Viewing post #1050153 by Horntoad

molanic said:I had a thought for an option to make the swap more balanced for participants who aren't available to participate during the live swapping portion on any of the days. What if instead of using the star system for our wishlist, we had an ordinal ranking system for the whole list (1,2,3, etc.). Then at the preset time each day, the system took dibs on our behalf based on our lists. Like everyone gets their first choice, then second, and so on. Conflicts could be handled automatically on a fair rotation.

Participants would still have the ability to reorder and edit their wish lists in between the live swap times. I realize people still have the ability to get dibs any time of day already. But, I thought some people might feel like they are missing out by not being able to be present for the swapping frenzy at the start time each day. Perhaps even some unforeseen circumstance... might make them miss the whole swapping portion of the swap.

It worked really well as is for me, but I thought that might be an option for future versions of the system.

If the system automatically picked for someone who wasn't there, then they would beat the person who took time to attend. With that system there would be no reason to attend at all. Just key in a couple hundred wish items and come back at the end of the swap to see what you got. Plus the complication of trying to program for a fair rotational system.