF's have great limitations.
  • AC can accumulate a large body of experience with similar situations, its PSF's may potentially do a good job of setting prices, or at least a good job of advising users.
  • AC can enable Sue to set the price for an answer she supplies. Of course, she can also change the price of her answer. As mentioned, AC might have certain price categories and Sue can put her answer in one of these. The system can also show Sue the prices that exist for comparable answers. She can then apply her common sense.
  • the Q-display can include a price setting option that Sue can select to enter a price for her answer. This option can have a sub-menu so that Sue can select some other options for seeing information that can help her make her pricing decisions.
  • AC can make all D-info available to Sue so she can make a better guess as to the best price to charge.
  • AC can show the rate of requests received, the times the requests were made, the variety of offers, the average offer, the range of offers, and other price test information.
  • Sue can then apply common sense.
  • AC can enable her to ask for help from the PSF.
  • AC can also enable her to plug in various guesses about future demand for her answer and possible prices.
  • Sue's common sense will still not be good enough to figure out the "best" price for her answer. This problem will be solved when the Vulcan mind meld is inco ⁇ orated into software, but that is another story.
  • AC can enable Sue to have AC automatically set and monitor the price of her answer.
  • AC can enable her to set several different kind of alerts, alerts about the D-info concerning her answer.
  • alerts alerts about the D-info concerning her answer.
  • Sue can ask AC to keep her apprised of key sales data concerning her answer. If we think of AC as a vast bazaar for answers, we can think of Sue as a peddler who rents a stall (a signomat). In order to wheel and deal properly, she obviously needs information about the sales of her product and she'd like information about the sales of the wares of other peddlers.
  • AC likely will have mles for limiting the royalty income that an answer can generate.
  • AC can keep track of the total royalty income of an answer and when the income exceeds a threshold, a cap, AC can make the answer royalty free.
  • Another way AC can limit royalty income is to set a time limit during which a user can get royalties. After such a time limit, or income cap, is exceeded, we might say that the answer passes into the public domain.
  • AC might drop the price to zero or to some very small amount to compensate for overhead. Or, AC might keep the price high in order to profit for itself.
  • answers in the public domain are free or near free.
  • the idea of a projected price was mentioned above. We elaborate here because the idea is new as a method of pricing answers in an answer base (data base). What is a projected price? First let us say that AC can present an initial price and a price range.
  • the initial price is the price that Rex is obliged to pay initially to receive an answer. (If the answer is not in the system, the initial price may be what Rex commits to paying.)
  • the actual price is the price he winds up paying over time.
  • the price range is the range of prices he might end up paying, from the initial maximum amount to some lower minimum amount that Rex may end up paying.
  • AC can estimate the actual price, and this estimated price is called a projected price.
  • AC might present an offer where the price range of an answer is, say, between $2 and 20 cents, and the projected price is, say, 50 cents. How can AC have these different prices? By rebating Rex based on the future sales of the answer. Let's take an illustration. Let's say that a question is, What is a list of the major hologram sellers in the US. ?. And let's say that Sue is thinking of compiling the list. And let's say she wants to be rather sure of being compensated for her time. She might want, say, $20. And so, she might set the initial price for the hologram answer high, because she think that will raise the chances that she will be paid the $20. Thus the first ten Rex's might be charged $2 each.
  • Rex's projected rebate is just a modified version of Sue's projected pay-off.
  • Rex's rebate may be greater even than the initial price he paid. In other words, if the answer sells enough, Rex may get a profit from buying the answer. The minimum price he pays may be a negative price. This idea is not as crazy as it seems.
  • Early buyers can be looked at as investors. They are the "early adopters" who pay the initial higher price, and in some sense deserve to share in the rewards of the lower price. They may share to the extent that they even profit. This is a fundamental way of paying for innovation.
  • AC can enable Rex to make a price offer where he offers to pay a higher initial amount in retum for a share of future royalties once a cap has been reached.
  • AC can enable him to choose from standard plans for the sharing of royalties between Rex's and a Sue.
  • AC can also enable him to craft his own offer using a form that AC provides.
  • Sue can make a price offer where she offers to pay a share of future royalties in retum for a given Rex or set of Rex's paying a higher initial price. She too can choose from among standard plans AC or craft her own. Regardless of who makes the offer, Sue must agree that it applies to her answer. In other words, a projected price is another kind of price that can be set.
  • a given Rex can then agree to pay the price or not.
  • AC stores the standard or custom plan in the credit record for Sue's answer. AC then keeps track of the income generated by her answer, and when the income exceeds the specified amount, AC rebates Rex's.
  • the royalty sharing rule is that the first supplier gets all the royalties. Say you think the chances someone will beat you to the punch are 50%. In this case you think your POE is cut by 50% on an expected basis. While your POE is cut, your cost of finding an answer stays the same, and so you may (or may not) have a negative projected profit. Not only that, but other users in your position can feel the same way and so no one may find an answer for fear that someone else will do it first. In many situations, ignorance can reasonably lead all interested parties into believing that the projected profit is negative.
  • a user can be a prospector in any mode. In fact, all users are potential suppliers and thus prospectors. We will also distinguish sometimes between a prospector, which any user can be, and a live prospector, which is a user who has registered interest in supplying an answer. For convenience, we will sometimes call a live prospector by the name Fisher (after Mel Fisher, the treasure hunter who found the sunken Spanish galleon Attocha). We might think of a user in request or supply mode as Rex or Sue Fisher. We will sometimes use the term job in place of "supplying the answer.”
  • the pay-off equation for a prospector determines whether or not an answer will be provided.
  • AC takes two general approaches to help a prospector evaluate the POE in light of potential competition and to help protect the prospector's future royalty income.
  • One is to enable prospectors to communicate with each other so they can voluntarily reduce the duplication of efforts.
  • the other is to give prospectors property rights, exclusive rights to supply answers. (AC also gives copyrights. These are discussed in chapter 14 on Property Rights.)
  • For convenience we discuss these approaches separately, though communication goes hand in hand with property rights and property rights are a form of communication.
  • the various methods involved in these approaches are not ideal solutions. In fact there seems to be no ideal solution where competition is concemed. There are reasons to keep competitors informed and reasons not to. There are reasons to restrict competition and reasons not to. As usual where answers are concemed, the range of situations is extremely diverse and no general mles can be prescribed.
  • Information about people's interest in supplying an answer is A-stat information. So is information about property rights. Both kinds of information, like other A-stats, are entered at the Q-display, are stored in the question record, and can be accessed from the Q-display.
  • the Q-display can include a prospector button that can be selected and can lead to a prospector menu of options that include the ones to be discussed below.
  • a user is at a question then, he or she can select the prospector button to assert interest in supplying an answer and/or assert rights to supply an answer. Further, a user can see who the prospectors are for that answer and/or what kind of interest or rights each has asserted.
  • AC enables prospectors to communicate with other each other. By communicating, they can better assign the tasks of supplying answers. They can stay out of each other's way, and they can better evaluate when a POE will turn negative due to competition.
  • communicate with each other we mean that they can post messages in the Q-record for all interested users to see and that they can also direct messages to the E-mailboxes of specific live prospectors.
  • AC can enable users to post several different kinds of interest messages. These can be standard messages that are stored in the question record and displayed upon request. AC can also compile prospector statistics based on the information registered from multiple live prospects. Below we list some of the kinds of messages AC can enable users to leave.
  • AC can enable a user to post a message expressing a non-binding interest (NBI) in supplying an answer.
  • NBI non-binding interest
  • non-binding we mean that the user states that he is interested in supplying an answer, but that the statement carries no commitment and no penalty for non-performance.
  • AC can include a button the user selects to enter NBI information. When a user selects this button, AC registers that he is interested in the answer, and AC can present him with a form that asks for more information such as: When do you think you will enter the answer by? What are the chances you will enter it?How much labor do you expect it will require to find, and what kind of labor?
  • AC can combine the information registered from different prospectors into collective statistics, such as the number of NBI messages registered.
  • Another NBI message that AC can enable users to enter is one that expresses interest contingent upon the POE rising to a certain level.
  • Fisher can leave a message saying he is interested in supplying the answer once the POE rises above a certain threshold.
  • AC also registers the threshold that Fisher enters and sends him an alert message if the POE rises above the threshold.
  • an NBI message carries no commitment, AC can keep track of Fisher's record of following through over a series of answers, i.e.
  • AC may keep such individual prospector stats in a user's record and may attach them to an NBI message. For example, if Fisher posts an NBI message, AC can add a statistic telling the percentage of times he has supplied an answer when he has posted an NBI message.
  • AC can also enable a user to post a message expressing a binding interest (BI) in supplying an answer.
  • binding we mean that Fisher commits to supply an answer by a certain time. AC registers the time and checks to see if Fisher has fulfilled his commitment. AC can assess penalties if Fisher fails to fulfill the commitment. We call this type of commitment a BI message.
  • AC can ask Fisher to enter further information, such as information about charges and labor requirements.
  • AC can keep track of Fisher's record of following through over a series of answers.
  • Fisher When Fisher is at a question, he can check the current prospector information that has been registered. Say that after seeing the currently registered competition, Fisher decides to enter an expression of interest. While he sees the currently registered competition, he might like to know about other people who express interest after he does. And so AC can enable him to ask that an alert message be sent to him each time AC registers interest by someone else. The alert can include some or all of the interest information registered.
  • AC can enable Fisher to post a message asking others to collaborate in finding an answer.
  • the message can be in a standard form, or it can be lengthy, spelling out Fisher's proposal.
  • the terms of the collaboration may be worked out by direct communication. (We will not discuss collaboration much further though it is a very important area. We assume AC has rules for enabling cooperation and for the splitting of royalties. These mles and attendant functions can, of course, vary widely.)
  • AC Direct Communication.
  • AC can enable Fishers to contact each other directly. That way they can more forcefully warn each other off. They can ask each other to collaborate. And, they can ask each other to elaborate on what they are planning and doing.
  • Disclosure Document Option can include a disclosure document option.
  • Fisher can enter information that shows the progress he has made in finding an answer. AC does not store this information as the answer but does store it in the Q-record. More than one Fisher may submit a disclosure document. Of course, the information can be kept secret and can be divulged upon the permission of Fisher. Disclosure document information can be essential where it is important to demonstrate what progress has been made, and to demonstrate priority.
  • AC can enable the user to enter a command such a Reserve after which AC stores the user's ED data in the Q-record to denote that the user is the reserver of the corresponding answer. Then, for a period of time, AC allows only that user to enter the answer. AC also shows other users that the answer is reserved for that period.
  • Reservation rights can vary widely. They need not be long-term, exclusive monopolies. They can cap the amount a supplier will make and they can be semi-exclusive. Parties may collaborate under the protection of such rights. A possibility is to allow part of the royalty income from an answer to be protected while the rest is left open to unrestricted competition.
  • One variation is to allow another user besides the reserver to supply an answer, but to keep this second answer undisclosed until the reservation period mns out.
  • the reserver still gets royalties for his answer provided he supplies one.
  • the reason to allow another person to enter an answer is that the reserver may decide he cannot fulfill his commitment, or may just fail to fulfill it. In either case, the second supplier's answer can then be used.
  • Reservation rights are different than copyrights and patents, yet they share some similarities, for all protect the income a person gets from an answer. All protect against uncompensated copying in essence. The big difference is that reservations concern answers that are planned, answers that have not yet been supplied. So disputes can arise over copying what is not yet even found. Prospectors who would like to supply an answer naturally may be afraid of interfering with an existing reservation. Moreover, two reservations might interfere as well. For example, say that a question is, What's causing this traffic jam? Now a user reserves the answer to this question and goes off to find the answer. Let's say that a second user wants to answer the question as well. This second user is an eyewitness to the accident that has caused the jam.
  • Completion Clock A reservation only lasts for a certain period of time. (Time limits can, of course, vary widely.) And so AC can have a completion clock that, like a 24 second clock in basketball, keeps track of the time limit once a reservation is granted and shows how much time is left until the reservation runs out. AC can maintain a waiting list of people interested in getting a reservation. People on the waiting list can be granted the reservation should the reserver fail to do so within the time limit.
  • AC can assess fees for reservations. Likewise, AC can assess penalties should a reserver fail to fulfill his commitment.
  • AC can send an alert to all the live prospectors for that answer.
  • the alert shows the time on the reservation clock.
  • Live prospectors can then respond as to whether or not they want to be part of a selection process for the reservation.
  • a basic selection process is an auction. There are different kinds oi auctions that AC can hold. The auctions may be silent or open. One kind of auction is a highest bid auction, where Fishers bid on how much they will pay for the reservation. The highest bidder wins, and AC charges him accordingly. A different kind of auction is a lowest price bid auction, where the Fisher who promises to charge the least for the answer wins. In this case, AC sets the price of the answer once it is supplied according to what the winning Fisher has pledged. A variation is a lowest cap bid auction where Fishers agree to cap the total royalty income for an answer. The Fisher that bids the lowest cap wins. In this case, should the answer be supplied, AC stops royalty payments once the cap has been reached.
  • Another kind of auction is fastest completion bid auction, one where the Fisher who bids to do the job fastest wins.
  • AC can keep track of whether the winning Fisher has supplied the answer within the time pledged, and can assess penalties if not.
  • winning is based on one parameter, such as price.
  • An auction where more than one parameter is involved is hard to do and requires more complicated scoring methods.
  • AC can include procedures for enabling requestors to vote to pick which live prospector gets the reservation.
  • the quality records of prospectors can be displayed (see chapter 13 on Quality Control).
  • Another method is for requestors to grant reservations individually. By this we mean that a requestor can specify along with a request that he is giving a reservation right to a supplier. A requestor can name a supplier or let anyone be eligible for the reservation. He can further specify various details about the right, including whether the right is assigned on a first come first serve basis or whether it is by some other method. If by some other method, he can also specify the time on the reservation clock.
  • AC can also enable a Fisher to poll prospects and ask them for exclusive rights.
  • requestors grant reservation rights the problem is that different requestors can grant different rights and to different Fishers.
  • AC can include various mles for standardizing rights.
  • AC can enable a Fisher to see what kind of rights he will get given all the various ones that have been offered. There are various ways to "total up rights.”
  • a reserver can sell his reservation to another Fisher. This option can be important because it is a solution to the problem of what to do about a Fisher who is in a better position than the reserver to supply an answer.
  • AC can allow users to post messages for offering to buy and sell reservations, and can enable users to execute the transactions. These messages can be stored, as with other A-stats, in the Q-record, and can be accessed through the prospector menu.
  • AC can include variables for prospector information in the POF, and can feed prospector information into the POF.
  • AC can show two POE's, one that factors in prospector information and one that does not (as will be seen in chapter 9, AC can show various POE's).
  • AC can use historical prospector information as well.
  • AC can collect information on buying situations, AC can collect information on potential supplier situations.
  • prospector situations can be characterized in a variety of ways. Here we have not made an attempt to list the basic situations. We have given some key pieces of prospector information that can be registered that can be used in characterizations. Other information that can be used was discussed in the chapter 6 on registering demand information. Chapter 9: The Pay-off Estimate
  • Royalty mles are, of course, a crucial ingredient in the POF and POE.
  • AC can allow suppliers to pick standard royalty plans or AC can determine the plans.
  • Royalty mles can be highly variable, just as pricing plans can be highly variable.
  • One important twist that should be mentioned is that AC can include a royalty plan in certain cases where, based on insurance principles, a POE is not an estimate but is a guaranteed offer. For example, if ten people commit to paying $1 for an answer, AC may make a Sue a guaranteed offer of $5. In certain cases then, AC can enable Sue to choose guaranteed royalties.
  • AC requires meta mles that spell out the property rights of suppliers and it needs functions that reflect those meta-rules.
  • One critical property right is a law against uncompensated copying (a copyright, which can last for a set period of time or until a certain amount of income is paid).
  • Another critical property right is a law against wrongfully changing an answer.
  • Another critical property right is a law against lying about an answer. (Other key property rights were discussed in previous chapters. Chapter 7 discussed the public and private domain. Chapter 8 described reservation rights. These topics could have been discussed in this chapter as well.) We will arrive at no good definitions for these laws, because the definitions of copy/plagiarize, wrongfully change, and lie cannot be made exact.
  • AC To Register and Display Detection Information.
  • AC needs to display information that enables people to detect violations.
  • AC automatically time stamps answers and can display the time stamps so that people can see which of two given answers has priority.
  • This information which might also be called citation information, shows which answers deserve credit as part of her answer, and how much they deserve, in the sense of what split of royalties they deserve.
  • AC can include for detecting violations
  • Alerts AC can include a function for alerting Sue any time her answer has been displaced (knocked out of the current answer position) or changed in any way. She can then file a complaint with a system judge if she feels that the change is wrong under ACs mles. (Note: AC can also alert Sue if her answer has been commented on by others. Again, she can file a complaint if she thinks her answer has been wrongly criticized. This topic will be discussed in chapter 13 on quality control labels, but that chapter is not written up yet.) b.
  • Snitch AC can include a function that enables any user to report plagiarism, and possibly get a reward, which possibly can be paid by the offender.
  • the snitch can report the plagiarism to Sue or to a system judge, c.
  • Flip Flop Stopper In order to cheat, a person might have a confederate change an accurate answer to a wrong one. The person would then re-enter the answer correctly and claim royalties.
  • AC can have a function such that if an answer reverts to a previous answer within a given period of time, royalties will be paid to the supplier of the previous answer, provided the previous answer was accurate. The time allowed for reversion can vary depending on the situation, d. Competition Tracker As will be seen in book II, AC can to some extent track which answers are taking sales away from a given answer. Sue can request this information (or AC can send it automatically). Sue can then check those competing answers to see if they contain plagiarized material.
  • AC can have standard royalty sharing plans based on some classification of the uses of answers within other answers.
  • AC can enable users to specify that a certain percentage of royalties or certain fixed royalties are to go to another answer.
  • AC For royalty sharing to be implemented in an automated way, AC must have functions that enable Sue to: a. identify the answer(s) she owes credit to, b. identify the type of credit that is involved. Further, AC needs functions that: c. transfer payments as specified by the credit information Sue has entered. AC stores Sue's credit information in the credit record for her answer.
  • the cited answer gets a share of the royalties as specified by the credit information.
  • the credit information is displayed, we also call it citation information.
  • AC can include functions for enabling users to buy and sell rights to use an answer.
  • Negotiated splits are also entered as credit information so that AC can transfer payments as necessary, and so users can see who owes what to whom.
  • AC can be adapted to the world of physical products. By this we mean that instead of describing answers (information products), questions in AC can describe physical products that people want. Thus, AC can include lands where questions refer to physical products rather than answers. Normally, a question is a description of an answer. It is a description of a description. When adapted to describing a physical product, a question is about an actual thing. But the distinction is more philosophical than real. As far the process of description goes, there is no difference between describing a T-shirt and describing a picture of a T-shirt. The main practical difference, where AC is concemed, is that the description of an actual T-shirt refers to something that cannot be entered into the system.
  • AC can collect demand information about physical products and can output POE's about physical products.
  • the collecting of demand information is basically the same as with answers.
  • AC can also execute transactions for the buying of actual products and can arrange the delivery of physical products.
  • AC can collect demand for a given T-shirt which is described by a question. If the POE is high enough, a supplier might decide to make the T-shirt.
  • a supplier who has made the T-shirt can supply to AC the fact that the T-shirt has been produced and also supply ordering information.
  • the fact that the T-shirt is available is an answer to the question describing the T-shirt.
  • a requestor, seeing that the T-shirt is available, can order it through AC.
  • Previous requestors may have made buying commitments before the T-shirt was produced.
  • the terms of these commitments can be fulfilled when the T-shirt is made.
  • the supplier may also supply a more detailed description of the T-shirt, such as a picture of the T-shirt. This additional description is then seen by prospective buyers. It is a kind of supply stat. Whether a supplier also provides a description of her actual product or not, the reality of endless answers remains. It does not matter if we are thinking of physical or information products. A question can have infinite possible answers. Thus the techniques of Book II are as applicable to physical products as they are to answers. And so, AC provides a novel system not only for organizing the getting of answers, but for the getting of physical products.

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  • Physics & Mathematics (AREA)
  • General Physics & Mathematics (AREA)
  • Management, Administration, Business Operations System, And Electronic Commerce (AREA)

Abstract

Base de données auto-organisatrice qui fait payer (13) les utilisateurs qui y trouvent des données et qui paie (13) les utilisateurs qui ont fourni les données trouvées. Cette base de données auto-organisatrice comprend un mécanisme de rétroaction intégré, appelé le compteur de paiement (7, 8, 9) qui dit aux utilisateurs quelles sont les données qui font défaut en fonction du nombre de demandes (10) relatives à ces données sur une période de temps. Le compteur de paiement donne une estimation (9) de la rénumération donnée pour la fourniture des données.
PCT/US1996/014140 1995-09-11 1996-09-11 Systeme de collecte et de recuperation de reponses regi par un compteur de paiement WO1997010551A1 (fr)

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WO1999034639A2 (fr) * 1997-12-16 1999-07-08 Nokia Networks Oy Interface de message dynamique
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