Gov/en/Portal:R&D/Innovations:Main
💡 In simple words: WikiDeal has lots of clever, fair ideas built into it, about money, trust, sharing, and solving arguments. This page is the big list where you can find every one of them and read what each does.
🎯 In 20 seconds (expert summary): The innovations listed here are tested and refined step by step, and they interact with one another: what matters is the whole, not any single part. The intent is not to reinvent the wheel, but to assemble existing ideas into a globally functional ensemble. This page is an index: each innovation is one table row with a very short description; the full explanation lives on its dedicated page.
WikiDeal socio-economic innovations
Innovations index, WikiDeal R&D. Each innovation is one table row; the full explanation lives on its dedicated page.
Principles
None of the ideas gathered here is a total innovation, and none is zero innovation. Each one is inspired by others: this work belongs to the mix culture, and what becomes interesting is the assembly of the whole. Sometimes an idea is simply better calibrated, better highlighted or better deployed here, or the context is favourable to test it.
The process is iterative: test, collect feedback through qualitative and quantitative analyses, and improve progressively, learning while doing, keeping a balance between overall coherence and going to the essentials. Some innovations are planned for testing and not yet deployed.
The innovations form two parts, both listed on this page to give a global vision: the core, meaning the innovations that concern the WikiDeal ecosystem at large, and the innovations specific to the marketplaces. The majority of the innovations are expected to appear progressively in the different marketplaces.
The list is open and unlimited: the count does not matter, only the innovations do. These are intended as citizen-initiated innovations: ideas stemming from citizen initiative, proposed and refined in the open. The methodology envisaged to move them from idea to prototype and deployment (five work profiles combined with open calls) is described on the AI Supported Deployment page.
Two foundational principles carry all the others. Innovation number one: a double platform, contract models endorsed by lawyers on one side, smartphone applications built on those models on the other; the contracts are intended to be fair, balanced and consumer approved, serving the interests of users and providers, not the interests of third-party structures. Innovation number two: the same governance as Wikipedia, applied to deals and marketplaces instead of encyclopedic knowledge. Both appear as rows in the Foundations table below, with their dedicated pages.
Innovation criteria
What qualifies an idea as an innovation worth listing here? The criteria below guide the selection. The first five reflect the current working basis; the last three are additional proposals, offered as a basis for discussion.
- It answers a real need. An innovation is retained because it addresses a concrete problem, not for the pleasure of studying it.
- The devil is in the details. Sometimes a single detail, better calibrated, makes a large difference in practice.
- A new field of application. Applying an existing mechanism to a field where it is not common counts as innovation: for example, applying the free licences of the software and knowledge world, such as CC BY-SA, to contracts is not common practice.
- Anonymous, privacy-respecting data collection. The innovation allows qualitative and quantitative analyses without exposing personal data.
- A social and ecological role. The innovation contributes to equity of chances and to reducing the weakening of life on Earth, in a context where the United Nations and scientific bodies document the beginning of a mass extinction: see the IPBES 2019 Global Assessment, the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report and the United Nations overview on biodiversity and climate.
- Reversibility (proposed, basis for discussion). An innovation should be testable and measurable, and it should be possible to roll it back without harming the people who tried it.
- Transferability (proposed, basis for discussion). An innovation should work across countries and legal systems, or at least clearly document the adaptations it needs.
- Simplicity of access (proposed, basis for discussion). An innovation should be understandable and usable without expert knowledge, so that it does not create a new elite of specialists.
How to read this page
Every innovation appears as one table row, with a link to its dedicated page and a very short description. The origin of each innovation is documented on its own page and in the credits.
Each table also proposes a deployment status at a given date (here: July 2026), on the following scale: under study · starting · being deployed · deployed · widely deployed. The status values are an initial proposal, under review.
Foundations
| Innovation | Deployment status (July 2026, proposal) | Summary |
|---|---|---|
| Double Platform | Starting | Contract models endorsed by lawyers, plus smartphone applications built on them: fair, balanced, consumer approved. |
| Wikipedia Governance | Starting | The same governance as Wikipedia, applied to deals and marketplaces instead of encyclopedic knowledge. |
| Collaborative Contract Editing | Starting | Contracts drafted participatively on a wiki, organized around common contract bases, then endorsed by lawyers. |
WikiDeal ecosystem at large
The first block, the core, gathers the innovations that concern the whole WikiDeal ecosystem.
Governance
Marketplace quality is intended to rest on governance mechanisms rather than on a central authority.
| Innovation | Deployment status (July 2026, proposal) | Summary |
|---|---|---|
| Co-opetition | Under study | User groups compete and cooperate at once: quality without destructive rivalry. |
| Peer Endorsement | Under study | Lawyers endorse contracts: a named accountable responsibility, with additional paid services in case of adaptation or dispute. |
| Rating Balancing Policy | Under study | Proactive balancing of marketplace ratings, keeping feedback honest, calibrated and diversified. |
| Incentivized Feedback | Under study | Detailed feedback earns incentives, never money: credits, rights, direct advantages from providers. |
Funding
The funding innovations aim at a donation-based, non-speculative model; the explanations, including all illustrative figures, live on the dedicated pages.
| Innovation | Deployment status (July 2026, proposal) | Summary |
|---|---|---|
| Bonding Curve | Under study | Transparent algorithm converting funding contributions into Credits; early funders get more per CHF. |
| Need-Driven Funding | Under study | Reward ratio regulation: a second algorithm adjusting rewards to the real needs of the platform. |
| Annual Value Increase (draft Open Call) | Under study | Possible annual increase on rewards, under study through a draft Open Call; the multiplier is considered more relevant than an added percentage. |
| Double Commission | Under study | Two small, transparent fees per transaction: a platform fee and a User Group fee. |
| Deprivatization | Under study | Reclaiming extractive markets as user-governed commons; forms one whole with Exit to Community and Dual Rewards. |
| Exit to Community | Deployed (written into the contracts) | Progressive transfer of governance, ownership and value to the user community; donation-based, legally non-speculative. |
| Dual Rewards | Under study | Two Credit types: Rewards (CHF-convertible, no guarantee) and Miles Credits (functional, targeting unexploited resources). |
| Time and Resource Bank (Miles Credits) | Under study | Exchange of unexploited resources via Miles Credits: not a currency, facilities comparable to discounts. |
| CHF 1/Month Subscription | Under study | Solidarity-priced membership; one month of usage = CHF 1 nominal. |
| Subscription or Membership | Under study | Naming reflection: subscribers would also be members with voting rights; "subscription" chosen as the more inclusive term. |
Trust and security
Trust and security combine dispute resolution, reconciliation processes and interoperability agreements between user groups.
| Innovation | Deployment status (July 2026, proposal) | Summary |
|---|---|---|
| Arbitration Chambers | Under study | Three-level dispute resolution with Condorcet voting, inspired by Wikimedia's ArbCom. |
| Commercial Truth & Reconciliation | Under study | Formal process to repair distrust and prevent forks caused by personal conflict. |
| Rings of Trust | Under study | Inter-User-Group agreements enabling Miles Credits interoperability. |
Direct democracy and free licensing global governance
This family combines the Swiss political model (popular initiatives, referendums, collegial decisions at every level) with the culture of free licences: the citizen as legislator, rather than the elected representative. Decision methods are diversified according to what is at stake; for the more complex decisions, Condorcet voting can be used.
| Innovation | Deployment status (July 2026, proposal) | Summary |
|---|---|---|
| Open Calls | Being deployed | Open invitations for community proposals; they make the governance porous and flexible. Waves, awards and status: see the Open Call portal. |
| Participatory Observatories | Under study | Unlimited citizen-run observatories, created by theme by user groups, with Slashdot-style karma moderation. |
Technology
| Innovation | Deployment status (July 2026, proposal) | Summary |
|---|---|---|
| Systematic Libre Licensing | Deployed (100 percent since the beginning) | AGPL v3 for software, CC BY-SA 4.0 for content, everywhere, by default: exactly the Free Software Foundation licences, libre in the pure sense. |
| Structured Data (Linked Data) | Under study | RDF, JSON-LD, and Wikidata integration for semantic interoperability. |
| Wikimedia Marker (WM-XX) | Starting | Nomenclature marking elements inspired by Wikimedia Foundation practices, being reframed around contract variables. |
| AI Disclaimer | Starting | Mandatory transparency marker on every AI-assisted page, requiring disclosure and human validation. |
| AI Supported Deployment | Starting | Five AI-era work profiles combined with Open Calls to move from idea to prototype to deployment. |
Specific marketplaces
The second block gathers the innovations that concern specific marketplaces. It is expected to become very large over time, as many contributors bring many innovations; entries state, where relevant, which marketplace they concern.
| Innovation | Deployment status (July 2026, proposal) | Summary |
|---|---|---|
| User Groups | Starting | The coopetitive core of the Market: autonomous communities organizing freely, with their own governance and commissions. Concerns every marketplace. |
| Use Case Maturity Score | Under study | Incubation and development indicator, showing how far a use case has developed. Concerns every marketplace portal. |
| Revenue Spreading | Under study | Payout choice for dialoguers, revenue better distributed, serving the interests of NGOs. Concerns the street fundraising marketplace (fundraising through dialogue). |
| Reverse Abuse | Under study | Reusing multinationals' legal financial structures to repatriate value to small producers and user-governed supply chains. |
Reference language: English. Each innovation has its own page under R&D.
See also: R&D Portal · Open Call portal