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New Collaborative Project Wants to Systematize Complex Problem Solving Online

Posted by timothy on from the end-spam-and-I'll-be-convinced dept.

New submitter albert555 writes A new collaborative project emerged lately and its goal is pretty ambitious: solving complex problems. Anyone will look to Google or Quora for the response of a usual question that requires one single answer, but nothing exists online to solve complex problems with multiple solutions. The website uses brainstorming techniques coupled with the Problem Tree Methodology to them. In simple words: decomposing the main issue into subsequent small-ones and providing solutions to the sub-issues, the result taking form of a node tree. Users are free to provide meaningful content to the nodes (and therefore may help understand the causes of the issues) or to provide solutions to the ultimate sub-issues. Contributions are placed under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license. While Wikipedia proved that collective intelligence could provide quality contents able to compete with the major encyclopedias. Eris Solver intends to channel the wisdom of the crowd to find the best solutions to the most complex problems available. The idea is interesting, though so far the project does not have contributions pouring in like Wikipedia does. You can add your own questions or answers; "user contributions to Solver questions and general questions [are] licensed under the CC BY-SA 4.0."

3 of 42 comments (clear)

  1. Wikipedia "proved"? by binarstu · · Score: 3, Insightful
    From the summary:

    While Wikipedia proved that collective intelligence could provide quality contents able to compete with the major encyclopedias...

    Wikipedia proved that "no cost and good enough most of the time" outcompetes "expensive and authoratative/reliable". I think this has a lot more to do with Wikipedia's success than the supposed quality of the contents.

    Wikipedia also wins on its huge breadth. If what you want from your encyclopedia is plot summaries of television shows and extensive biographies of those shows' fictional characters, Wikipedia is really your only choice.

  2. As far as I can tell, our biggest problems are by mark_reh · · Score: 3, Insightful

    political in nature. Science denial, a willingness to kill in the name of religion, etc. Can it address that type of problem?

  3. Re:If all you have is a hammer... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Looks like its database is almost empty. Only 2 problems posted. Did the author post this story to slashdot immediately after setting up his site?