Re: An alternative to the "lottery"

[Michael Dillon <michael@memra.com>]

On Sat, 28 Dec 1996, Perry E. Metzger wrote:

> 
> Kent Crispin writes:
> > Thus, the order of selection is 
> > FCFS, at a granularity of one month, with ties being broken by random 
> > procedures.
> 
> What will end up happening is that everyone will race to fedex their
> applications to arrive on the first day.  

Kent was saying that all applications that arrive in the same month will
be processed as a batch and randomly assigned a position in the queue.

> I'd
> personally rather have an accounting firm supervise a real random
> selection.

Kent's suggestion doesn't conflict with this.

1. Applications opening day.

2. Over the course of a month, applications trickle in.

3. IAHC members vet the applications. Qualified applicants go into
   a random pool. An accounting firm randomly selects applicants from
   the pool assigning every applicant a sequence number.

4. The first couple of applicants set up their registry. When the IAHC is
   satisfied that they are operational, the next one joins. Then the next.
   Etc.

This procedure will likely unroll over several months before all
applicants from the pool are operational. Of course, during the second
month the same application process and random selection of positions in
the queue, took place. This continues until the IAHC decides there is
no good reason to continue limiting the rate of new entries.

I would further suggest that any two applicants in the queue should be
allowed to trade their queue positions by informing IAHC via normal legal
channels (registered mail, notarized documents, etc.). This way if
Chris Ambler ends up in 10th position he is free to negotiate a private
deal with the holder of 3rd position and get to the head of the line.

This is quite similar to the quota system used in Canada for milk
production in which farmers must own a "quota" in order to sell milk. If
they have more milk than quota, they buy quota from someone else so that
they can sell their milk.

Michael Dillon                   -               Internet & ISP Consulting
Memra Software Inc.              -                  Fax: +1-604-546-3049
http://www.memra.com             -               E-mail: michael@memra.com