Gov/en/Portal:R&D/Open-Call:Main

💡 In simple words: An open call is an invitation that says 'come help us!' to anyone with good ideas. This page explains how people can join in and build WikiDeal together.

🎯 In 20 seconds (scientific summary): Open calls are organised in waves, and each wave has two parts: the calls that concern WikiDeal as a global platform, and the calls that concern specific marketplaces. Wave 1 gathers four early bird calls: three announced and to be launched on 21 July 2026, each offering CHF 1,000 in direct cash and CHF 10,000 in Rewards (no guarantee*), plus one call for software developers on the funding ecosystem (US$ 1,000 in cash plus 30,000 in Rewards, indicative). The global calls are URL naming and general structure, graphic charter, and funding ecosystem development; the marketplace call is (spectacular tutorial on small loans, competitive, 21 December 2026 deadline; the two global calls stay open until a first simple version has been adopted). Wave 2 gathers draft calls that are still under discussion, again in two parts; most future marketplace calls are intended to be organised directly by User Groups. Evaluation combines a public vote with an expert panel; AI transparency disclosure is mandatory. The rules and procedures in brief are on this page; the detailed FAQ is on a dedicated page.

💬 Submit a proposal: open to all. No email needed: just log in, then post your ideas and links in the Discussion tab of each individual call (open the call page in the tables below, then use its Discussion tab), not the Discussion tab of this general page. You can then raise a Request for Feedback (RFF) to draw attention to your proposal and get community feedback.

Open Call

Open call waves

Open calls are organised in waves, and each wave has two parts: the calls that concern WikiDeal as a global platform (structure, identity, management), and the calls that concern specific marketplaces. Wave 1 gathers the four early bird calls, the pilot experience calls, also called open calls for pioneers: they are launched before the steering committee is formed, and they are especially open to Wiki experts (experts in Wiki design and use). Their informal launch is planned for 21 July 2026, the opening day of Wikimania 2026 in Paris, which celebrates the 25th anniversary of Wikipedia. Wave 2 gathers draft calls that are still under discussion: they are listed below, and the list itself is intended to evolve.

Wave 1: the pilot experience calls (early bird)

Wave 1, WikiDeal global

Open call	Wave	Status	Deadline	Rewards
URL naming and general structure	1	Announced, to be launched on 21 July 2026	No deadline: open until a first simple version has been adopted	CHF 1,000 in direct cash + CHF 10,000 in Rewards (no guarantee*)
Graphic charter	1	Announced, to be launched on 21 July 2026	No deadline: open until a first simple version has been adopted	CHF 1,000 in direct cash + CHF 10,000 in Rewards (no guarantee*)
Funding ecosystem development (software developers)	1	Open	None announced: open until a provider is selected and mandated	US$ 1,000 in direct cash + 30,000 in Rewards (no guarantee*), indicative, for about 100 hours

Wave 1, specific marketplaces

Open call	Wave	Status	Deadline	Rewards
Spectacular tutorial on small loans between family, friends and neighbours	1	Announced, to be launched on 21 July 2026	21 December 2026 (competitive: a single proposal is selected)	CHF 1,000 in direct cash + CHF 10,000 in Rewards (no guarantee*)

Small loans between close people have already been initiated on WikiDeal with a first contract model: see the small loans contract base (the amount loaned between the two parties and the repayment deadline), within the Small Loans portal.

Wave 2: still under discussion

Wave 2 is still under discussion. These calls are drafts under construction (nice to have, not yet launched); they are intended to be launched at a later stage, and the list itself is still being discussed. Wave 2 is also organised in two parts: WikiDeal global and specific marketplaces. The results of the wave 2 calls are notably part of the expected Prototype 1 deliverables.

Wave 2, WikiDeal global

Open call	Wave	Status	Deadline	Rewards
Annual percentage increase on rewards	2	Draft, under construction, not yet launched	To be defined at launch	To be defined
Civic flex pricing: the average discount for the civic incentive	2	Draft, under construction, not yet launched	To be defined at launch	To be defined
Progressive subscription amount increase	2	Draft, under construction, not yet launched	To be defined at launch	To be defined
Contract signature: tools, free software and signature levels	2	Draft, under construction, not yet launched	To be defined at launch	To be defined
Guarantees: payment, default and damage guarantees, and compensation	2	Draft, under construction, not yet launched	To be defined at launch	To be defined
Content architecture and ergonomics	2	Earlier call (June 2026); it largely overlaps with the wave 1 call on URL naming and general structure, and a merge is under discussion	None for now	Modest mix of cash and Karma tokens (see the call page)
Deployment profiles: inviting the five profiles of the AI supported deployment methodology	2	Draft, under construction, not yet launched	To be defined at launch	To be defined
Cashout policy: which formula for the percentage of each subscription attributed to Reward holders	2	Draft, under construction, not yet launched	None for now: to be determined once at least CHF 100,000 in donations have been obtained	To be defined
Trust preservation: preserving the trust of first supporters in a second funding round	2	Draft, under construction, not yet launched	To be defined at launch	To be defined
Karma token naming: finding a durable name for the community token	2	Draft, under construction, not yet launched	To be defined at launch	To be defined
Compliance with laws: global policies of responsibilities adapted from Wikimedia governance	2	Draft, under construction, not yet launched	To be defined at launch	To be defined
Legal references for contracts: collection, conservation, verification and availability	2	Draft, under construction, not yet launched, considered important	To be defined at launch	To be defined
Endorsement Institution: structuring the institution that manages lawyer endorsements	2	Draft, under construction, not yet launched	To be defined at launch	To be defined
Rating Balance Processes: mechanisms for honest and diversified feedback	2	Draft, under construction, not yet launched	To be defined at launch	To be defined

Wave 2, specific marketplaces

The calls below concern a specific marketplace, not the WikiDeal platform as a whole. These calls are still ideas under construction.

This part is intended to grow far beyond this first list. Over time, there could be hundreds, even thousands of marketplace calls, and the majority are intended to be organised directly by User Groups themselves. Calls launched by User Groups would only go through a light validation, whose sole purpose is to display them in this list of calls: User Groups keep their independence to launch their own calls whenever they look for ideas and need contributions.

Open call	Wave	Status	Deadline	Rewards
Transition bus: contractual solutions from polysubstance to single-substance dependence (use case)	2	Draft, under construction, not yet launched	To be defined at launch	To be defined
Reverse Abuse: legal financial-optimization ideas serving users and small producers	2	Preview (theoretical), not yet launched	None for now	To be defined
Programs: connecting production, transformation, transport and other contracts into programs	2	Draft, under construction, not yet launched	To be defined at launch	To be defined
Markets: assembling the contracts that let a whole market segment exist	2	Draft, under construction, not yet launched	To be defined at launch	To be defined

If you want to respond to a call, go to the discussion page of that call and post your proposal there.

The spirit of these calls

These early bird calls are structured a bit like the open calls of European research and innovation programmes, but in a softer, lighter and less administrative way. There is no consortium to build and no heavy paperwork: they are micro calls for ideas, open to anyone who brings relevant and useful ideas to the cause.

The steering committee intends to meet periodically, review all the ideas posted, and attribute the rewards. For each call, the rewards are intended to be distributed across several people: contributors who bring complementary ideas, who comment on the proposals of others, and who help each other. The calls are not a cold competition where one person wins and the others lose. The goal is to have several winners, because they helped each other.

Open call rules and procedures in brief

This is a summary: the detailed rules and procedures are gathered in the Open Call FAQ.

• The Ynternet.org Foundation and the WikiDeal founder (see credits) are committed to making the announced sums available only if the proposed added values are judged good. If no contribution is judged good enough, the money is never kept: it is intended to be reinvested in another open call.
• Attribution is intended to happen progressively, as good contributions arrive, with explanations for each attribution.
• When money is attributed and paid, it is the WikiDeal team that informs the contributors concerned.
• Part of the sum, up to half (for example CHF 500 out of CHF 1,000), can be withheld for up to one year, in order to verify that the ideas last: this is the maturity criterion. If the ideas have lasted, the second half is intended to be paid to the person who brought the main ideas, as an increase of the donation.
• What matters is to distinguish a solid base from a flash in the pan.
• Not every call is monetised. Some calls may start with no money distribution at all: only Rewards (no guarantee*), or even no reward of any kind. Contributing without claiming any reward is always possible: the reward is one possible motivation among others, never an exclusive one. What matters is to make a project live together, to let a community emerge, and to answer societal challenges linked to the founding research question, "Can users own, run and sustain a global marketplace?".

Open Call at a Glance

Evaluation	Periodic (cycle dates not yet defined)
Rewards	Direct cash and Rewards (no guarantee*)
Karma token rewards	Karma tokens, usable for services in the ecosystem
Proposal types	Improvement · Substitution
Jury	Public vote + expert panel
Disclosure	AI transparency mandatory

The Open Call is WikiDeal's continuous invitation to the community, and to the world, to propose improvements to or alternatives to the current model. Ideas may be submitted at any time; they are evaluated periodically. The dates of the evaluation cycles are not yet defined: one of the options under consideration is a quarterly rhythm, possibly aligned with the seasons. No first evaluation date is announced for now.

What Can Be Proposed

Open Call proposals fall into two categories. Improvement proposals take the current Prototype 1 model as a given and propose enhancements: a better formula for distributing Rewards (no guarantee*), a new mechanism for onboarding User Groups, an improved arbitration process. Substitution proposals challenge one or more elements of Prototype 1 and propose replacements: an alternative bonding curve formula, a different governance structure, a new approach to Commission calculation. Proposals that entirely abandon the WikiDeal model are out of scope; the Open Call is about improving and diversifying, not about starting over.

A valid proposal must specify: the exact change proposed; the costs of implementing it; the expected benefits and the evidence base for those expectations; compatibility with the membership-based entry system (memberships must remain in all proposals); the proposer's own capacity to contribute to implementation; and the full AI transparency disclosure if any AI tools were used. Proposals lacking these elements are returned for completion before formal evaluation.

Evaluation and Rewards

Each periodic evaluation combines a public vote (accessible to all WikiDeal membership holders) with a structured expert panel review. The expert panel includes platform cooperative specialists, legal scholars, economists familiar with commons governance, and at least one representative from the Living Labs research community. The panel's role is not to override the public vote but to ensure that winning proposals are technically feasible and legally compliant.

Rewards can combine several complementary forms: direct cash payments, Rewards (no guarantee*), which represent a conditional claim on future subscription revenue, and Karma tokens, which can be exchanged for services within the WikiDeal ecosystem. See Rewards for the full picture. Winning proposals in an evaluation cycle are intended to share a prize pool of CHF 10,000 in cash and 1,000,000 WikiDeal memberships. There may be multiple winners in a cycle, a main prize and a complementary prize, to recognise proposals that work well together. The Open Call is designed to remain genuinely community-driven, with evaluation guided by public vote and independent expert review.

Message from the Founder

"WikiDeal Prototype 1 represents a first hypothesis, built on decades of experience in digital commons, platform cooperativism, and internet governance. It is not a finished product, but a solid starting point, deliberately open to collective improvement. The model is grounded in what we know works: free licensing, community governance, at-cost Commissions, and transparent algorithms. I look forward to seeing the community improve on every aspect of it, and I welcome proposals that challenge any element of the current design."

Maturity Score & Open Call Allocation

Open Call resources are not distributed equally across all use cases. Each WikiDeal marketplace portal carries a Maturity Score (1 to 5 stars) based on 7 indicators: number of active users, dissatisfaction rate, improvement proposals received, urgency of open bugs, deployment breadth, interconnection with other tools, and usage trajectory.

The higher a portal's Maturity Score, the fewer Open Call resources it receives, because mature portals are largely self-sustaining. Conversely, early-stage portals receive maximum Open Call attention and rewards. This mechanism prevents resources from concentrating in already-successful use cases.

Maturity scores are reviewed quarterly by the Living Lab team and displayed in each use case's infobox. Community members may challenge scores through documented counter-evidence submitted via Open Call.

📊 Full methodology: User Group Maturity Assessment: the 7 indicators, composite scoring, and allocation table. See also Maturity Score (innovation page).

See also: Open Call FAQ · User Group Maturity Assessment · All innovations · Governance