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 seasonally, with formal assessment cycles on March 21, June 21, September 21, and December 21. This aligns evaluation cycles with the solstices and equinoxes — a small symbolic nod to WikiDeal's community-oriented values, and a practical mechanism for ensuring regular, predictable decision points.

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 Cash Credits (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 Prizes

Each seasonal 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.

Winning proposals share a prize pool of CHF 10,000 in cash and 1,000,000 WikiDeal memberships. There may be multiple winners in a season — 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

Maturity Score & Open Call Allocation

Open Call resources are not distributed equally across all use cases. Each WikiDeal marketplace portal carries a Maturity Score (1–5 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.